ARCCAPTAIN MIG 200 Review| Every Process Tested

This hands-on review of the ArcCaptain MIG 200, will show all 6 processes. I have been a professional welder for the past 20-plus years. I put this welder through its paces to help you have a firm understanding if this welder is right for your needs, whether you are buying your first welder or upgrading.

Scroll down this post to see photo examples of every process with my thoughts on its performance. The bottom part will have the specs of the welder.

The ArcCatain MIG 200 has a few competitors in this price range, but the quality construction, easy-to-set welding parameters, and a few cool features I will discuss later make it a clear winner. Most welders I have looked at in this category either have a clunky user interface, poor duty cycle, or below-average build quality.

The ArcCaptain has two types of controlling the heat input and wire speed. Synergic and separated (manual control). The manual control is where you set both the heat and the wire speed (which is meters per minute). The welder has a very easy-to-read amperage/voltage and wire speed guide for different material thicknesses on the inside of the door for the wire spools. When manual mode is selected, gas, wire size, and material selection are not visible…it’s all on you. Just voltage and wire speed, plus the advanced burn back and inductance features.

For the synergic function ArcCaptain took a cleaner approach than a few other brands. Setting the amperage will automatically adjust the wire speed according to the material and wire size as well as the gas you are using.

Other welders have you set the material thickness to adjust both amperage/voltage and wire speed. I found this way of setting the machine problematic. If I had two different material thicknesses, it would take longer to get the machine set to where I was happy. The whole process was harder than it needed to be and took a lot longer.

If you have multiple welds that have the same position and material thickness to be welded, you can easily store them in the memory.

How To Set the Welding Machine For MIG Welding

For the dual-voltage power requirements, the MIG 200 can MIG weld up to 160 amps with a 110 supply voltage. You will need 220 volts beyond that.

The MIG 200 Welding Gas Selection

You will need to provide your own gas regulator for the welder. If you are just getting into welding and would like to use the welder for MIG and TIG, I would suggest getting an argon regulator. This will fit both mixed gas for MIG welding and argon for TIG welding carbon steel, stainless steel, titanium, and copper or MIG welding aluminum.

CO2 is cheaper for MIG welding, but you will have to buy another regulator to run the argon and mixed gas, and the welds do produce a little more spatter. So, the payback period of the savings from a CO2 regulator and using cheaper gas will depend on the amount of use you get from the welder. Find more information about welding gases for MIG in my other post.

1. Use the Model / Mode button to cycle through to the MIG function.
2. Select synergic or separated (manual adjustments)
3. Set the wire size you are using.
4. Select the gas CO2 or Mix (75/25 or 80/20)
5. Select the trigger function you would like, 2T or 4T.
6. Adjust the amperage to the provided chart recommendations.
7. Set the voltage and wire speed for separated.
8. Have the attached cable at the front of the welding machine to the positive Dinse connector.

ArcCaptians welding wire spool sizes

The welder can take both 4″ (2lb or 1 kg) and 8″ (10lb or 5kg) rolls of wire. Changing the wire out is easy, with plenty of room in the machine. What I didn’t like about the machine is the plastic nut that holds the 2lb roll of wire on (This also sets the drag tension for the 10lb rolls).

It is very thin and hard to grab to undo or set the tension of the larger roll. If you are always using the same size spool and have set the tension, it’s not a big deal, but I changed numerous rolls in this review and found this could be a small improvement Arccaptain could make.

Another good feature of the ArcCatain MIG 200 is a dedicated 10lb spool adapter. Not all welders have this setup. It has a raised locater for the wire spool. This prevents the wire from spooling after you stop welding, preventing bird nests (a mess of wire in your machine). A large retainer nut holds the spool well, and is very easy to change out spools of the same size.

Select the correct size roller for the size wire size. For solid wire like Er70s-6, use the V-grooved roller. The wire drive unit is way easier to swap rollers out and to feed the wire through when changing wire with the extra room.

The welder doesn’t have an inch button on the welder to feed a new roll through the MIG gun, but the welder recognizes that the trigger is held down after 4-5 seconds, it will increase the wire speed to a default setting of 5 meters per minute or 16.4′ per minute.

To set the wire feed tension, I have a 1-minute video in the flux core section that will prevent bird nests or premature contact or liner wear damage. 

How Does The ArcCaptain Mig Weld?

