Am I expecting too much from my MIG?

I have a frustrating, repeating dilemma here. Unless my MIG cable hose is really damn straight with minimal twist, the wire binds up, skips, jams...etc

I've had this in the shop 3 times, each time with a new liner. Welder is a 220 Lincoln, and works great other than this.
Pulley drive is good, everything checks out good. Should I just not plan on any curves in the hose? Not even gentle bends? Kind of hard to weld nice with this problem.

 

I had the same problems with my Lincoln. New liner helped but didn't cure it. Lincoln repair center couldn't make it any better wither and just said "Some of em are like that". Like you say only gentle curves in the hose. I fixed it, sold the Lincoln and bought a Miller - no more problems

Oddly though, I have two Lincolns at work that aren't temperamental to this at all

 

What kind of wire? I've had issues with the cheaper wire doing all this due to inconsistencies of the diameter. Now I only use the Lincoln .035 wire. No more problems.

 

Ive welded from .023 to fluxcore .125 and bigger.The small can be tough.Make sure your tips are good with no bebes.Make sure your rollers are for the same size wire.If using the smaller wire make sure your wire speed is correct,too fast will give you birdnests.Make sure roller tention is correct for wire and that they are a matched set.Keep your nozzle clean and use a spatter spray.Sounds like if you have a new liner,maybe your wire speed is too fast.If its a real old machine the rollers may be wore .You can tighten the bigger wire rollers to push wire better but not the 23 or smaller.I only use the small stuff for 18 ga or thinner and 35 or 45 for the thicker stuff.Good luck,hope this helps Jim F

 

My older Lincoln is very sensitive to the quality of the wire run through it as well. So much of the generic stuff out there today is so awful that I have spent more time clearing the welder than putting stuff together. Run about two feet of wire out and just inspect it, you might be surprised at what you find. One brand that I bought lately had what looked like crimps from a pair of pliers every nine inches or so. My weld shop said that they had to start carrying cheaper wire when metal prices went nuts a few years ago, because everybody *****ed about how expensive wire was. i went back to good quality American made wire, and my problems stopped.

 

cheap and ****ty wound wire will cause you tons of grief, went through it helping a buddy and after returning 3 welders under warranty discovered it was cheap wire.

 

What size wire spool are you using ?

Those ****ty little spools make the wire difficult to straighten.

 

some lincolns have 2 different grooves on the drive pulley one for gasless wire and one for gas. the drive wheel flips around so you can set it for the correct wire.

 

one thing to try: If there is any droop at the cable just as it comes out of the machine, try propping it up straight just to try that.

My old Miller was doing that, so I braced it.

 

Tip size matters....be sure you have the correct size....030 wire in a .023 tip won't work.

 

I have this problem with my Lincoln with the big 10lb. rolls. Laying the welder on its side seems to help. They also make a drive wheel with knurled grooves.

 

Check the bach lash on your wire spool.To tight and roller cannot pull it and to loose it will be real jerky as it free wheels then takes up slack.

 

To answer your question, you are not expecting too much from your mig. You should be able to bend that hose in a reasonable fashion & still maintain wire feed. In the heat of battle, you shouldn't be expected to re-stage everything precisely & correctly every 10 seconds (as you move around to change angles & body positioning) to keep the hose straight. I've been welding for some years with a cheapo Harbor freight job & a not cheap other brand & I've never had a problem of that nature.

 

All good things to check out tomorrow morning. I do have some droop where it leaves the machine, I can prop it up and see if it helps.
I'm going to check the wire as well, wouldn't surprise me if it was the cheap stuff (Large spool, came with the welder - bought used 3 years ago).
I've checked drive pulleys, but I'll check em again as well.
I'm using .035 wire.
Thanks again all, I'll see what I find in the morning!

 

X2 on both of these...

