My welder is a Hobart Mig-man, just a little 110 unit but it serves the purpose. I have no problem with the various power settings but I've always struggled with the wire feed speed. Is there a rule of thumb or table or anything that would de-mystify this process.
i'm sure there is a rule of thumb or chart and someone on here knows it. i use a millermatic 200 and on it only if i go above 4 on the low side of amperage do i ever get above 20-25 on wire speed. i leave the machine on 4 most of the time for anything over 11ga. and up to 1/4". this is just my experience and i guarantee it is not a piddle in the bucket compared to alot of guys here so enjoy the ride to the top where hopefully some of them will chime in.
Most of the welders have a table for settings. You might try discovering whether you are running out of wire or if you are getting it too fast and it is sticking. You really have to pay attention as to which is happening. You can have someone dial the setting while you are welding until you hear the welding sound that we all love to hear. You will know it when you hear it. Hope this makes sense.
I know the wire / power settings I use most commonly but even then I fine tune according to the job i.e. on a fillet weld I will use slightly less wire than in a **** weld. It's a feel, listen, look kind of thing. I can't explain it but I know when it's right (or wrong). Practice...... Pete
A couple things that should help. First understand that wire besides fusing the metal also changes that amount of heat is involved in the weld. Typically the setting is too fast, and the weld sits on top. A good rule is that the sound that you are making when weldingshould sound like you are in the kitchen frying something. Also are your welds sitting on the surface, a little puddle or burning through? Obviuosly a they should be little puddle. slow your speed if it's sitting on top. Next what size wire are you using, should be .30 , you'll never get a good weld with .25 Good luck
Are you taking about with just that machine? My miller 175 seems to weld thin stuff OK with .023 even up to 3/16 if I set it right. I rather use the .030 on the thicker but I was out of tips on day and used the recomendations on the chart and it worked good.
i agree its kinda a sound feel look deal. as a rule if you get alot of spatter , start slowing the wire. also, i'd keep the 023 for sheet metal, while you can get thicker metals to "stick" the thinner wire cant carry the current you need for the thicker stuff. inverse problem when trying to weld sheetmetal with thicker wire, the wire needs more current to melt than the metal does, and the holes start popin up skull
A friend of mine has the same welder and the same problem. With light sheet metal body pannels and such .23 to .30. With that welder I thing the biggest you can go is 1/8 in. it says 1/4with flux. The welder he has seems to not get "hot" enough for anything over 18ga. but it is a good welder for patch pannels. Mainly something to look for is a even width bead and a "frying bacon" sound.
The sound is by far the best indicator of the proper wire speed for the heat range you are using. One thing I do and have actually seen on some of the welding videos is that when I am just lost and can't get it just right is that I start increasing the speed a number or two until I start to feel the resistance on the wire. It feels like the wire is trying to push the torch upward. From there just back the speed rate down a notch or two and that should give you a starting point. From there just make fine adjustments until you get that special consistent sound. If the speed is much to slow you will get wire burn off up to the tip or even inside the tip and it will quickly overheat the tip and may weld the wire to the tip. Also remember that to get the best sound you need to be working on clean metal. Rust will never make a good consistent weld sound. Scott...
Simply put, if you see a ball form and drip, wire is too slow, if you feel the gun bumping, wire is too fast. Should sound like bacon frying when speed and heat are just right. I have never had much luck with 110 welders. Have you ever tried a 220?
I have goto to agree that the sound is the best indicator. Just a smooth even crackle when it is right. Hobart's support web site might be a place to get the initial settings for the material you are welding. When you find the setting that works, start a notebook. Write down the settings, material, position, gas flow etc. My Wire Handler 140 has a chart inside the door. I use .023 wire with gas for the sheet metal and .030 for the thicker stuff. Sheet metal is touchy at best, a lot of on and off the trigger or you will be chasing holes. Paul
The "magic sound" is like frying bacon!! Its all the same whether you are stick welding or MIG,----Now TIG is a different story! When I started welding in 1951 in USN, my instructor told me about the bacon sound, & it stuck with me all during my welding years, p***ing it on to others I have taught to weld. You have to start off with good equipment, NOT Harbor Freight! Number 1 in my experience has always been Lincoln or Miller machines, Hobart has made good improvements over the years too. Never make the mistake of buying a smaller unit, step up & buy one that will do more than you think you might need at present. Also one that uses CO2 gas. A lot of practice will be your BEST friend, especially as you get into overhead mode. Good luck in your new adventure!!!!!!!-------------Don
You might want to check your line voltage. A buddy of mine has a Miller 250 (?) and he always had trouble getting it to weld correctlt at his Dad's truck shop... but it worked fine at hid own house. Found out the welder was "set" for 240V and his Dad's shop only got around 220V at the outlets... at home he had 240V. There's an adjustment for incoming voltage on this welder and he adjusted it and it's now operating great... not sure if that litle Miller has any voltage adjustments but you might want to check the line voltage anyway. I had a Miller 35 for several years that welded like ****... but it demo'd great... maybe my voltage is kinda low (easy on the jokes).
My rule of thumb is to have the proud of the weld a 1/8'' inch above the metal. I know you said you had the power settings down but practice on the same thickness off metal first and just make sure that ****er is digging. Always bevel your metal, even on sheet metal. Heavier steel Watch it dig /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ Watch it dig Sheet metal dig with every s***ch, almost to where the bottom drops out ....................................................................................