I tested the machine with both 75/25 argon/Co2 mix gas as well as Co2. The welder has a chart on the inside of the door with recommended voltage and wire speed with the type of gas you are using for a specific material thickness.

I found these to be a good benchmark to get started. In the owner’s manual, the recommended settings for thicker material are too high. 28-30 volts for 6mm/ 1/4″ would completely distort or blow holes in your job.

MIG 200 Sheet Metal Welding Performance Mixed Gas

For the sheet metal, I used 17 gauge aka just under 1/16 or 1.4mm. I used a 3/8th or 9.5mm hole to replicate a spot weld cutter size. I also used the spot welding function on the spot welds and the butt weld. Lastly, I did a lap joint. I gave a light wire brush to show the welds clearly but left all the spatter on no matter how easily it could have been removed to show how much the welder produced. Not a big deal on panel steel as it will most likely be ground down for bodywork on a vehicle.

As you can see, the welder did an excellent job of producing a low-profile weld and plenty of penetration for strength. The spot timer took about 4 attempts to get the time setting dialed in. The blowout in the middle of the butt weld was a dodgy tack. I will definitely be using the spot timer on future project cars.

Fillet Welds Performance Of The MIG 200 With Mix Gas

For the fillet welds, I used 3/32nd or 3mm and some 1/4 or 6mm to cover what a lot of people would be welding with.

I turned off synergic mode for the 1/4″ 6mm because the settings wouldn’t allow me to get to the maximum 26 volts with 0.030 or 0.8mm MIG wire. This was the limit of the ability of the wire to carry that many volts before it would burn contact tips out. Not the MIG 200’s fault.

ArcCaptain MIG 200 Sheet Metal Welding Performance CO2

I was very impressed with the lack of spatter from the MIG 200 while welding with the cheaper CO2 shielding gas. The synergic function has been tuned very well to reduce it. Usually, it is the arc force/inductance that plays this role.

The pinholes in the 3 of the spot welds were from my welding to catch the edges by a circular pattern. I should have paused in the center at the end of the weld. I was adjusting the time written in seconds above. For the last one, M for manual, I only welded the center and let the puddle expand to catch the edges. The 1.9 and 2 look almost factory from above though.

Co2 does run a little colder, so you can see the penetration for the butt and lap take a few spots to get the heat into the material. This is the normal behavior of the shielding gas.

Fillet Welds Performance Of The MIG 200 With CO2

For the fillet welds, I used 3/32nd or 3mm and some 1/4 or 6mm to cover what a lot of people would be welding with.

I didn’t spend much time fine-tuning the settings for this test, so I could have reduced the spatter with both fillet welds. I didn’t use any anti-spatter or clean any welds to give a true indication of the gas differences. For the below weld 0.035/0.9mm welding wire would have been ideal for this amperage, reducing the spatter.

Reviewing The ArcCaptain MIG 200 For Flux Core Welding

I was sent a 2lb spool of 0.035″ (0.9mm) E71T-GS with the welding machine. The wire performs very well.

All E71T-GS doesn’t need to meet any codes in regard to the content of the wire as opposed to an E71t-11. So, welding wires from different brands can run a little differently in regards to the amount of spatter or penetration. It is also worth noting that E71T-GS isn’t designed for multiple welding passes.

Before you put the wire on the machine, I recommend removing the gas nozzle and contact tip from the MIG gun to prevent the wire from binding when you are feeding it through the whip. Next, change out the roller for the K-labeled roller (middle roller in the below pic). Don’t try to do it after you have the wire snipped and ready to feed. The wire could unspool itself on the roll.

The K stands for knurled. Flux core wire is hollow, so it requires a lot less tension to prevent the wire from being crushed and clogging up the liner and contact tip with the flux that is being squeezed out.

The little teeth help feed the wire smoothly. I fitted the supplied .9mm (0.035″) roller. When changing the roll of wire, remember the order and the direction of the washer spring and nut. Once the wire has been fed through the drive roller, as you inch the wire to the gun, set the wire tension on the drive roller. See the YouTube short above for that. It is a different welder, but the principles are the same.

Also, I would now recommend the Arccaptain MIG 200 over the Yeswelder 200DS.

1. Use the switch parameter Mode button to cycle through to the MIG function
2. Select synergic or separated (manual adjustments)
3. Set the wire size you are using
4. Select the gas/material to Flux
5. Select the trigger function you would like 2T or 4T
6. Adjust the amperage to the charts recommendations for synergic
7. Set the voltage and wire speed for separated.
8. Have the attached cable at the front of the welding machine to the negative Dinse connector.

