I just changed the wire and new bottle of gas on my Miller Matic 140. And now I am having trouble getting the weld to stick. Keep blowing through sheet metal and get a nice red ball on the end of the wire. My gas bottle is 75/25 argon co2 and the wire is .023 and made in China. Could I have the wrong wire? or maybe something on the metal? The weld wire spool does not say what it is and I threw the box away. This does not happen every time maybe 75% of the time. Been cleaning the metal same as I always have but never had this happen. Any Ideas? Thanks in advance for any help.
I been moving the temp all over the place with no help. Bought the wire from the local Welding supply. I think it might be the wire also. Thanks for the reply.
Just changed ??? What did you have before ? Did it weld good before? Could be wire, contaminated gas, shitty parent metal but look at what's different
Change the tip migs love a new tip ( and make sure the tip size matches wire diameter) also if toy removed the " cord " that the gas and wire run through to feed the new wire in, make sure it is seated properly in the housing
Gas ran out before wire. Welded good with new gas, then ran out of wire. At first I thought it was the phosphoric acid we put on some of the metal but don't remember having that problem before. I coukd always weld throught paint, rust, dirt but never getting the red ball on the end of the wire.
If you moved to .023 wire did you change the drive wheel to push .023 wire? I use .023 wire for everything BTW; including 1/2" steel.
Ok, so look at A wire B ground C surface. Here's a quick hint, if the ground cable, connections, clamp, or area you clamped onto gets hot you don't have a good ground. Try on some fresh scrap. The balling almost sounds like a polarity issue. You just changed out the spool from 0.023 to a fresh spool Of 0.023 ? Or something else?
.023 wire thats all I ever use. I am going to try another spool of fresh wire tommorrow. Let you know what happens.
Sounds to me like the wire is feeding funny. Is the feed speed regular and steady? Years ago, I had one roll of wire that was "irregular" in section (not exactly round) and it didn't feed quite quick enough when you first pulled the trigger. I had a big problem getting a bead started right. When I opened the welder I found the feed rollers and area all covered in metal shavings from the wire. Cleaned up the whole mess & new wire solved the issue.
Yep, and feeding new wire might push come crap accumulated in the liner into a tight spot. I had to change my liner recently for this reason.
When that happened to me it was the contactor. I had to replace it. It's like a big relay. Only costs $25 and wasn't hard to replace. The points get burnt after a while and don't always work. Like the solenoid for your starter or relay for your horn.
10 lbs worth of "dot welding" will surely wear one out quicker. What were your symptoms for a bad contractor?
Corporate changed suppliers to Airgas and we started getting Radnor wire and consumables and started having problems. We changed to Tweco consumables and Washington Alloy wire like we had used from the previous supplier and the problems ceased.
One other thing, migs don't like the lead cable wound up too tightly when put away,it can kink the liner and if the lead has too tight a loop or bend from machine to work the wire won't feed smoothly....the red ball on the tip sure sounds like slow wire feed
Before you spend any money, use it and feel the ground connections. All of them. If you feel any heat, fix the connection/s. Any arcing in the ground connections is robbing the arc at the weld. It's not a bad idea even if you think it is welding correctly. None of the connections should feel hot. I have found loose connections and never realized that It was in need of attention just by the heat that they made.
I bought the wire from same place, Matheson. I didn't pay much attention to it when I picked it up. I bought a new 2# spool from Hobart today going to try it later. I changed the liner about 6 months ago. That gave similar symptoms except for the blow through of the sheet metal. I can see the wire and metal melt but that ball stays on the wire and wont melt into the metal.
Lots of possibilities, but my similar problem was the shit wire that I bought at the welding supply store. It was so bad it wouldn't feed right, burn right, hell, it didn't even burn with the right color, I guess because it had shit that wasn't even steel or copper in it. A new spool, and I was instantly a good welder again. Never thought I'd get better wire at Home Depot than the old school welding supply house, but that's the way it is.
There should be an AWS classification on the spool of wire. Look it up and make sure you're using the correct wire for mild steel. If it is, play with all above mentioned wire feed issues and play with your settings. Switching brands will change your settings. The AWS classification is to determine basic weld characteristics and every company uses different additives that can/will affect your settings. The same brand will have multiple classifications and changing tensile strength will also change your settings. Bottom line is that if you've got wire for welding mild steel, you should be able to set the machine for proper fusion regardless of additives and tensile strength. Does your welding machine have a "burn back" feature? If it does you could have inadvertently changed this setting. This continues the arc after the wire feed has stopped and can cause the ball on wire.
Whenever you get a setup that works good. Always stay with the same setup. No matter what it is... I only use .030 wire and that includes welding 20 gauge sheet, to frames and roll cages ( allthough I usually tig those)... a month ago I ran out of .030 tips and have a .045? tip in it... and it welds fine 80% of the time... gotta get to the store to get tips lol.
I tried different wire, .024 with a .024 tip on a nice cleat piece of scrap. Seemed a little better but when I went to weld a door skin same old shit. I going Monday morning to get a new liner. You'll have to wait until Monday evening to find out if it works.
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