Hi,
I'm new to MIG welding. I was doing some welding and got a lot of spatter on my helmet lens recently. I believe the lens is plastic as this was a cheap $50 helmet from Amazon. Is there any way to get the spatter off without damaging the lens or is the spatter melted into the plastic? Thanks
Ick where is your protective outer lens 
. Good thing it was a cheap helmet. Typically you have the auto darkening cartridge itself sandwiched between a inner and outer protective lens. Those lenses are disposables and should be treated as such. I generally try to keep at least 5 outer lenses and 2-3 inner lenses on hand at a time. They're meant to be changed as often as once a week or more depending on the welding process and position. You can keep the same lens in a tig welding helmet for several months if you're not doing a bunch of grinding around it without vision quality deteriorating. Mig welding aluminum or stick welding uphill/overhead with 6010/crappy 7018 and you'll hardly be able to wait to change the lens by the end of the week.
Generally I suggest changing the lens whenever your image quality starts degrading ESPECIALLY the less experienced you are with welding. I've had to mig weld in positions where I was completely blind simply going off muscle memory/experience, but I've lent even just my backup hood to newer students using cheap hoods with the same burnt to hell lens it came with and it made an immediate difference for them.
Probably a little too late for that helmet though.
. Good thing it was a cheap helmet. Typically you have the auto darkening cartridge itself sandwiched between a inner and outer protective lens. Those lenses are disposables and should be treated as such. I generally try to keep at least 5 outer lenses and 2-3 inner lenses on hand at a time. They're meant to be changed as often as once a week or more depending on the welding process and position. You can keep the same lens in a tig welding helmet for several months if you're not doing a bunch of grinding around it without vision quality deteriorating. Mig welding aluminum or stick welding uphill/overhead with 6010/crappy 7018 and you'll hardly be able to wait to change the lens by the end of the week.Generally I suggest changing the lens whenever your image quality starts degrading ESPECIALLY the less experienced you are with welding. I've had to mig weld in positions where I was completely blind simply going off muscle memory/experience, but I've lent even just my backup hood to newer students using cheap hoods with the same burnt to hell lens it came with and it made an immediate difference for them.
Probably a little too late for that helmet though.
The short answer that you don't want to hear is, that autodarkening filter is ruined. Even if you could get the BB's off, the arc light will be refracted by the burn spots, your whole view will be hazy and blurry. Good thing it only cost $50. But lesson learned. You must use the clear inner/outer plastic covers to protect the actual autodarkening filter at all times.
holy crap... yeah, like said above... where's your outer lens???? Oh man, I destroyed my Speedglas awhile back doing that accidentally... I worked in a shop where 95% of my work was TIG, on a bench... no overhead even. Then I got this big project, building these big mild steel structures in the shop's garage (I needed a lot of room, this suckers were like 15 feet long and 6 feet high), so it was all MIG, all day. On day one, I was building and welding pretty quickly, the structures were a pain to move around as they were pretty big, had to use the forklift to move them... so lots of the time I'd be lying on my back doing overhead inches away from my face, or rather, inches from my helmet... And after welding like a demon for a few hours, I totally forgot that I had removed the outer lens from my helmet, as mine was pretty scratched up and when I was bench welding TIG (re: no splatter), I didn't really need it. Yeah, I thought my eyes were getting worse, and then i looked at my helmet. Oh man, I was so pissed... I completely ruined the lens and sensors, they looked like the surface of the moon. Yeah, had to buy a new helmet (using an Optrel Crystal 2.0 now... I loved my 3M Speedglas, but this Optrel is amazing... well, the lens is, there's no comparison... incredible view. Though the headgear leaves much to be desired). Never make that mistake again... a $400 mistake.
can't believe it took me this many years to buy a diamond wheel for my bench grinder... what a difference