Clarke 151EN problems

[bloke]

Afternoon all,

I am in the process of constructing a fire pit from 3mm mild steel and 2mm mild steel. All was going well until today, the settings are where they were from the other day. However, the welds today look more like pigeon poop then welds. The gas (argon/CO2) is fine. The earth clamp is good.

When I weld the wire 0.8 it either burns off and splatters or does not want to hold any arc at all. I have checked that there is a good earth connection on clean metal. I have tried to reset the wire speed and power again and do practice beads but cannot for the life of me get it right. I have a 32amp supply so no probs there. Any suggestions? Apart from get a Portamig

 

[keith19]

Just a thought, this steel you're using isn't galvanised at all, is it? Even a trace of galv can play havoc with a mig. There only needs to be galv on one side of the metal joint to fubar the weld.

Have you run practice beads on a bit of scrap of same thickness but different lot of metal? Always a useful test to see if the job metal may be at fault.

Can you reset the mig using this method?

PS: I think we are going to get moved to the Clarke section anytime soon...

 

[bloke]

Reset

Many thanks,

I actually watched that vid earlier but the Clarke still played up. The practice piece was a cut off from the work piece. Cleaned up with no other contaminates like galv etc. I hoovered the mig out just in case dust was interfering with the process but to no avail. My only thoughts now is it may be duff wire, its been in the machine for nearly 18 months. I will give it a go with flux core and see if there is any major difference.

 

[bloke]

Change of wire

Changed the wire to flux cored, disconnected the gas and had the mig sizzling like a good'n. whether it was the wire or a gas problem, (welding gas) but seems sorted. think I'll keep the 151 for flux cored and the new ESAB Caddy for gas. Esab should be here tomorrow

 

[waldershelf]

Did you have the polarity the right way round? If you have the polarity set for gasless and try to weld with gas it will not work, pigeon poo and splatter will be the order of the day. Ask me how I know this