Welding Tips and Tricks

Hi guys,

New guy here & have been looking to find someone that might have some advise on my Miller 175 poor wire feed. I don't get a smooth consistant feed. I'm using a lincoln flux core wire. The machine welds fine except at times the wire advances in fits and spurts. The wire is lubed as it enters the rollers and the tension on the rollers is fairly tight. The machine is at least 10 years old and not heavely used, a few hours a week at the most. Don't want to go out and change parts for the sake of changing parts. Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

Guess that I should mentiion that the machine is a Millermatic 175.

I had a similar problem with the wire speed on my spool gun, it would run ok for a minute and then it would run flat out or start pulseing, turned out to be a faulty speed controller pot. Just an idea

ogfrmpa,
Welcome to the forum! The first thing to pop into my mind reading your post was, why are you lubing your wire? Generally, you do not need to lube wire, especially flux cored wire but maybe there is something I don't know. As for the wire feeding issue, are you sure it is something wrong with the machine and not something else like a bad tip causing the wire to not feed correctly due to buildup or something?
-Jonathan

Over tightening the drive rolls may be causing your problem. Tubular wire does not respond well to tight drive rolls. The extra tension can smash or collapse the tube, making your wire anything but round and causing the wire to stop feeding properly through the contact tip. Loosen them up to like 3 or so on the machine. Take the gun off (except for trigger connection) and feed wire. If it still feeds rough, the problem is in the motor / gears. If it feeds good without the gun, chances are you need a new liner, you have goop somewhere in the diffuser, or you are using the incorrect size contact tip.

Like Jon said, the lube is not necessary. A good running system should not need it - and if you think you need it it's because something is wrong and should be addressed with the feed system.

Let us know how it turns out!

If it's flux core, get some knurled rollers to replace the smooth ones. That will aid the feeding

Replace the tip. A tip can look good but they tend to accumulate crap off the surface of the wire. That will be a quick and easy fix if that is the problem.