Hello everyone, I'm having a small issue with my new welder... It's a Millermatic 140, got it for christmas from my wife, and just used it for the first time (aside from the odd little weld here and there) quite heavily on Wednesday this past week. I was welding some fairly heavy material using Flux Cored 0.030 wire. I've got the polarity set up as per the manual and have the voltage dialed up to the max because of the heavy material we're welding. It welds VERY nice, the small issue I'm having is that it seems like I'm not getting hardly any life out of my welding tips, sometimes after only 2 or 3 long welds they grab the wire and that's it, she's stuck. Swap out the tip and away we go again. Short welds are no problem, it'll weld all day long. Am I using too light of a wire and tip for this amperage? What am I doing wrong? I can step up to 0.035 wire on this welder I'm pretty sure, would that help? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Are you sure you have .030 tips for the .030 wire? if you use .035 tips with the .030 wire the tips will not last at all... I accidentally ran a few that way once as they were in the wrong box... was driving me nuts until I finally noticed the stamping on them.
With that setup you should be running about half an inch of wire between the end of the tip and the arc for cooling the tip. Also leave your gas nozzle off the gun, if Im using flux core wire without gas I normally use a cut down gas nozzle that just protects the diffuser but leaves the contact tip exposed, again for cooling. The best answer is a dedicated flux core gun though Im not sure anybody makes one for a small machine like yours. When I use big stuff (.045- 5/64) I stick with a regular flux core gun. Hope my 2 cents helps.
Thanks for the tips guys! Yes, I am definitely using 0.030 tips, that was my first suspicion as well that I had wrong tips... RZucker, I was running between 1/4 and 3/8 inch between the tip and the arc, and I did have the gas nozzle on there to protect the diffuser, I'll try it without and see if that helps. I don't know if they make a dedicated gun like you say, I'll have to look into that! Thanks for the help so far, I really appreciate it!
When I worked in a fab shop, we swore by tip dip, nozzle gel, nozzle jelly, whatever you want to call it. We did alot of heavy fabrications, and that was always something that we used before striking an arc. Plunge the whole tip of the gun in, weld away. keeps alot of the spatter and buildup out of the tip. Good help at $5 a jar
Ditto on the nozzle gel and tip selection.
I did run alot of flux core and something i found was if you got the tip hot and stoped then trigered it/ pulled the triger for a second and let off it would stick every time.It was all in the way you started. Over time it got better as i got better at welding with it. Can you get the stuck wire out of the tip by cuting it real short and taping the wire on something? I didnt like it because if it stuck and you fixed it you were ok but if you pulled the triger agin it would bird nest. But over time i learned to like it and it was great. The place i was working at just started up and no one know or would tell you what was going on. It made a for a very long day sometimes.
Thanks for all the tips guys! I'm gonna track down some tip dip stuff for sure! I'm all done my current project but have more coming up so I'll be sure to put all your tips to work! Cheers and thanks again!!! Toby
I have experienced something similar but with the gas shield. The wire speed was to slow allowing the wire to melt in the tip, I sped up the feed up a little at a time to get the arc a little further from the tip. The wire would turn red up the to the tip, and molten metal will stop up the tip quick. Yea what they said about the nozzle gel.
Just my 2 cents. I have never liked nozzle gel for Fluxcore guns, instead I use a good anti spatter spray like the Welco stuff, and a light coat at that. The goo just seems to attract all the bad junk.
Tips and dips. Especially the dip gel.
Thanks guys! Next time I play with it I'll try the suggestions and see what happens!
One other thing that hasnt' been mentioned; Different brands (manufactures) of wire behave differently. Some stick much more than others. I was stuck with a large amount of 'sticky' wire, once. Some wire is (new, as-made) a lot more dirty than other wire. There are cleaning thingies that slip on the wire, between the wire spool and the wire guide of the feeder, split cylinders of felt that you put solvent on to clean the wire. It sounds stupid, but it does work, when you need it.
Something else to look for is a flux cored nozzle the gun on your Miller is identical to the hobarts sold at most farm/ranch stores and Hobart has a new nozzle that slides on in place of you copper one here is a link to the one at rural king our local store but you can look at the part# and find one at your local store http://www.ruralking.com/hobart-fluxed-cored-nozzle-770487.html Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk
Just a trick try pushing the weld puddle especially if you're welding material that is a little dirty. Use a steep angle, close to vertical to get good penetraiton into the material while blowing contaminates out.