I have one of the little Lincoln wire feed units and .035" flux core wire. For simple repairs around the home, shop, yard it is fully adequate, but even for my snow blower project, it was not really an ideal machine. As noted above, for repairs on heavier/old/painted/rusty material a stick welder will be a lot more useful. For a few light repairs the simple little mig units are O.K. and are quick and easy if you use flux core wire. You need to be using your rig quite a bit to justify the added expense of a gas shielded mig unit.
A hearty second to the self darkening welding helmet, spend your first $150 or so on a good helmet with a large self darkening lens and whatever you do after that will be much easier.
The aforementioned snow blower required a good bit of welding on dirty, rusty old material with often poor fit ups. Let's just say that I spent about three minutes of grinding, smoothing, polishing for every minute I spent welding. A bit more prep time would have changed the equation but of course I was anxious to get things stuck together quickly...
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Mark