Welding Tips and Tricks

I run a few different mig setups at work, but I never did spray transfer until I started this job 3 months ago. Anyway running the big welder with .052 Fabcor edge at 29V I get a nice quiet little tapered jet of metal with hardly any spatter, but with the Millermatic 252 and .035 solid wire I cannot get it to settle down and not spatter excessively. Well it will act like I want if I go at a really high drag angle and travel speed, but It's not something that makes an acceptable weld. I'm running C10 gas on both machines. I swear I had it running perfect at 25V and 420ipm months ago, so that is usually where I keep the machine at, but today I was a bit sick of the spatter so I cranked it up to the max 29.5 volts and was surprised to find that it made absolutely no difference. Then I turned it down to 19 volts before things started to get worse. So I went back to 25 Volts and started turning down the speed. Somewhere in the mid 300s I got to the sound I wanted and no spatter, but the metal I was laying down was wondering around and I think half of it was just vaporizing. I'm not sure what is going on, but it seems like with the big wire I'm actually pushing the puddle out of the way, and with the little wire it's going right into it's own puddle and causing it to spatter. That's the only way I can explain why it behaves better with a bigger angle and faster travel speed.

So today I tried going back to 29.5V and decreasing the wire speed from there. Below about 375 I got pretty close to what I was after. The Lincoln parameters app says I should be able to spray at 25V and 390ipm, which is not even close.

I'd try a push instead of drag, Spray transfer works best with a slight push angle.

.035 usually started to spray at about 24.5v and 375ipm, about an inch ctwd. Maybe make sure that the tip isn't recessed and giving you a little too much ctwd.

Maybe there is something wrong with that welder, because it won't spray at 25V. My ctwd could be too low but definitely not too high.

What are you working on with the smaller machine? Cuz I've had a similar issue before and figured out it was my ground... If not that I would check gun consumables and gas flow. Make sure all gas lines to, inside, and from the machine are clean and not kinked. Check gun liner and torch consumables, possibly trim nozzle back a little. After that I'm not sure... Some times the flowmeter or regulator will give a bad reading....

One thing that you need to take into account is that the 0.035 wire is a smaller conductor than the wire you previously mentioned. That will effect your welding. We did a test once and even with the settings higher than .045 we couldn't get the same amps across the arc with 0.035 on the same machine.

Has anything varied electrically? New introduction(s) of draw on ,new source of ?