Welding Tips and Tricks

My Miller 175 is 20+ years old. I am in the market for a new MIG machine.

I build and modify drag races cars using mild steel tubing in the range of .065" - .140" thickness and mild steel plate up to 3/16. Which new MIG machine is a good fit for my needs?

I expect to run .023 and .030 wire

Google is your friend.
Lincoln, Miller etc will have various options.
Depending on your power supply available, Gas or flux core, spray or short circuit, ability or need to do aluminium alloy, degree of portability, which type of mig gun, ability to do scratch tig on steel etc, warrenty and parts/repair/service backup and finally cost.
Start from there, have fun shopping.

one feature i would be looking for is pulse mig.
being able to do weld thin material with larger wire sizes.

tweake wrote:one feature i would be looking for is pulse mig.
being able to do weld thin material with larger wire sizes.

I've never had pulse mig work for me on thinner stuff. Anything under .125 its usually too hot of an arc it blows through pretty much instantly.

1/4" and up I use it all the time tho. Definitely a feature I'd want on a new mig machine

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JayWal wrote:

tweake wrote:one feature i would be looking for is pulse mig.
being able to do weld thin material with larger wire sizes.

I've never had pulse mig work for me on thinner stuff. Anything under .125 its usually too hot of an arc it blows through pretty much instantly.

1/4" and up I use it all the time tho. Definitely a feature I'd want on a new mig machine

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that sounds completely back woulds. pulse require substantial amps. which is great if your machine doesn't go low enough.

Pulse mig is essentially a modified spray transfer, good for a hot and fast weld. If you turn the trim/arc length down far enough it might work on thinner stuff I guess, tho I doubt it. I've not played with it a whole lot on thin, short arc works better for me.

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JayWal wrote:Pulse mig is essentially a modified spray transfer, good for a hot and fast weld. If you turn the trim/arc length down far enough it might work on thinner stuff I guess, tho I doubt it. I've not played with it a whole lot on thin, short arc works better for me.

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i've used it on 2mm aluminium which is the largest setting on my 180 amp machine. it goes down to sub 1mm material. and thats with using a 1mm wire.

another machine i've used has settings to use pulse for steel and stainless, tho yet to use it for that.

tweake wrote:that sounds completely back woulds. pulse require substantial amps. which is great if your machine doesn't go low enough.

but it only requires so on the actual pulse side of the waveform. The base is where it "cools off" a little bit.

Jaywal, It's no more "hotter" than say using pulse on TIG. Pulse on TIG lowers the heat input, while still having the the penetration profile of the hotter setting to some extent. Turned up too high, pulse TIG can blow a part apart; same with pulse mig if' it's not dialed in correctly. Pulse MIG can be tailored to do the same thing all the way down to the limits of the machine.

Oscar wrote:

tweake wrote:that sounds completely back woulds. pulse require substantial amps. which is great if your machine doesn't go low enough.

but it only requires so on the actual pulse side of the waveform. The base is where it "cools off" a little bit.

Jaywal, It's no more "hotter" than say using pulse on TIG. Pulse on TIG lowers the heat input, while still having the the penetration profile of the hotter setting to some extent. Turned up too high, pulse TIG can blow a part apart; same with pulse mig if' it's not dialed in correctly. Pulse MIG can be tailored to do the same thing all the way down to the limits of the machine.

yes, but it still needs the machine to be capable of producing those amps.
eg to run 100 amp pulse is a 200 amp machine maxed out. you can't run 200 amps on pulse as it would need 400 amp machine (complete BS numbers but you get the idea).

same thing with the tig. thin wall stainless i will run higher amps with pulse than i would without. this makes it a bit more controllable for me especially if the machine doesn't run well at low amps.

tweake wrote:

Oscar wrote:

tweake wrote:that sounds completely back woulds. pulse require substantial amps. which is great if your machine doesn't go low enough.

but it only requires so on the actual pulse side of the waveform. The base is where it "cools off" a little bit.

Jaywal, It's no more "hotter" than say using pulse on TIG. Pulse on TIG lowers the heat input, while still having the the penetration profile of the hotter setting to some extent. Turned up too high, pulse TIG can blow a part apart; same with pulse mig if' it's not dialed in correctly. Pulse MIG can be tailored to do the same thing all the way down to the limits of the machine.

yes, but it still needs the machine to be capable of producing those amps.
eg to run 100 amp pulse is a 200 amp machine maxed out. you can't run 200 amps on pulse as it would need 400 amp machine (complete BS numbers but you get the idea).

same thing with the tig. thin wall stainless i will run higher amps with pulse than i would without. this makes it a bit more controllable for me especially if the machine doesn't run well at low amps.

Oh yes, absolutely. Then we were saying the same thing. They definitely need to peak high to produce favorable results. So when you are gonna order a Pro Pulse to NZ? There is a neighbor of yours in the Marshall Islands with HTP!

Oscar wrote:

tweake wrote:that sounds completely back woulds. pulse require substantial amps. which is great if your machine doesn't go low enough.

but it only requires so on the actual pulse side of the waveform. The base is where it "cools off" a little bit.

Jaywal, It's no more "hotter" than say using pulse on TIG. Pulse on TIG lowers the heat input, while still having the the penetration profile of the hotter setting to some extent. Turned up too high, pulse TIG can blow a part apart; same with pulse mig if' it's not dialed in correctly. Pulse MIG can be tailored to do the same thing all the way down to the limits of the machine.

Y'all are talking about pulse on steel, right? GMAW-P? I'm by far no expert I was under the impression pulse mig was similar to spray transfer, except you can run it in all positions, unlike normal spray transfer. I stand corrected then, my bad!

I've never used it on Ally tho. Only mild steel

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JayWal wrote:Y'all are talking about pulse on steel, right? GMAW-P? I'm by far no expert I was under the impression pulse mig was similar to spray transfer, except you can run it in all positions, unlike normal spray transfer. I stand corrected then, my bad!

I've never used it on Ally tho. Only mild steel

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Yea, I think so, lol. You are under the correct impression. Single Pulse MIG constantly switches from spray arc to short circuit over and over, about 100-200 times per second (at least for mild steel it does).

Oscar wrote: So when you are gonna order a Pro Pulse to NZ? There is a neighbor of yours in the Marshall Islands with HTP!

HTP are over priced a bit as are most usa welders.
i think they would be up around EWM on price once its landed here.
i think everlast out of aussie would be substantially cheaper. we simply loose out due to usa currency, plus our market has a lot of euro and asian brands.

Your used to a real welder. Go HTP 2400, Ironman or a 252