hi spragz and welcome. You will want to make sure you are dealing with clean shiny metal to get good welds. It takes hood time to gain confidence. I am still not able to post pictures on this damn electronic thing. Welding is the same thing. Every day is a learning experience. Patience grasshopper, patience. If you go to some of Jody's videos you will pick up some information and search the specific heading for mig welding. Lots of great folks in here will offer help.
the simple problem with mig is its easy to make good looking welds that do not penetrate and fail.
a simple way to check is to weld two pieces together then break them apart. see where they break.
i have done excellent looking weld that just popped off easily. that deflates the ego a bit.
i highly recommend learning stick to start with. that forces you to learn the basics and makes learning mig and tig a whole lot easier.
also because stick welders are so basic, you know the issue is you rather than how you set the machine. that makes learning easier.
as mentioned above, weld on clean metal. eliminate anything that might influence how the weld might turn out, that makes learning easier.
One thing I like to start with is a test weld, on same thickness as final workpiece. For learning, you can work on different type of joints and use weave pattern. Then do destructive test. Put metal in a vise use heavy hammer, knock it apart. This will roughly tell you how good penetration is. A good weld should hold up well, a superficial glue job will come apart. Also, experts on here could confirm this… but I’ve heard to listen to sound like bacon frying. On my machine it helps to keep wire feed as straight as possible. Otherwise it doesn’t work smoothly.
My friend called us “dauber welders”, like mud daubers. Probably from not cleaning the steel properly. You photo looks a lot better than my first attempts.
Thanks guys, apologies for the delay in replying, blame covid.
I have been well enough today to have another go with my mig welder, I'm hoping you'll agree that its an improvement.
There was a hint of bacon frying
One thing I'm struggling with is figuring out what power I'm running at as my welder doesn't have a digital display showing this.
I have managed to run some tests and now have a general idea what IPM im getting on each setting but the volts/power has me stumped. is it simply a case of trial and error?
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Spragz wrote: ↑Tue Jan 11, 2022 3:28 pmI have managed to run some tests and now have a general idea what IPM im getting on each setting but the volts/power has me stumped. is it simply a case of trial and error?
Generally yes, you figure out the IPM that will deposit the amount of metal you want, and the voltage is tweaked to provide the bead profile desired. Too low and it will be lumpy/ropey/tall and you might even feel the wire pushing up against you as it stabs the joint without fully short-circuiting into the weld pool. Too high, and the wire will go "globular" where the end of the wire starts to ball-up and randomly drifts off into the weld pool, or it could even melt back into the tip if the voltage is wayyy to high. The sweet spot is generally in the middle which is where you get the bacon-frying sizzle. If you can manage it, try to run a quick bead with the MIG gun in one hand, and vary the voltage with the other hand and you will actually experience what I am describing. You can try this for several settings of IPM and you will get a good ball-part of how to set it up for future use. This is for flat/horizontal, so definitely don't try vertical down nor up without first learning how to run beads in more easier orientations.
Spragz wrote: ↑Tue Jan 11, 2022 3:28 pmI have managed to run some tests and now have a general idea what IPM im getting on each setting but the volts/power has me stumped. is it simply a case of trial and error?
Generally yes, you figure out the IPM that will deposit the amount of metal you want, and the voltage is tweaked to provide the bead profile desired. Too low and it will be lumpy/ropey/tall and you might even feel the wire pushing up against you as it stabs the joint without fully short-circuiting into the weld pool. Too high, and the wire will go "globular" where the end of the wire starts to ball-up and randomly drifts off into the weld pool, or it could even melt back into the tip if the voltage is wayyy to high. The sweet spot is generally in the middle which is where you get the bacon-frying sizzle. If you can manage it, try to run a quick bead with the MIG gun in one hand, and vary the voltage with the other hand and you will actually experience what I am describing. You can try this for several settings of IPM and you will get a good ball-part of how to set it up for future use. This is for flat/horizontal, so definitely don't try vertical down nor up without first learning how to run beads in more easier orientations.
Thank you, I really appreciate the advice and help .
