Welding Tips and Tricks

Living in Wisconsin has its downfalls sometimes and I have a quick question. Yesterday the temp dropped to 35F and all of a sudden my welder wire speed got erratic. I had to increase and tighten the roller pressure to get it to feed and weld good. I also had to increase the heat for the 1/8 material I was welding. I am using an eastwood 175 with .030 lincoln wire.
Is this normal? t wasn't a great increase, like 1 setting. The unit is a transformer unit if that would mean anything.
Thanks in adavance for answers and have a safe Thanksgiving.

I've never had that happen but metal contracts and expands just like everything else. You may have had your drive rollers tightened to the bare minimum of what works and when everything got cold, both the drive rollers and the wire contracted leaving room for slippage.
Preheating base metal with a torch can help as well.
Look at it like this. In high tech parts manufacturing facilities making things like NASCAR engine parts, climate control is critical. I read an article about one of these facilities where the air temperature and cutting tool coolant temperature were precisely maintained at a constant of 68 degrees. If either the climate or coolant temperatures ever varied by more than plus or minus 1 degree from that 68 degree baseline then production would stop and the part would be scrapped. That translates to only a few hundred thousandths differential in part geometry but it was enough to throw everything out of balance when things have to be dead nuts precision.
This is likely what you just experienced but on a much larger scale.

your absolutely correct. In further checking my wire was NOT in the roller groove, once I corrected that and reset the tension all was good.
Thanks for the response.
Phil

Cold base metal temps will make a huge difference. Recomended preheat even on mild steel is 50 deg f. I live in Iowa and if it's cold or really windy you may easily run 20-30 amps higher than normal with a stick welder. Tig and mig are subject to the same temp issues. If your not preheating with some other source then the heat has to come from your arc.

gooch410 wrote:your absolutely correct. In further checking my wire was NOT in the roller groove, once I corrected that and reset the tension all was good.
Thanks for the response.
Phil

if you dont already get your self something that will heat mettal easy.. i work with a cheap ass http://www.harborfreight.com/welding/we ... 91899.html hooked up to a 20lbs cylinder, works good for warming up something before you weld it..

my reply has nuthing to do with the welder but yet how much metal expands.im building a pipe fence around 40 acres latlely it's been in the 40's when i start. im making it out of drill pipe and the owner doesn't want any screw tie ends so i have to cut both ends and insert a piece of pipe.the pipe is already tacked up on the poles so this leaves me with a 2' gap.well i cut the pipe out and bevel it then i clamp on my angle iron so theres no doglegs now i take a measurement of the insert then go lay out my piece to cut and put in it. it takes me roughly about 15 minutes to cut and bevel the insert pipe by the time i get it cut and try to put it in the gap has closed up 3/8ths of an inch. this will keep happening til lunch time then the oposite starts to happen the gap starts to open up before i can get new piece in.now in the summer time it does nuthing as long as the temps stay 70 and above.if you look at the femce in the morning it looks like a snake come back and take another look at noon and it's striaght i told the customer we need to stretch the fence at the warmest part of the day and put in cross suports at all the corners but he doesn't want to so i guess he will have a forever changing fence.

What size pipe and schedule? I can look in the book