I ordered some ceramic flux core welding nozzles to suit the ArcCaptains spring-type gas diffuser from Amazon. They didn’t arrive in time, so I changed out the MIG gun so I could use my threaded flux core nozzle. This protects the gas diffuser from spatter damaging the gas outlets and preventing arc strikes on your gas diffuser if you are welding in a tight space.

In other reviews, people stated they weren’t familiar with the spring-type nozzle fixing. I prefer these over the threaded type (on the right). It is easier to clean the nozzles and replace the contact tips. A gas diffuser will last at least 20 contact tip replacements if well looked after. If you don’t like the type you have, they are interchangeable, and the kits come with replacement tips and gas nozzles.

MIG 200 Flux Core Sheet Metal Welding Results

I don’t usually use flux core to weld on sheet metal, but I know a lot of people are on a budget and need to use what they have. I was impressed with the amount of penetration from the low voltage I was running. You could have easily gotten far better than here as I didn’t spend much time setting the machine. This is 17 gauge or 1.4mm. The machine will weld sheet metal as low as 0.030″, 0.8mm, or 22 gauge without any problems.

I only lightly hand wire-brushed the finished weld to show the amount of spatter. The weld profile on the top was very low. It would be very easy to flush them down with an angle grinder. So the spatter is not a huge deal as most welds in autobody work need to be ground. Each different process weld times are different, so I was fine-tuning the spot function as I went.

Fillet Welds With The ArcCaptain MIG 200

I welded a 3mm fillet or just over 1/8th”. The welder absolutely hummed. I got the pinhole in the above pic because I was setting the welder for this run and had welded on the back. The welder penetrated and had some slag in the weld joint. Once cooled, I wire-brushed it and did the above weld. The weld was affected by the slag deposit from the other side.

The 1/8th” fillet produced almost no spatter whatsoever. I used a wire wheel on an angle grinder to remove the slag, and the spatter went with it. Great result.

The ArcCaptain MIG 200 easily welded the 1/4″ or 6mm plate fillet weld. Both the welding wire and machine ran smoothly and resulted in minimal weld spatter.

MMA Welding With The ArcCaptain MIG 200

I ran 7016 in both 3/32″ (2.5mm) and 1/8″(3,2mm), a very popular low hydrogen welding electrode in Australia, similar to the 7018. I also used 3/32 (2.5mm) 6010’s because another review said they wouldn’t run on the ArcCaptain.

My electrode holder (stinger) was damaged when I opened the box. I sent a message to ArcCaptain to let them know about the damage. They responded within a few hours and offered to send me another one out. Which was excellent customer service.

I declined. I have plenty in my shop, and the Dinse 50 is by far the most common connection for heavy-duty welding machines. The supplied stinger could be repaired with some glue, and I like the weight of it. The spring to hold the electrodes is strong enough to provide a good connection for the welding current.

Stick Welder Mode Selection Process

1. Use the switch parameter Mode button to cycle through to the MMA function.
2. Select synergic or separated (manual adjustments).
3. Adjust the amperage to the chart recommendations for synergic.
4. Detached polarity cable at the front of the welding machine.
5. Connect ground to negative.
6. Connect stinger to positive.

The MMA function of the ArcCaptain worked excellently. Above is the 3/32″ or 2.5mm 7016 at 90 amps. The hot start function made starting these rods easy.

Above is a 3-run fillet using 1/8th” or 3.2mm 7016 welding electrodes at 125 amps. I only removed the slag with a chipping hammer and welded the next run. So all the spatter you see is from all 3 runs. I used a hand wire brush not to remove any weld spatter.

The results for the 6010’s were okay, and I think the rods were a little old, as the burn rate was unpredictable. In my 20-plus years of welding, I have done everything I can not to use these rods. I hate them. If you have a multiprocess welder, I highly recommend using flux core. It is cheaper and produces better results faster.

TIG Welding With The ArcCaptain MIG 200

Because of the Dinse 50 welding connections, I was easily able to connect one of my TIG torches to the MIG 200. It was a number 17 TIG torch, so the 150 amps I was using were the working limit of the torch. The MIG 200 will TIG weld at 200 amps @ a 60% duty cycle which is incredible.

