Sputtery Lincoln Mig Welder

[matteh99]

My dad has a idealarc lincoln MIG welder with fancy digital controls. I think it is a 250 amp welder. It doesn't like welding at low current settings. It will just sputter and not keep an arc or puddle going. If you turn it up it seems to work fine. I have been welding inch and a half square tubing I am not quite sure what the wall thickness is but I don't think it it much more that 1/8th. To get the welder to actually keep an arc going I have to be on the verge of burning through the metal. The welder has been doing this for quite some time and it can make it rather frustrating to use. I cleaned the end of the welder and replace the little thiny the wire goes through and it didn't make much difference. I haven't used many other mig welders but it doesn't seem right.

Any ideas of things to try would be great.

Eric

[Gadget]

I'm not a MIG guy but if you went with a thinner wire it may burn better at the lower amps.

[matteh99]

I believe there is .035 wire which according to this page
MIG Welding Wire Charts - Airgas.com
should be good for 16th inch minimum.

I had a really hard time using it when I tried to build the first motorcyle tank I did. Which is what got me interested in Tig welders and Longevity.

[Gadget]

The low current will have a hard time burning the thicker wire. I think lighter would help but before you lay down the bucks I would wait to see what Stan says. He knows MIG, I don't

[matteh99]

Or I could just win the contest for the MIG welder and see how that one does

I think my dad has a spool of thinner wire I could try that.

I think I will stick to TIG welding on the lumber rack for a while. It is slower TIG welding but if the MIG welds come out looking like bird poop and I have to grind them off and start over MIG won't save any time.

I am also having a hard time welding up hill or horizontal with the MIG welder. To get a stable arc I have to have it turned up really high so I get a big sloppy puddle that tends to run down and make a ugly undercut weld.

[mdkrusemark]

Is your polarity correct? DCEP is for most solid wire DCEN is for most flux core wire.
Do you have the right size contact tip in the gun?

[Kel Fab Creations]

You may have a link in the liner and its making it hard for the wire to get through. Take the liner out and check it for pinches. Have u checked/cleaned the drive rollers. Make sure they match up with the wire also.

---------- Post added at 08:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:25 PM ----------

When u say u replaced the little thing the wire goes through, u mean the tip right?

[SICFabrications]

turn your wire speed down. you turn the voltage down, you gotta turn the wfs down in relation... another thought

[matteh99]

It has presets for different thickness of metals, this time I have just been going from one preset to another. In the past I have played with the manual settings and gotten it a bit better but not much.

I will check the drive rollers and see if the wire seems to feed smoothly when I am not welding. I know my dad has had trouble with the roller area of the welder in the past. Maybe it is acting up again..

[arandall]

Matteh:
The rollers have given me problems in the past. Also, I found using a wire lubricator seems to help. They are usually a felt type pad that slips over the wire just past the feed rollers. The pad is then lightly soaked in special lubricant to help the wire slip through the liner.