Mig Problems again.

[Bluesman]

what size parent metal you using? on 1/4, i just ran 24.5 volts and 400 wfs..... laid in real nice. i also tried 23 volts @ 230 wfs and it acted just like you explained..... its called forced spray transfer, but it gives no penetration as the amperage isnt up enough..... remember a previous post of mine regarding the volt/ amp curve on a mig machine? set the volts to 24 and have someone run a bead on junk metal, then have another person adjust the wire speed until the amperage hits about 200.......... would bet money that you will LOVE the way it welds after that

How do you know when the amperage hits 200? There is no indicator or dial on this machine. It only displays volts. When we set the voltage and start welding the voltage drops significantly at the start of the weld but after a few seconds it goes to what we set it at and sometimes it increases. I never have understood how the machine "knows" to start off lower and increase and then INCREASE more if it needs too. I've only been wire welding for about a year now and believe it or not I'm still learning along as I go WITH my students because up until this past year I had only been stick welding. All this wire welding is new to me. Which in actuality makes it easier to teach the school kids because they are less apprehensive to learn to weld when they find out that their two teachers don't claim to know everything and are learning with them as they go. It makes for some interesting discussions and lessons and experiments if nothing else.

---------- Post added at 08:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:08 PM ----------

I tried the 380 wire speed and it welded BUT the weld was a little more raised than my beads are and I felt like it was just depositing wire on top of the material.

The material we were running beads on was a piece of drop off from a local fabrication co.that is 1" thick and is about 12" in diameter. With us just laying surface beads would the thickness of the material matter OTHER than the obvious answer that if we were welding on some thinner material it would burn through?

[SICFabrications]

whoa.... you didnt say anything about being 1 inch thick material..... i got ya now...... here it is, if your voltage were set around 26 to 27 volts, wfs to around 450 to 480, run a bead, and have your high heat gear on, you will be real close to proper...... but pay attention to your duty cycle...pre heat!!! solid wire mig will not burn into that without tons of pre heat

in the owners manual, there will be a way for you to set the machine to display amperage at weld and voltage at idle... i dont know how to make that machine do so, but it'll be in the book.

[Bluesman]

I'll give that a try tomorrow and post back the results. I may give you a call tomorrow if you don't mind. Sometimes I can talk a lot better than I can type. It may be easier to figure it out with live conversation rather than trying to post it all.

[SICFabrications]

dont mind it a bit..... just dont call before 8 a.m. (its my day off) lol

[Bluesman]

Just to update on this little matter, Sicfab helped me figure it out. It appears that the problem was not in the liner, wire or machine but rather I needed to crank up some wirespeed and voltage. I had inadvertently listened to the Lincoln rep when he delivered the machine and then he told us that 23 volts and 238 wire speed would be what we needed 99.9% of the time when we were using solid wire. He was wrong. Sic helped me figure out that ol dude was a salesman and not a welder or welding engineer . Plus, the chart in the machine that tells you where to dial it in for thickness and material type using solid wire, flux core, ss, alum, etc, isn't exactly precise or accurate. It appears that it welds MUCH better using the advice I got from Stan than the numbers off the chart.

I guess they just have to ball park it to write those charts.