The lift start of the TIG function worked really well. Making arc starts simple for people wanting to try TIG welding with their new MIG 200. The red hose is for the argon gas, and it is part of the TIG torch itself. This connects directly to the argon bottle, not to the welding machine. The above picture shows the knob used to turn the gas flow on and off manually before and after each weld.

The pipe I welded was an 8″ XXS seamless pipe or 200mm ID x 12.7mm wall thickness. I used 130 amps for the root run.

For the weld, I didn’t stop in between runs. After the root run, I went to 150 amps and welded as fast as I could to see if I could get the welder to cut out. It didn’t, but my hand became very hot 🤣. You can see from the heat-affected zone the pipe was cooking. I used 2 pieces of 3/32 TIG wire together for the fill and the capping runs. For the tungsten selection, I used a 3/32″ / 2.4mm 2% Lanathanated.

Welding Aluminum With The ArcCaptain MIG 200

The last process I reviewed on the ArcCaptain MIG 200 was the spool gun function. The spool gun is an optional extra that you can purchase for the machine. I will go into a few details here to see if you think it would suit your needs. I decided to use a 1/8″ or 3mm checker plate. I found the wire speed settings to be a bit high on the chart. But I was using 4340, not 5356. For a spool gun, you can run the softer 4043 wire. It has less magnesium in it and produces a cleaner weld (not as much black soot). The welding arc is more white as opposed to the greenish tint 5356 produces.

For MIG welding aluminum, I switched to argon. Mix gas or CO2 won’t work.

When welding aluminum, the contact tip size is different from the wire size. You can either buy dedicated aluminum contact tips, which have 0.030 A, or 0.8mm A. The hole size is generally the next size up, so a 0.030 tip is 0.035 or 0.9mm. This is because the wire expands a lot as it passes through the contact tip and is quickly heated from the arc and copper tip. So if your welding isn’t feeding through smoothly, just check to see if you have the contact tips sized correctly.

The AcrCaptains spool gun connection is by far the best. I have an $1800 TIG welder with horrible diecast metal connections that always fall to bits. A $2500 welder at work has the same cheap material connection, and it has fallen to bits as well. The MIG 200 uses a quality large plastic plug that will last. Not to mention it is easier to connect because of the larger size.

The ArcCaptain spool gun has a 0.8mm-1.0mm or 0.030-0.040 U roller. I was using the 0.8mm 4340 wire. The drive unit is a metal construction and worked very well. The tension setting is outside of the clear plastic cover, so you can quickly adjust if the wire is slipping on the roller. See the very top photo with the spool gun next to the welder.

The spool gun has the same type of gas diffuser and nozzle, so the parts are interchangeable if you need to rob some parts. The spool gun weight feels good in the hand.

I was very happy with the welder and the spool gun’s performance and will be using aluminum in a lot more of my projects and client work thanks to this machine. The settings for the weld above were 19 volts, argon gas, and 12 meters per minute.

ArcCaptain Duty Cycle and Techincal Specifications

Supply Voltage	110V/220V 50/60 Hz
MIG Output Current Under 110V	30A-160A
MIG Output Current Under 220V	30A-180A
MMA Output Current Under 110V	20A-135A
MMA Output Current Under 220V	20A-180A
TIG Output Current Under 110V	20-135A
TIG Output Current Under 220V	20-200A
Rated Duty Cycle	60% i.e. Weld for 6 minutes out of 10
Efficiency	85%
Insulation Grade	H
Protection Degree	IP21S
Machine Weight	28.2 lbs / 12.8KG
Machine Size	20.9″x8.5″x16.1″ / 513x206x391mm
Applicable Wire	0.023″/0.030″/0.035″/0.040″ 0.6/0.8/0.9/1.0mm
Applicable Electrode	Ø 1/16″- 3/32″ / 1.6-4.0 mm

Summary Of The ArcCaptain MIG 200 Review

I hope you have found the review and all the examples of the MIG 200’s welding of different materials helpful. The review of this machine took around 40 hours of documenting, preparation, and testing to deliver a result that I thought you, the reader, could have confidence in purchasing the machine, knowing it would suit your needs.

I am very happy with its results, and it will be my go-to MIG welder over the YesWelder 205-DS. The 205-DS can weld just as well. But the ease of use in every aspect of the MIG 200 makes it a better machine. If you now need to choose the correct size gas bottle for your needs, I have you covered here.