I recently bought a Lincoln 180C to replace my old Clarke gas free mig. I'd had enough spending most of my time playing around with the drive roller so it fed properly, it ended up with bits of plastic to apply just enough pressure. So I spent a pile of money on a Lincoln in the hope of my feed problems will be in the past, last weekend I had to reload the wire 5 times in the space of 3 hours because of feeding problems, a waste of time and costly wire.
The first problem is that the wire would stop coming out of the gun even though the drive roller was still 'pushing' the 0.8mm flux cored wire through, it was slipping. I noticed that if I up held the gun up into the air the wire would start coming through again, not much help when I was welding down onto a table. My first thought was to tighten up the drive roller clamp. I done this a couple of times until I noticed the wire wasn't coming through again but instead of the wire slipping, it was still pushing it out but not into the liner, it was wrapping the wire around the wheel resulting in a tangle of wasted wire in the welders case. This happened throughout the morning, slipping, tangle, slipping and so on. When it got into a tangle, it was like the wire was getting stuck in the liner so the drive roller couldn't feed it through anymore. I've taken the gun apart, the nozzle is 0.8mm like the wire, the nozzle was also new, it didn't look mangled in any way. When I pull the wire out after its wrapped itself around the drive roller, the wire comes out easily enough. I'm all a loss as to what I'm doing wrong as I'm sure the welder can't be at fault, not a Lincoln.
I tried to make the pipework from the welder to the gun as straight as possible in case this was the problem, no change.
Why does it work when the gun it held high, change of angle?
Should the liner be lubricated with something to help the wire travel through it?
Could this have anything to do with the wire spool, being too tight on its mount? It seems to spin easily enough when I'm feeding the wire through the rollers and the liner.
Any advice to help this rather demoralize learner?
Cheers
The first problem is that the wire would stop coming out of the gun even though the drive roller was still 'pushing' the 0.8mm flux cored wire through, it was slipping. I noticed that if I up held the gun up into the air the wire would start coming through again, not much help when I was welding down onto a table. My first thought was to tighten up the drive roller clamp. I done this a couple of times until I noticed the wire wasn't coming through again but instead of the wire slipping, it was still pushing it out but not into the liner, it was wrapping the wire around the wheel resulting in a tangle of wasted wire in the welders case. This happened throughout the morning, slipping, tangle, slipping and so on. When it got into a tangle, it was like the wire was getting stuck in the liner so the drive roller couldn't feed it through anymore. I've taken the gun apart, the nozzle is 0.8mm like the wire, the nozzle was also new, it didn't look mangled in any way. When I pull the wire out after its wrapped itself around the drive roller, the wire comes out easily enough. I'm all a loss as to what I'm doing wrong as I'm sure the welder can't be at fault, not a Lincoln.
I tried to make the pipework from the welder to the gun as straight as possible in case this was the problem, no change.
Why does it work when the gun it held high, change of angle?
Should the liner be lubricated with something to help the wire travel through it?
Could this have anything to do with the wire spool, being too tight on its mount? It seems to spin easily enough when I'm feeding the wire through the rollers and the liner.
Any advice to help this rather demoralize learner?
Cheers