[Michaelray]

Hate to sound stupid but I was used to welding with a hobart ironman 210 with solid .030 and 75/25 gas.. now i traded for a shopmaster 300 with a S22a wire feeder and .035 wire. Works great anything around 1/8 or thicker but I work at an auto repair shop and 90% of my welds are on exhaust or door hinges.. keep burning through or sticking my wire in the tip. Would smaller wire help or do I need a smaller machine? Any help would be greatly appreciated

[VincenzioVonHook]

The 0.9mm wire operates (in general) from 70-260 Amps, 0.8mm from 50-180 and the 0.6mm wires work from around 30 amps up to 110 or so. If you are doing a lot of thin steel (for example exhaust and panel work) it will be beneficial to run 0.6 or 0.8mm wire.

What is the minimum output of the machine? If you are doing a lot of panel work, or exhaust work you will need to run as low as 25-35 Amps for panel and around 60-100A for exhaust work (depending on thickness, believe it or not i welded up a few exhaust sytems for older rx7's and they had 2.5mm tubing!!!!)

[Michaelray]

Not sure about minimum output, I'll check but I'm just guessing it's able to go down to 20 or 30 amps..I'll pick up some new tips and both smaller sizes and do some tests. When it's running the .035 my power control is around 1/3 of the way up so I have plenty of room to turn it down. Just when I turn it down the wire starts sticking and the weld looks awful. Seems to tach pretty good on a lower setting though

[Michaelray]

Must have been a bad roll of wire. Went to a real welding supplier and bought .023 , .030 , and .035. Welds great with all 3 sizes. Seems like the .023 is a little easier to do the exhaust with but with a better brand of wire all 3 work pretty well. Thanks for the help