Made negative progress today... Need welding help

[Dustincoc]

Went out to work on the core support I'm fabing for the Ranger and after tinkering with the welder for a while was laying some decent beads so I ground off the welds(my father said they looked like bird sh1t) I'd put on the piece before and was going to get some better welds on there. I know I'm getting at least decent penetration because I melted the corner off one of the 1/8"x1" and 1 1/2" angle iron pieces I was welding. Biggest help were switching to a .035 tip running .030 wire even though the .035 tips are for Miller welders and I need Tweco/Lincoln tips for the welder I'm using. Didn't even know I had them till I found the pack on the garage floor the other day. Also took off the noozle since I'm using flux-core and read somewhere its not really needed and improves visability with it gone. Still having some sort of wire feed problem, the wire has some sort of pause every little bit for half a second or so and messes up the weld. I figured its something to do with the liner but both .035 and .030 wire do the same, I'd expect the larger wire to jam up worse if there was something in the liner. 3 different spools do the same thing so its not the wire and it doesn't seem to jamb when the tip is off but I've switched tips many times and every one does the same thing no matter the size. I may have the spool too tight but I really can't have it any looser since the retainer is barely on as it is. Another problem I keep having is that I can lay a great bead right next to where I'm trying to when I get off track, but the weld is horrible if I get it where I want to.

As far as progress goes, I managed to break one of the welds I'd just rewelded just as it was getting dark so I didn't get it back together so essentially I made negative progress today. I did get the birdsh1t weld ground out of the inside of the one piece of angle once it was apart which I couldn't do when it was together. I also managed to burn myself twice on freshly welded metal as I repositioned the piece for the next welds.

Welder is a 2 year old Jobsmart MIG 125 that I barely used since I finished the project I bought it for 2 years ago. It seemed to lay decent welds then although I can't look at them now. I was welding a truck frame then and managed to break on the other framerail in the same place a week after I got that one fixed and all the brake and fuel lines ran right past the second crack so I'd have had to replumb both brakes and fuel had I fixed it. It was a '95 Nissan Hardbody and the repair I did to the frame was the third one and I needed at least 2 more patches. The frame was fixed once before I got it and I had another crack fixed after I had the truck for a few months. I think I hd the truck a total of 6 months before I junked it. I was happy with the welds I got then and that was the first time I'd used flux-core(I was used to MIG and those nice looking welds) I was happy with there appearance so They must have been close to MIG looking welds.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

I'm self-trained so am not an expert but...
Depending on how the welder is stored there is a possibility that the wire has started rusting, especially after two years, were all the spools that old? Also make sure your whip is as straight as possible. Make sure the drive wheel pushes the wire through your fingers with your fingers pressed together fairly tight, that's with the whip disconnected.
Good luck,

Richard

 

[martin]

Sounds like you might not have enough tension on the drive wheel. wire speed might need to be changed a little.

 

[Frank The Tank]

I use .30 flux core gasless for most everything. I agree on checking your tensioner on the feed wheel (also check for smooth or broken teeth)

Make sure the liner is lined up also where the wire is being fed in at the drive wheel before it leaves the welder into the leads.

 

[brinker88]

ALWAYS use the proper tip when welding. Also, check your leads. Are they hooked up properly? They need hooked up different for MIG vs. Flux core.

Put a NEW spool of wire on, check your tension, and run a few beads on a practice piece.

 

[Dustincoc]

The rolls of .035 and .030 were partials I had from before, I just picked up a roll of .030 last week and still am having the problem. Its a flux only welder so I can't have it hooked up wrong. The drive tension is as tight as I can get it so I doubt its to loose. I can check though.

A broke or worn tooth might be the problem, I'll check in a bit. It would make sense because there seems to be a pattern to the jerkyness. I don't see how it could be out of line sense there is no adjustment I know of to line up the liner with the drive mechanism. Wire speed seems to not have much affect on the presense of the problem, I'm constantly micro-adjusting wire speed as I change position to get better penetration and prevent too much buildup.

 

[brinker88]

Jerkyness is from having the tension too tight, the wrong tip and most likely a kinked liner.

 

[Frank The Tank]

Open it up and let it feed when you check for missing teeth. If the tensioner drive bar is bent it would waggle tighter then looser also.

 

[Dustincoc]

Would the wrong size drive roller cause this problem? I just went out to look at the teeth. The roller has two different size grooves. The welder is designed to run .030 and .035 wire so I would expect the smaller groove would be for .030 and the larger groove for .035. Thats what the instructions say as well. The smaller groove is never had teeth and the larger has all its teeth. I noticed as I checked this that the roller has one groove marked as .06 and the other as .09. the .06 side has a symbol like this next to it -v-. .06 is the size of .023 wire and .09 is the size of .035 wire so there isn't a drive wheel groove sized for .030 wire. This is the roller that came with the welder. I was running .035 wire thru it a couple years back when I was getting good welds. Its been set at the .06 side since that is the side the manual said to use with .030 wire.

 

[Dustincoc]

I'm also wondering if the too small v groove with the tensioner cranked down so tight is the cause of the crappy looking welds. Crushing the flux out and ending up basically using solid wire unshielded...

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Remove the whip and run some wire out and look at it.

 

[janderson4010]

you have classic symptoms of a kinked liner, you take the advice of a few of the dudes here and pull the line out and see if it feeds without running through the line, that should tell you if your problem lies in the liner or the feed rollers.

 

[Dustincoc]

I've had the liner out and didn't see any sign of kinking on the exterior.

The problem seems to go way when I remove the tip, however any tip I use causes the same issue: new, old, .030, .035, Hobart/Miller, Tweco/Century, doesn't matter, all have the same poblem which goes away when they're removed.

Since the problem goes away when I remove the contact tip, It would go away when I remove the whip, hence removing the whip will tell me nothing

 

[Destroyer000]

does the end of the liner have a bur on it that might be interfering with the end of the tip?

 

[brinker88]

Try clipping a half to a whole coil off the tip of the liner.