Welding Tips and Tricks

Hi all- new member/new welder here. I have been immersing myself in Jody's videos, reading the site and the forum, listening to the podcasts, etc. I also do have Tig Finger so I have been, in a small way, supporting the commercial side as well

Here's my question- I have a Handler 210 with the tapped voltage dial. I know Jody has used the same machine- I am currently measuring the wire speed and creating a chart for my machine, but I don't really have a way to measure the voltage, which would be helpful for using the miller calculator, etc as a starting point. I know I need to train myself to set the voltage by feel, but wondered if Jody has published the voltages that correspond to the taps on the 210 specifically. Thanks!

JP

JP,

I have the same machine and I have been thinking about doing the same thing, but I haven't had time to get to it yet. If you are willing to share your wire feed info, I will try to get the voltage data this week. Being married to an electrical engineer has its advantages. Give me a few days and I will see what I can come up with.

R.J.

Slacken drive roller tension so you get no wire feed - pull the trigger with a volt meter ( set on DC with a range that will show accurate readings up to say 40volts ) between any hot part of the torch / wire feed & earth - simple's !

noddybrian wrote:Slacken drive roller tension so you get no wire feed - pull the trigger with a volt meter ( set on DC with a range that will show accurate readings up to say 40volts ) between any hot part of the torch / wire feed & earth - simple's !

I think that only gives OCV - open circuit voltage. I've been running some tests on my recently acquired machine (Hobart Beta Mig 200) and have been checking each tap by welding a spot on a piece of scrap (little tricky to hold an arc while looking away) and watching the voltmeter. Then adjusting wire feed speed to get a range of voltage that tap roughly gives through its range.

Why not just use the door chart? I have the millermatic 210 and the chart is very, very close.

But if you just feel like doing it, you have to hook up your volt meter and measure the volts while welding.

MinnesotaDave wrote:Why not just use the door chart? I have the millermatic 210 and the chart is very, very close.

But if you just feel like doing it, you have to hook up your volt meter and measure the volts while welding.

The big reason is for learning- in watching a number of the vidos, settings are referred to in wirespeed and volts. The door chart, while good, does not give a lot of specifics and is hard to correlate to a numerical value. Not necessarily required, but valuable-

The "door chart" on my 8vs only lists values for flux core and dual shield at over .045 wires, in Trimark triple7 wire, and Fabshield@ 21B. (???)... pretty useless for me, running it in cc off my miller aead, or off the hobart beta mig I got cheap to use as a power source.
Guess I'm just so used to stick, where 130 amps is 130 amps, on whatever stick box I use.
Sure, I can twidle knobs to make it run, but I would kinda like to have a better idea where the actual voltage/wfs/amps are at. A little checking with a DC clamp meter, volt meter and tape measure has given me more info than the door charts and guessing has.
Meters on the 8vs woulda been nice, but I didnt pass at the price I got it for.
Checking voltage running it in cc on the legend has helped me dial it in for spray transfer a lot, lovin it.
And adding the hobart beta mig (that I only use as a CV power source) gives me up to about 20 volts 150 amps cv with full duty cycle for short circuit, with the portability of the 8vs, works nice for my shop.