Picked up a Mig 140 for myself over Christmas at HF, want to teach myself welding, never welded before so I am a bit confused by the behavior of this machine's feed mechanism. Hoping I can get some advice here.
What's happening is when I pull the gun trigger the feed motor runs slow for about 5 seconds, then fast (maybe 5 times faster than at the start) for about 30 seconds, then goes back to the slow rate it was at the start and stays at that speed. Makes no sense to me, the motor should feed at a constant rate correct? It can be set from 80 inches/minute feed rate to 270 inches/minute. Anywhere I set the feed speed it seems to act the same way. And I should note that I removed the wire, thinking it might have been some kind of friction from the spool, but even with the motor free-wheeling it still acts the same. Feed mechanism open, no wire installed, feed roller removed, so there is literally nothing left connected to the feed motor drive-train except the electric motor and its gearbox. At first I thought it was a defect in the gearbox that was causing excessive friction at a certain point in the rotation but the behavior seems to be repeatable as I described above.
Is this normal? I want to believe I can get a decent welder from HF for $400, especially since everyone else seems to like them. But I am very skeptical at this point, called their tech support number 8 times yesterday, they only answered once, the guy said "let me go look at the welder we have here", proceeded to put me on hold for 30 minutes until I hung up.
What's happening is when I pull the gun trigger the feed motor runs slow for about 5 seconds, then fast (maybe 5 times faster than at the start) for about 30 seconds, then goes back to the slow rate it was at the start and stays at that speed. Makes no sense to me, the motor should feed at a constant rate correct? It can be set from 80 inches/minute feed rate to 270 inches/minute. Anywhere I set the feed speed it seems to act the same way. And I should note that I removed the wire, thinking it might have been some kind of friction from the spool, but even with the motor free-wheeling it still acts the same. Feed mechanism open, no wire installed, feed roller removed, so there is literally nothing left connected to the feed motor drive-train except the electric motor and its gearbox. At first I thought it was a defect in the gearbox that was causing excessive friction at a certain point in the rotation but the behavior seems to be repeatable as I described above.
Is this normal? I want to believe I can get a decent welder from HF for $400, especially since everyone else seems to like them. But I am very skeptical at this point, called their tech support number 8 times yesterday, they only answered once, the guy said "let me go look at the welder we have here", proceeded to put me on hold for 30 minutes until I hung up.
