Welding Tips and Tricks

Good afternoon,

I have a new Everlast i-Mig 275P. Haven't been able to get a good bead out of it yet - it's been a long time (30 years) since I used a mig welder, so I decided to sit down and read all 55 pages of the manual. I had been doing everything pretty much the right way, but the wire kept burning back and fusing with the tip. Eventually my suspicion turned from "clueless operator" to inadequate wire speed. I checked the actual wire speed coming out of the gun vs. the input settings, and here's what I found:

Setting (IPM) Actual (IPM)
60 80
80 80
100 80
132 80
200 120
300 180
400 235
500 290
600 355

While the actual wire speeds are consistent (I tested output for each of those settings 3 times), they are not even close to the input settings. It seems that the feed motor can't turn slower than what delivers 80 IPM. After the input setting goes above 130 IPM there is consistent ratio of Actual IPM vs. Setting of approximately 0.6. Has anyone experienced anything like this with an Everlast or other brand mig machine? Thanks for any suggestions or advice!

I'll be reaching out to their tech support first thing on Monday.

Without seeing a wire diagram for your machine I can’t say for sure, but my guess would be that the drive motor is dc voltage, and that your power rectifier that’s creating the dc control voltage is bad, or that there are some bad potentiometers, either on the knob for adjusting wire speed, or on a control board if it’s digital control.

Thanks, Poland. I agree - without the wiring diagram there is little for me to test. The displays are all digital, with contact buttons or encoder dials for controls. After I posted, I found this bit in the manual:

9) Slow Run-in of Wire. This feature improves arc striking quality in MIG modes by helping prevent arc stuttering (machine gunning) and push-off during arc initiation by slowing the wire speed until the arc is established. Note: This feature does prevent the user from taking accurate measurements of wire feed speed manually as the wire will feed slower until the arc is struck and maintained. This is not an adjustable feature on the Power i-MIG 275P and cannot be deactivated.

Doesn't make sense if the low-end is supposed to be 60 IPM and it starts at 80 IPM regardless. I also tested the open circuit voltage between the contact tip and ground. It reads 71 volts regardless of the input setting - if this weren't an inverter welder, I'd know that's wrong... not so sure about this new (to me) tech.

Is it new enough to send it in under warranty.