I'm thinking about buying a welder within about the next six months. Home Depot and Lowe's sell this welder for a pretty reasonable price:

Lincoln @ Home Depot
Lincoln @ Lowe's

I'm pretty sure they're the same welder just with different model numbers.

I'd be looking to use it for welding rocker skids, making fairly small repairs, etc. I realize they're not professional quality, but I don't think I need that. The nice thing about these is that they're 120 volt. I don't anticipate having access to 208/220 volt any time soon, as I live in a rental.

So, does anyone have experience w/ something like this? (The Lincoln or a comparable Hobart or Miller). How did it work? Would you recommend it? This is supposed to be good for up to 5/16" mild steel. How realistic is that?

TIA,

-Jim.

EDIT: The Home Depot link won't go directly to the product (I guess the product page is dynamically generated). It's the Lincoln 3200HD; if you want to look at it just type lincoln 3200hd in the search box and search. It's pretty much identical to the one at Lowe's (the Lowe's link does work).