Cheap wire and/or too tight of tension on the spindle will cause problems.
At my workplace we manufacture and sell arc spray or thermal spray machines. The front leads have a PTFE liner in them and part of the maintainence is to spray a small amount of WD40 down the liner, then blow it out with compressed air. This cleans and lubricates the liner to provide smooth operation. I used the same process on my MIG liner and it works even better now. Any residue burns off at arc...

I can't remember how many times my customers will call me with machine feeding problems and it is as simple as these few remedies.

I hope this helps...

Scott

 

Are you using the felt oiler pad between spool an wire rollers? It makes alot of difference for the feed and the tips definitly need to match the wire ,also with my experience using Lincoln welders is that they require a much cleaner ground than a Miller,I weld alot of painted roll-off containers and with the Lincoln have to get the grinder and clean a spot for the ground,with the Miller just hook ground on and go.

 

3yr old 10lb spool of wire - I'll bet it has rust spots in it. Try even a small spool of new wire and see if it fixes the problem......

 

To me is is one of the basics of mig welding, make sure the gun has the smoothest possible curves.

 

My lincoln has a small piece of the liner in front of the drive wheel where the wire goes into the hose. I left it out by mistake one day after replacing the wire and it caused hells of problems with the wire birdnesting. just a thought

 

I had a similar problem with my Miller. The drive roller for the wire has two grooves. One is smoothe for wire used with gas shielding. The other has serrations for flux wire. When my wire would not advance properly I flipped the roller so that the groove with the serrations pulls the wire. This is opposite what the owners manual said but it corrected the problem for good. I also use a lubricating felt pad as mentioned in some previous posts.

 

I solved a lot of my problems by replacing the nylon nut spool retainer with a bolt and spring as spool rotation would tighten nut.

 

Nothing against the Chinese, but I had the same problem with imported wire. Switched to good ole made in the USA wire and the problem went away.

Scott
Fab Manager
Welders360

 

hope this isnt considered high-jacking a thread. i have the bird-nesting problem with aluminum wire. supposedly have everything to run aluminum. do not have a spool gun. would like any advice available.

 

im sure you have had your question answered, but like some of the other posts have said
-drive gear flipped around the wrong way....two different sized grooves
-tip size matters
-wire quality and condition
-tip condition matters as well
-how tight the wire hold down is. if its loose it will slip.

hope you have it friggired out. I fabricate for a living and use one of those welders everyday there great welders, as long as there set up right.

 

Aluminum wire is just too soft for use without a spoolgun.

 

On my Lincoln, the groves in the roller are not for flux core or shielded, But for .023 vs. .035. Make sure they're in the right groove. Also, a big x2 on three year old wire! Toss that and get some new. Even here in the desert where nothing rusts I've had wire go spotty on me.

 

Am i expecting too much from my MIG? ... Absolutely not. I have a Hobart Betamig 200 that must be somewhere around 20 years old (I bought it new). I could tie mine in a knot (a loose knot mind you) and it would still work fine. Not saying Hobarts are better than Linc's, just saying you should definitely be able to weld without issues like you are describing.

 

My Lincoln has never given me one single problem. I use wire I buy at Menard's on little spools. I do keep up on maintainence, though...

 

Did you change the liner first?

When I bought my Lincoln they told me that when you switch back and forth form ferrus/stainless to aluminum you have to change the liner too, as the lube used is different and will cause the aluminum wire to stick in the hose.....

It's a PITA to change the liners all the time (well, I don't do it that often) but I've never had a problem with the wire binding in the hose, no matter how I've ****ed the hose around.

I did have a problem with rusty wire tho, it was deep in the middle of a 10lb spool I'd found under the bench - no one knows how long it had been there - but when it hit those rusty spots it would hang up and jerk....

 

My new (1 yr old) Hobart started doing that. On mine it turned out to be a combo of the bends in the hose COMPOUNDED by a dirty worn out tip. With a new tip I can have a knot tied in the thing and it will run fine! So, when the tip starts getting a little worn, I clean it and touch it up with a file or sandpaper. Then it is only used for tack welds, I change tips before I try and lay down nice beads.