OT- Issues with my Lincoln 175HD - What causes this?

Occasionally when I'm welding with my Mig welder, I'll be rolling along make a nice sound and smooth bead, then all of a sudden the welding flame will get bigger/brighter, and the copper tip will turn cherry red, the wire will pool/ball up on the tip and then fuse itself there.

I've adjusted the feed tension, tried a larger tip (.035 tip with the .025 wire), adjusted my regulator - all to no avail. It just keeps doing this stupid trick. Sometimes I'll be running along and might make several great welds, then all of a sudden it'll do this **** several times in a row.

I've clipped the melted wire off the tip, filed the tip flat again, and then been able to continue using it, but what in the hell is causing it to do this?

I planned to have a picture of at least 2 tips that burned up yesterday, but my daughter was helping me in the garage. We're working on my Dubble A so I can move it out and move her car in and work on it, so she's finally working to the capacity I wanted her to work, and as a result, she swept up all the messes and the tips went with it.

Anyway, any help would be appreciated.

 

I'm sure you already checked but is your polarity correct? As in DCN, I had an issue where my Hobart came from the factory ready for flux core wire. I threw that out I and got some normal wire and gas. It would make a good looking bead but didn't penetrate at all. It would join metal but not by much. If I welded a tab on a frame then hit it with a hammer the entire weld would come off intact attached to the tab. I reversed the polarity and everything was oaky after that. Before I switched, the welds looked okay but they appeared cold so I'd crank up the amps and run into the same problem your running into. The current was coming out of the gun instead of flowing from the workpiece back to the gun. This would cause the tips to burn up and the wire to fuse to them sometimes before they hit the workpiece.

 

I haven't checked, but it was a brand new welder when I got it, and it was wired for NOT using gas and I had to switch it over to run the gas. I've only used it for about 8 hours total since I've gotten it.

 

I wonder if it has to do with the duty cycle? I've never exceeded the duty cycle so I don't know what happens. Anyone?

 

Are you keeping the cable as straight as possible? I had a miller 135 that would do this occasionally... a**** other things. Keeping the cable straight seemed to help.

 

This could be a possibility. Hell, anything could be possible.

 

You are exceeding the duty cycle.

 

That's what I thought. For every two minutes of welding it needs eight minutes of rest. (Or approx. that much)

 

It's not the duty cycle issue, trust me on that one. I was using it for less than 10 seconds before it would do this ****.

Tonight I was using it for awhile, and within the first few minutes it did this again. I filed and ground the tip again, turned up the temp setting, dialed up the wire speed, and went to town and didn't have an issue with it again. I did have it stop feeding on occasion, but a gentle tap against what I was welding on would knock it loose again.

The only thing I can figure is that it was not feeding fast enough or there was some sort of restriction on the wire somewhere. I used it off and on for over 3 hours tonight and it worked fine except for that first meltdown.

 

Try and keep your mind out of the gutter-is the tip sticking out? I know there's some varying opinions but My Hobart and the Lincolns I used at school both had the tip sticking out of the gas cup barely .125" When I first started MIG welding I pulled the gas cup past the tip because I kept burning up tips. Well I think that was what was causing my problem.

 

How close to the weld are you holding the tip?

 

i would keep the hose as straight as possible or where it is in a "relaxed" position not all coiled up. i have my nozzle unscrewed a little to cover the tip more or just shorten the tip on my little lincoln

 

You could check the spool "tensioner" if there is one.
Make sure the spool rotates smoothly, with no rough spots.

 

Sounds like your wire speed is too fast.

 

Ussually the welder just shuts off. The fan will continue to run but the wire wont feed and there wont be any arch.

 

Shouldnt you tip be closer to the size of your wire. I had .023 wire and they sold me .025 tips.

 

you might have a bad wand liner...it looks like the out side portion of a bolsen (sp) cable that the welding wire runs thru. Ive had a few new ones that had a burr in the end near where its clamped in the handle..when it starts getting hot or something it holds the wire back and **** yer done.

also if you end up running this welder for a while you might have to take that liner out and blow it out with your air compressor, they can sometimes end up getting alot of **** in them and bind the feed wire up. ..thats after a lot of use tho.
with yours being new the junk in the liner is probably not your immediate issue..but it still could be a bad liner.

 

I'll just keep using it for now and see how things go. Seemed to work fine last night, but another day may be a different story.

 

I think you may have the temp or power set to high for the wire speed. It will cause the wire to burn back faster than it is feeding to your puddle. That can also be compounded by being too close to the work with the tip of the MIG torch.

 

what size material are you working with, when your having this problem?
i would also get the right sized tips.

 

Maybe a long shot but... Make sure you don't put any magnets on the case of the welder. I had one of those big corner magnets, I would just stick it to the welder when not using it. I kept getting random problems... most of the time it welded fine, then just **** out of nowhere... one of the problems was similar to what you're describing. Took me awhile before figuring out the magnet was the reason for the various problems.

 

I run into this sometimes also. I think some of it may be from holding the tip too close to the work and or moving too slow. I also wonder if maybe the wire itself is not wound perfectly on the spool. I'm going to try a different brand of wire next time.

 

i have talked to a couple guys with this problem both replaced the wire and problem went away.

 

I had a similar problem a few months ago with my welder same thing, it ended up being 2 problems, the first was an intermittent (<SP?) ground - loose ground at end of my cable in the machine and after fixing that it worked fine for a few weeks and re-surfaced again this time a soleniod or circuit board with in the machine that controls "burn back + timing of the wire when the trigger is pulled" my local weld shop warrantied the problem since it was under 1 year old..they swapped the whole welder out for a new one.

Paul