[BurritaSVT]

I just bought a miller 180 230v mig wirefeeder. I set it up with solid wire steel and c25.

I am welding like 1/4 flat bar to practice and I am wondering if any one of you experienced guys can give a beginner some tips if you see that my attached pic is a good weld or not. This is my final weld after a hour run of welding trying different settings,speeds and travels. Sorry if you guy think it a boring post but I am just making sure I am on the right track.

I will be practicing tomorrow when I build my metal table to mount my vise too.

 

[Patriot Performance]

That later half of the lower right weld looks good. Your rate of travel seems to be rather erratic. Also have you cross cut any of your welds to see what kind of penetration you are getting with your settings? Keep up the practice.

 

[TIGBOY]

You Need To Turn The Heat Up Just A Little Bit

 

[BurritaSVT]

so just go ahead and cut the flat bar in half? Should the weld go all the way through or halfway? thanks joey

 

[MJDamiani]

It would be good to get at LEAST 60% penetration. Remember that welding is not like glueing. You need to melt the two peices of steel together and use the filler ( wire ) to fill the cavity left by the fusion of the metal. Looks like you need to crank it up, but you will be able to tell by cutting the bar stock and looking at the penetration.

 

[littlefuzz]

Just weld 2 pieces togather and then beat the s#!t out of em. If it breaks it's bad, if it don't you're ok. :laugh: Yeah cut em apart with a saw and look at em. Is it discolored on the bottom? If not you ain't getting enough.

 

[BurritaSVT]

Ok thanks I noticed that the more I turned it up the more it was popping little balls everywhere whic I thought was an indication it was to hot. my machine is 135 amp output I have .023 wire too. Under my miller hood it saids to turn the speed up to 100 percent and the power to 10 for 1/4 inch thick steel. But the beads were jumpping all over the place unless my gas was not shielding? I ran 30cfm since I was outside and it was some little breeze around.

 

[Patriot Performance]

Get yourself some larger wire. either .30 or .35 Then you should have a better range of adjustment.

 

[pulser]

I'm not an expert with these low amperage short arc MIG welders, but I do know that you need to balance the wire feed speed with the voltage.
Since you say "I noticed that the more I turned it up the more it was popping little balls everywhere", this is an indication that the wire speed is too high for the voltage.
So for max heat, crank the voltage to the max and then adust the wire achieve the sound of frying bacon.

 

[ZRx61]

.023 wire? get some 20g to practice on

 

[gkent]

So weld spatter is due to wire speed being too high? How can you tell if you're moving fast enough or too slow?

 

[Stickbug]

Are you using gas or flux core?? Gas will leave a cleaner product. Flux core wire will almost always leave spatter. How much depends on your settings.

 

[lorenzo]

Ok thanks I noticed that the more I turned it up the more it was popping little balls everywhere whic I thought was an indication it was to hot. my machine is 135 amp output I have .023 wire too. Under my miller hood it saids to turn the speed up to 100 percent and the power to 10 for 1/4 inch thick steel. But the beads were jumpping all over the place unless my gas was not shielding? I ran 30cfm since I was outside and it was some little breeze around.

If your having a shielding gas problem you will see a ton of holes in the weld itself and the arc itself is very different.... try welding without the gas on just so you'll see the difference.

As mention before... get a larger wire, at least .030. .023 is for sheet metal, thin gauge material.

post some pics of the welds that have the spatter.... you're probably running too hot for that size wire so the transfer mode is probably somewhere between short cuircut and globular....

 

[Alberta Fabricator]

Too high voltage can also cause spatter. Excessive spatter is just an indicator that your out of adjustment. Also play around with your wire stickout distance as that effects the convexity of your bead and penetration. generally 3/4" or 1" works well.