Just my opinion as a "high-end hobbyist", forget weave patterns when learning, unless it's just to have fun and "see what happens". For actual learning, I learned by constant-speed travel, or sometimes using a forward-then-slightly-backward type of motion, and then I did cut and etch to see the actual penetration profiles. Once you get that consistency down AND obtain proper joint fusion, then I'd say try cursive-e's, etc, etc. My main point is, if you don't know whether you are getting proper joint fusion using the most basic travel, how would you know whether or not you are getting it with fancy weave patterns? Obviously not everything requires full root penetration, but knowing how to get to that point is very important IMO.
Oscar wrote:Just my opinion as a "high-end hobbyist", forget weave patterns when learning, unless it's just to have fun and "see what happens". For actual learning, I learned by constant-speed travel, or sometimes using a forward-then-slightly-backward type of motion, and then I did cut and etch to see the actual penetration profiles. Once you get that consistency down AND obtain proper joint fusion, then I'd say try cursive-e's, etc, etc. My main point is, if you don't know whether you are getting proper joint fusion using the most basic travel, how would you know whether or not you are getting it with fancy weave patterns? Obviously not everything requires full root penetration, but knowing how to get to that point is very important IMO.
Thank you, yep I agree, you’re absolutely right. I’ll give it another go as soon as I can.
I only ever weave in two situations with mig, when I'm running uphill, running downhill on thin material with a large gap or open root plate/pipe beveled to a knife edge. In any of those aforementioned situations you REALLY want to make sure you're in short circuit mode and not globular unless you have pulse spray or dual shield as it will NOT go well regardless of technique in most cases otherwise.
For flat, horizontal or even overhead, I'm running stringers every time, they're stronger and more consistent especially if you're not very skilled and as Oscar said if you don't know if you're getting good fusion or can't be perfectly consistant with a simple stringer, adding a weave is only going to make things worse.
Weaving takes a very specific cadence to get right, It's not a steady consistent speed the whole time and beginners will really struggle to do it properly.
Also if your machine doesn't have proper markings, if I can't just burn it in with globular transfer in the flat or horizontal position, I'm not afraid to calculate wire speed based on percentages of your machine's max WS or even hook a multimeter up to the machine while welding to set the voltage. If you ask me frying bacon sounds more like globular does to my ears, short circuit is a very consistent combination of a sizzle and a buzz, a better way than sound to tell if your machine is set right in my opinion is to look at the spatter, if you're getting big BBs all over the place and a bunch of spatter you have to chisel off you're not set right for short circuit, the spatter should be relatively light and fairly easy to remove and you shouldn't be running for full welding leathers. If if the spatter is burning right through your cloth sleeves or welding jacket and making you constantly flinch It's probably not set right.
Once you know exactly what short circuit sounds like, you can set it via that, but just describing the sound leaves things up to a LOT of personal interpretation in my opinion.
sbaker56 wrote:I only ever weave in two situations with mig, when I'm running uphill, running downhill on thin material with a large gap or open root plate/pipe beveled to a knife edge. In any of those aforementioned situations you REALLY want to make sure you're in short circuit mode and not globular unless you have pulse spray or dual shield as it will NOT go well regardless of technique in most cases otherwise.
For flat, horizontal or even overhead, I'm running stringers every time, they're stronger and more consistent especially if you're not very skilled and as Oscar said if you don't know if you're getting good fusion or can't be perfectly consistant with a simple stringer, adding a weave is only going to make things worse.
Weaving takes a very specific cadence to get right, It's not a steady consistent speed the whole time and beginners will really struggle to do it properly.
Also if your machine doesn't have proper markings, if I can't just burn it in with globular transfer in the flat or horizontal position, I'm not afraid to calculate wire speed based on percentages of your machine's max WS or even hook a multimeter up to the machine while welding to set the voltage. If you ask me frying bacon sounds more like globular does to my ears, short circuit is a very consistent combination of a sizzle and a buzz, a better way than sound to tell if your machine is set right in my opinion is to look at the spatter, if you're getting big BBs all over the place and a bunch of spatter you have to chisel off you're not set right for short circuit, the spatter should be relatively light and fairly easy to remove and you shouldn't be running for full welding leathers. If if the spatter is burning right through your cloth sleeves or welding jacket and making you constantly flinch It's probably not set right.
Once you know exactly what short circuit sounds like, you can set it via that, but just describing the sound leaves things up to a LOT of personal interpretation in my opinion.
Thank you for that information, your reply makes a lot of sense and is very much appreciated.
