Welding Tips and Tricks

hey guys, iv been searching and reading the sight for about a month on and off just reading what people had to say and was content with that. but today i purchased a lincoln weld pak 100 from a guy (it has the gas conversion done)
and when i tried to weld the wire would feed and there would be a really week arc
not even hot enough to make a bead really.
it would just spit and pop and if you could get a 1/2 inch of a bead it would just lay on top of the metal i was welding on.
after spitten and sputtering on a 6x6 peice of metal the metal itself was kinda warm but a guy could almost pick it up bare handed
and the weld had no penatration. i tried all of the heat settings and none really made a difference at all
a-c anyways and d seemed to have a little more pep but still not enough to make a difference in the weld
with the purchase of the welder i did get a full bottle of co2.
i tried changing the polarity as the diagram shows on the flip lid and still no difference
iv been welding for about 18 years as a hobbyist and have run many differant machines.
never had this problem.
any help,advice,tips, tricks whatever would be great, thanks
i would return the welder to the guy and get my money back and he even agreed he would do it that way but its a 4 hr drive round trip plus cost of gas so not really an option at this point.
thanks

ok, a few thoughts:

are you getting a solid ground (ground clamp to workpiece, cable to ground clamp, ground clamp contacts)?
are you using straight CO2 or 75/25 CO2/Argon?
are you plugged into an extension cord, or straight into the wall?
are you using the correct drive roll for the wire you have?
is the drive roll loose or way over-tight?

what are you welding to? a 100A welder will have trouble with anything over .100" or so (10ga)

if this machine is anything like it's older lincoln 115 100a welder cousin (I don't remember the model. it's a friends mig unit) you'll need to turn the voltage up a lot hotter than the sheet on the machine tells you to. If i remember right, I just stuck the voltage up to 1 letter below max and adjusted the wire speed to where I needed. it was about right for 16ga cold rolled and a little cold for anything heavier, but it would still burn in if you went a little slow.

ground connected directly to the piece
at the furthest distance away 6" from wire
only c02
straight to wall
its clean steel, id say 1/8 material
but material shouldnt matter with my problems
if the metal was too thick it would still penetrate the metal
just not all the way
drive and wheel is fine
i have the same exact welder but set up as flux and i can burn a hole right threw the metal in a heartbeat w/o being on the highest heat setting

well, my experience has been that the older 100a 115v mig welders won't penetrate on 1/8" without turning the voltage up and backing the wire speed down a bit.

i understand about being thick metal and penetration.
but im not getting any.
i could scrape the welds off the metal with a putty knife
setting a 19.6 volts
b 22.4
c 25.8
d 29.5
the readings i got were not all that much different than my flux core welder so i cant imagine that is the problem.
the measurements were taken from the ground clamp and the wire itself from the gun.
i personally thought that maybe using straight c02 it was cooling the wire,metal,weld too fast to work right
but even with the co2 off it made no differance in the weld.

if you are using an extension cord, get rid of it and try pluging directly to the outlet in the wall. its a common problem with these units

interesting... can you take a picture of a bead? also, if you have some thinner stock, humor me and see if you can blow a hole in it. this should be no problem on 18ga, even with a little 100a 115v welder.

ill work on getting a picture for you.

with my flux core on the lowest setting i can easily blow a hole in thick wall exhaust tube (which should be really close to 18 ga)
with the gas version still no change from the last test other than it did stick to the metal a little bit more but still just kinda balled up
and what not.

that's really strange... i guess, one thing you could do to really check the machine would be to switch the gun, drive rollers, and wire over from your flux core welder and make sure it will weld flux core normally. if it still acts funny, the welder is probably toast, or at least in need of service.

you said, though, that the wire is balling up? that might be a bad ground. it's a bit of a long shot, but you might try taking the ground clamp off the cable, cleaning the strands, and re-attaching it. there might be some corrosion in there that's preventing you from getting a good ground.

I'm starting to run out of gotcha's, though...

good luck!

i was thinking the same.
except i wonder if it might be easier/smarter to just install the solid wire nozzle and solid wire along with the gas solenoid
to my flux machine that way if it does work then i just use it and screw the other one, lol
for the time being anyway.

i was going to check the ground before i did all the switching just in case but even a bad/poor ground will give atleast a
decent/powerful pop once in a while

i hope its the ground though, all other options would get costly fast,
thanks for the help

Check the gun.. Sounds to me like it's dirty. Change the tip and put a fresh one on it. Over time they get worn out (egg shaped inside) and don't make good contact with the wire. The result is exactly what you're describing.

this might sound dumb but what does poor contact with the tip of the gun and the wire have to do with anything ??
i understand/know about the dirty part and that they do get worn out.
the volt readings that i supplied in previous post are taken both from the wheel area and from the gun end
there was maybe a .10 v differance from one end to the other. not much at all

It's not a dumb question, voltage and current are inversley proportionate. If the tip is dirty or mishapped its not making good contact with the wire and will not be able to carry the current. From what I've experienced, the weld starts looking bad or just lays on top with no penetration. Your description of cranking up the current not making any difference tells me one of two things: 1. The machine is faulty and just not producing the required current or 2. The gun tip is fouled/faulty and not carrying the current to the wire. It's just a SWAG but I didn't see anywhere in your posts that you had checked it so I thought I'd mention it.

Steve

still no change in the machine.
how would i check how many amps the machine is putting out on each setting ?
the only reason i ask is because a car battery can have 12 volts but no amps so it will
not start a vehicle but work great to run your ice fishing lights for a while
and i assume that the welder runs amps as well ?
all my other welders say amps or volts on the front but this one says nothing.
thanks

wire speed=amperage, the other knob is voltage. if you have an inductive current meter, you can measure the current through the ground cable, otherwise you can't really measure it output amps.

thanks for all the help guys

well, i got it working.
all it took was me to bring it in the house to the 3rd story and open the window and said if you decide not to work ill throw you out.
tada it works.
jw

i put a new liner in,new tip,took the ground clamp/wire all arpart and wire wheeled it all shiney and put on a new nut and clamp
some new wire, cleaned the nozzel and now she works

J_68 wrote:well, i got it working.
all it took was me to bring it in the house to the 3rd story and open the window and said if you decide not to work ill throw you out.
tada it works.
jw

i put a new liner in,new tip,took the ground clamp/wire all arpart and wire wheeled it all shiney and put on a new nut and clamp
some new wire, cleaned the nozzel and now she works

Great news, probably saved you a divit in the driveway too>

im glad it works but dummy me didnt do one at a time to figure out what was really wrong and just fixed it all at once.
now ill never know.

now for the next task.

1. i am looking to weld some alum. what type of gas do i use ?
2. can you weld alum with a flux welder ? and how ?

Have you checked to make sure you are using the correct tip size for the wire you are feeding?

Have you checked to make sure you are using the correct tip size for the wire you are feeding?