Arc jumping?

[steve202]

Hello

What causes the arc to jump from one piece to the other? Had a pig of a time trying to get around this problem on a simple car body patch. An adjustment of the controls usually gets rid of it, but i couldnt get it sorted. It was spray arcing and blowing too. I was using my new to me SIP 120 ideal mig so it may have been my unfamiliarity with the machine but when i tried it out prior to this job i got it running mint and i was very pleased with the welds. A bit pee'd off now to be honest.

 

[wyn]

That sounds like an earth problem.
If you earthed to the car but were starting the weld on the patch that sort of thing would happen......did it stop once the two bits were joined?

 

[steve202]

Hi Wyn, i think you could be right about the earthing. Yes it got controllable to a certain degree after i managed a run of sorts. It was as if i needed an intermediate setting on the power also. I won't put me boot through it just yet.


EDIT. Using Argon/co2