I've been practicing with my neighbors little 110 MIG welder using a Co2/Argon mix and .023 wire on some pieces of my .188 wall chassis tubing. I cant get any penetration at all it seems, well maybe 1/4 of the wall. I have the amp control all the way up and have tried the feed from 5-10. Should i be using thicker wire and the slowest speed?
Is it at least a 120 amp welder?some are kinda wimpy.I use 030 wire on my small welders- one is a hobart 135 and the other a 120 amp. they weld 3/16" all right[fairly hot]maybe you just need a bigger welder. I personally would only use the 023 wire for sheet metal repair.
You'll need to bevel the pipe down all the way around, a 110v welder just doesnt have the guts to burn that far in. If u bevel the ends of the pipe and leave around 1/16" (maybe a little bigger) gap, u should do all right. All it may take is another pass or 2 to fill it in. Good luck
NO, feed rate is kinda set otherwise you'll burn the wire up into the gun, leading to it welding itself to the inner guide and bird's nesting inside the machine. You need a gap. Your machine does not have enough power to weld that thick without a gap to assist penetration. I usually use a gap equal to the thickness of the wire, maybe a hair more if it's really thick stuff. But you do have it right, as far as the practice goes; the more you pratice, the more you'll learn. Asking questions is great, it gets you started in the right direction, but it's the practice that really makes a welder. Cosmo.
If you aren't burning through anything, you may want to move slower. I have the opposite problem, my 220V welder is a pain in the ass to fine tune for thin stuff. It seems if I'm filling holes in the body or even doing exhaust work if this is set any higher than 1.5-2 all I get is a bigger hole, with .023 wire and argon/CO2. Just keep playing with it on scrap pieces. Also, if you do find that you start burning through it, you'll need to pulse the trigger to keep it from getting too hot.
What position are u trying to weld the pipe in?? If you are going downhand, its hard to penetrate very well, Go up, its quite a bit harder, but the results are waaaaaaay better penetration. Go from one side of the gap to the other side of the gap, then up, about 1/4", and back to the spot u went across last time, and keep going, kinda like a triangle. This will keep the puddle a bit cooler to keep the weld from falling. Another thing you should be doing if youre welding in the flat position is whipping it (just a little bit), which basically means to as youre going, move the tip back and forth in the direction you are going about 3/16". Look for the keyhole (the little hole just infront of the puddle) and whip just into the edge of it to fill the gap in. Keep practicing, you'll get it. If youre wondering what to do about the heat and wirespeed thing, just open the side door on the welder, it'll tell you how to set it.
make sure the polarity is correct. when using flux core wire, the polarity is reversed of when using solid mig wire. see if you can find it online, or it might be in the manual, or inside on the lid you flip up to put the wire inside. just something to check
What kind of welder is it? I bought on of those TSC farm store brands(can't remember what brand). I could never get that piece of crap to weld right. I even had my brother (who welds for a living)try and show me what the hell I was doing wrong, and he couldn't weld with it. I finally gave up and spent the bucks for a Miller, and wow, what a difference. No more screwing around! I am not a great welder, but this thing makes me look good! I have been told the cheaper welders have crappy internals in them and just dont have the power to weld very good. Just my opinion, but try and borrow a good welder just to see if there is a difference.
I think your welder is too small for the application. Not that it can't work, but it takes an experianced welder to weld at the upper limits of a machine and get a good sound weld. Gaps and beveling will help, but I like to be very sure of my welds when I do chassis work. (but then I have the luxury of having more than one size welder). You can also push your welds for deeper penitration. I "push" most of the time. You can pre-heat the material with a torch to weld beyond your machines capability, but again, not something I'd recomend for chassis work. Your correct about less wire=more heat. You have working ranges as far as the "ratio" of "heat" to wire speed. The easiest way to find the wire speed range is to Set your wire speed by sound. This works for any thickness of material. Set your voltage (heat) to the metal thickness. There should be a chart somewhere on the welder, or thickness "bars" printed by the heat dial. Set up a practice piece that is the same thickness your going to weld. Lay the gun over far enough that you can trigger a weld without having to move it(or you can drag it slowly). Listen to the sound as you turn the wire speed up. As the wire speed gets faster you will hear the sound get smooth. This is refered to the bacon sizzle sound. As you turn it up too far, the sound may get rough again. Turn the speed back down till it evens out again. Your in the range now. Fine tune as you weld. Dynomatic, try some .030 in your 220 machine. On thinner material, with a higher powered machine the thicker wire cools things down a bit, and seems to make for a more even weld.
Well it's late and ive ran out of gas so i need to get that refilled tomrrow. Guess I'll buy a small spool of .030 wire and try that. Right now when i weld it kind of makes a spurting sound and then seems to stop altogether for a moment, hard to describe. brsssssssssssssss(stop)brsssssssssssssss(stop)
Sounds like maybe the wire speed isn't set quite right. Can you see the wire plunging into the pool? How much? Or is the wire sticking and then melting. Make real small adjustments to wire speed to find the sweet spot. You'll have no doubt when you get it right...the sound is the key.
the only other thing that no one has mentioned is: what is the amp rating on the outlet your plugged into? are you on a 30 amp wall outlet? are you plugged into an extension cord? in other words is your machine getting the input it needs to ampup the output to the welding wire... although all of the above can be the cause this factor should be considered as well good luck sawzall
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