I'm glad you said that. Hardly ever hear anyone point out that you gotta be looking for penetration on the base metal. If you don't see it digging a trench around your arc, your heat isn't high enough. When the wire speed is right, the trench you just made is then refilled with molten wire, plus enough volume to build up a bead above the surface. With a MIG machine it is very easy to lay a pretty bead right on top of the base metal with no penetration (and thusly no strength). A good weld will be proud of the surface, but it also must go below the surface and ideally all the way through the piece. "Watch it dig" is just about the best way I've heard base metal penetration described. Dig a trench and fill it back in without voids and you've got yourself a winner of a weld. You want to dig that trench as deep as you can without the puddle falling through. You want total fusion of the two pieces, not metal hot glue globed on top. I set my heat by looking at the penetration, and then I set my wire speed co****ly by feel and sight (not pushing the gun back at me, nor allowing the wire to melt off and lose the arc). That gets me into the ball park, then I fine tune it by ear. Always listening for that bacon crackle.
You need to see a puddle of molten metal form at your weld location, between the MIG wire and material you are welding. If you do not see a puddle and hearing bacon frying, like everyone else has already stated, you will have a weak weld. It make look real nice, however; no puddle, no strength.....
Used to own a Miller 35 and a 200 that were part of a business I owned years ago. Really can't justify the expense of a new welder now, I only use it very occasionally. The Mig-man handles any chore I have any business tackling, just wish I had an excuse to use it more so my skills would match my expectations.
There isn't a table or anything on the machine, I guess the idea is that if you need to buy a welder you should have sense enough to use it.
Flux-core likes to be pulled not pushed. In other words, pull the gun away from the weld as you're welding. It's easier to get the wire speed down that way, you won't get any wierd feel in the gun. After you've done it a while it won't matter so much, you'll just know when it's right.
guessing the hobart machine you have does not have an arc force or "dig" adjustment. i use a lincoln 110 at home for patch work and tacking stuff together and it feels different than the miller 440 machine i use at work. i tend to pull on thin sheet and push on plate. best advice is burn more wire, wash rinse and repeat. welding is like ***, the more you do it the better you get and always remember small slow circles!
Number one problem with 120V wire machines acting goofy and inconsistent comes from trying to use them on an extension cord. Another problem is old wall outlets whose contacts are sprung. Either way, the result is severe voltage reduction at the welder itself, and the higher your arc voltage setting or wire speed (current) the worse it will show up. If you can start a weld and hear the fan in the welder slow down, its a good indication the incoming voltage at the machine is too low for proper operation. I've got a couple 120V Hobarts at the shop that we used to use a lot when we did a good amount of fab work in 10ga to 18ga sheet. We found both the above problems, and curing them makes the welders useful rather than acting like some toy whose sole purpose is to drive you nuts. With good outlets (go to an electrical suppy house and buy specification grade outlets) we could run a welder on a 12 ga extension cord about 25 ft long. Anything further than that needs a 10 ga cord. Much cheaper to move closer to the source than to start buying 10 ga extension cords. If you're going to be using an extension cord on a regular basis, then the best thing to do is get rid of the factory cord on the welder and wire the ext cord in directly. That gets rid of one plug connection and also gets rid of the original cord that's typically 16 ga. The connection and the small cord are both sources of voltage drop. Poor connections or undersize cords can easily drop the voltage at the machine from 120V at the wall to 100V or less at the machine. The more heat you're trying to get out of the machine, the more the incoming drop and the worse the machine will act. We've also got a 400 amp Linde power source with separate feeder that has continuous arc voltage control and arc voltage meter so you can look at it in operation and know what your running arc voltage is. In experimenting with it, I've found I can have a good setup, and then reduce the arc voltage by 10%, and the good setup goes to hell. In the typical small wire machine, the incoming voltage is reduced by a transformer and then rectified to DC without any sort of sophisticated circuitry to maintain constant output voltage. If your incoming voltage drops by 10%, your arc voltage will be down by the same 10%. Try it and see what you get. The difference we found was that the machines will actually do what Hobart claimed as long as we have good supply voltage to them. ****py wall outlets and extension cords make them useless for anything other than light gage sheet stuff.
what i find is how fast you are pushing the gun across the metal. try a setting and run your arm at a constant speed. then turn the feed-speed down slightly and run your arm at the same speed. you will see a difference. obviously, the amp setting makes a difference, but check the charts. i find for my arm speed that i use a much slower feed than what the charts recommend.
Can say this about wire speed for 18 ga. sheet metal: SLOW. Have 220 rig, 35 amps and lowest speed setting (1 out of 10) works great for 18 ga. '51 Chevy
you got two hands? set the power level and pull in the trigger on a piece of s**** the thickness you want to weld. Now turn the wire speed till it looks right. changing wire speed while welding will NOT harm the welder, just never change the heat setting that way
you can tell by your welds. If the base metal looks warped or around the weld and the weld doesnt look uniform and is really skinny then your amperage is too hot. If the weld bead sits really high and it doesnt look like it even heated the base metal then your wire feed is too high or amperage is too low or both If your base metal looks like it got heated, but the weld still sits high then the wire feed is too high. basically your weld for that tiny welder should only be like 1/4 of an inch wide and no higher than about 1/8 of an inch or so. and if you are new to welding then just make little crecent moon shapes as you are going along your line.. thats how I can describe it.. really tiny moons though like only moving nanometers at a time north to south as your are going along your line. Then once you get good at that then morph yourself into doing it correctly
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