Welding Tips and Tricks

First time to use a miller spoolmate 200. When I engage the trigger it runs about 6" of wire slow at first then speeds up. Is that normal? I can not get it to sound like it is spraying (still sounds like frying bacon) Any suggestions? I'm welding very thin aluminum (16ga) 6063. Is this too thin? There is a setting for it on the machine chart. I've tried 4043 and 5356 .035 wire. Am I using the wrong wire? Gun angle?

Is the spool gun on a Millermatic 252?

Just a guess...

The 252 has all sorts of programming parameters that allow you to set pre-flow, initial wire speed (soft start), and many other parameters that can affect your spool-gun welds.

Are you using 100% argon? Or the 75/25 you'd normally use for mild steel?

(You gave few details, so starting at the basics...)

Steve S

It almost sounds like the wire is being held back at the beginning and then it frees up. There's a couple things you can try----make sure the wire pulls freely off the spool. Make sure that it's not looped under another roll in the spool. This can happen sometimes when you load the spool in and the wire loses some of its tension. It happens to me quite a bit with 5356.

Try loosening up the tension on the rollers a little bit, too. You can also try using a tip with a bigger opening than your wire size, like an .045 tip for .035 wire.

The sound with an aluminum spoolgun shouldn't be like frying bacon, it has it's own distinct sound that you'll hear when all the myriad of settings are finally right. Changing the ground clamp to an all brass one will help, so will moving the ground clamp closer to where you're welding.

Hope that helps!

Other Steve