try .023 wire dont forget to make sure you have the proper contact tips and drive rolls. Dont go to the Home depot for welding shit, stop by a local airgas or welding supply shop and tell them what machine, thickness of metal and what size wire you want to run. Most stores will be willing to help get you the shit u need. Home depot will most likely not have contact tips or any other parts like that. Plus the welding store will sell you the supplies much cheaper.
40 volts huh? Thats not even close, I dont even run 40 volts at work welding with .045 wire on 3/8 steel with 700ipm. Thats pretty much max, production mig work. I weld 10ft + without stopping in about 2 mins which is fuckin hawt and fast lol. It bleaches the color right off any shirt and will cause 3rd degree burns just from the arc rays hitting your bare skin.
MAKE SURE YOU ARE OPERATING ON DC- POLARITY WITH SELF SHIELD FLUX WIRE!!!! This is very important!!!! That might be your issue right there. That will cause everything to go to hell if its not right lol. The way to tell is inside the machine there should be two lugs marked + and -. Make sure the lead going to the gun is on the - post and the ground lead is on the + post.
What kind of machine are you using? Does it have ABCD volt and 12345... wire speed? Sounds like it. On the machine or in the manual, there should be a table that can point you in the right direction with different size wire.
If there is the letter and number controls what you can do is set up your machine and make your own settings. The way to do this for wire speed is set it at its lowest, snip the wire clean with the end of the contact tip. Then feed the wire for 10 seconds and measure. Multiply that number by six and you have what inches per minute you are running at that setting. Do this a few times to see how much wire you are pumping at different settings and make note of it. For volts, have a little bit of wire sticking out and loosen the drive rolls so it wont feed. Hook a voltage tester to the wire and a ground and see what your volts are at the different settings.
With .035 wire your settings should be about 80ipm and 15 volts, maybe 14volts 60ipm if thats too hot. If your welder doesnt have ipm or volts marked that sucks. Try finding it with the procedure I stated above.
I dont know why they did that. Its supposed to be easier for a first timer to figure out but it makes it a pain in the ass because every welder that has the dummy dials is different. Its hard for me to give advice without being there to test it out.
Welding on very thin shit is difficult for anyone, your best bet is to go to a smaller wire like .023 and take you time and jump around to keep from overheating one spot, if you hurry you will pump more heat into it and blow through every time. So far you are getting the job done, I'm just trying to add my 2 cents to make the welding part go much easier and learn from it better. Welders are not like a mitre saw that you can plug in and cut wood and forget the manual with no expirence. There is alot of theory and setting the machine is always the biggest hurdle to jump. Alot of people say they can weld and have lots of expierence, especially factory floor welders. Get them in the field and have them set up there own machine and they are useless.
If you can post a pic of inside the machine for me and the front so I can see the dials.
40 volts huh? Thats not even close, I dont even run 40 volts at work welding with .045 wire on 3/8 steel with 700ipm. Thats pretty much max, production mig work. I weld 10ft + without stopping in about 2 mins which is fuckin hawt and fast lol. It bleaches the color right off any shirt and will cause 3rd degree burns just from the arc rays hitting your bare skin.
MAKE SURE YOU ARE OPERATING ON DC- POLARITY WITH SELF SHIELD FLUX WIRE!!!! This is very important!!!! That might be your issue right there. That will cause everything to go to hell if its not right lol. The way to tell is inside the machine there should be two lugs marked + and -. Make sure the lead going to the gun is on the - post and the ground lead is on the + post.
What kind of machine are you using? Does it have ABCD volt and 12345... wire speed? Sounds like it. On the machine or in the manual, there should be a table that can point you in the right direction with different size wire.
If there is the letter and number controls what you can do is set up your machine and make your own settings. The way to do this for wire speed is set it at its lowest, snip the wire clean with the end of the contact tip. Then feed the wire for 10 seconds and measure. Multiply that number by six and you have what inches per minute you are running at that setting. Do this a few times to see how much wire you are pumping at different settings and make note of it. For volts, have a little bit of wire sticking out and loosen the drive rolls so it wont feed. Hook a voltage tester to the wire and a ground and see what your volts are at the different settings.
With .035 wire your settings should be about 80ipm and 15 volts, maybe 14volts 60ipm if thats too hot. If your welder doesnt have ipm or volts marked that sucks. Try finding it with the procedure I stated above.
I dont know why they did that. Its supposed to be easier for a first timer to figure out but it makes it a pain in the ass because every welder that has the dummy dials is different. Its hard for me to give advice without being there to test it out.
Welding on very thin shit is difficult for anyone, your best bet is to go to a smaller wire like .023 and take you time and jump around to keep from overheating one spot, if you hurry you will pump more heat into it and blow through every time. So far you are getting the job done, I'm just trying to add my 2 cents to make the welding part go much easier and learn from it better. Welders are not like a mitre saw that you can plug in and cut wood and forget the manual with no expirence. There is alot of theory and setting the machine is always the biggest hurdle to jump. Alot of people say they can weld and have lots of expierence, especially factory floor welders. Get them in the field and have them set up there own machine and they are useless.
If you can post a pic of inside the machine for me and the front so I can see the dials.
Comment