New to the forum, so hello all round, and I'd appreciate any advice.
Slightly long explanation but anyway:
I'm trying to sort out a t25 camper which needs a fair amount of welding.
I'm lucky that on most weekends I can use a friends workshop - he has a couple of 3 phase welders (AGA 200 and an Arc-Tec) which I can use on the camper. I'm not claiming to be a master welder (far from it) but with either of those welders I can produce a reasonable weld across a range of different thickness steel. (They are probably more forgiving than a hobby welder might be).
However I am running out of time to get the camper finished so I am going to have to do some at home during the week. I have an ancient SIP migmate 130turbo (steel liner and brace on the wire feed mod) which I can get a pretty reasonable weld out of when welding 1-2mm mild steel.
I need to be able to weld thicker stuff than I can manage on the SIP, so having read around this forum I've bought a new clarke 151EN as being a decent home welder that should realistically be able to weld say 3-4mm.
I am really struggling to get anywhere with it. I am welding it using gas, with 0.6 mm wire and tip. Regulator and disposable CO2 bottle is taken from the SIP. Polarity is correct for gas (ie -ve earth). The wire spool tensioner is backed off to the point the spool just starts to unwind itself, the drive roller is set to use the smaller groove and it is tensioned just enough to give a consistent feed. Gas is coming out of the shroud ok, regulator is near max and the welds don't look porous so I assume the flow rate is ok.
The problems I seem to get are poor penetration, splatter and it always feels like the wire feed is pushing slightly - no matter if I increase the power or how far I back off the feed rate to compensate (even to the point the wire is virtually not feeding at all). I'm welding on 1-1.2mm steel and have played with the power and wire feed settings for a few hours but I can't get it correct. I just can't quite get to the 'sizzle' noise stage
The torch is held at the same angle and distance as I normally do.
Apart from buying a bottle of CO2/argon mix in the hope that might improve things I'm stuck for ideas. Any thoughts on what I am doing wrong? Technique? Wire feed setup? Other?
Many thanks
Slightly long explanation but anyway:
I'm trying to sort out a t25 camper which needs a fair amount of welding.
I'm lucky that on most weekends I can use a friends workshop - he has a couple of 3 phase welders (AGA 200 and an Arc-Tec) which I can use on the camper. I'm not claiming to be a master welder (far from it) but with either of those welders I can produce a reasonable weld across a range of different thickness steel. (They are probably more forgiving than a hobby welder might be).
However I am running out of time to get the camper finished so I am going to have to do some at home during the week. I have an ancient SIP migmate 130turbo (steel liner and brace on the wire feed mod) which I can get a pretty reasonable weld out of when welding 1-2mm mild steel.
I need to be able to weld thicker stuff than I can manage on the SIP, so having read around this forum I've bought a new clarke 151EN as being a decent home welder that should realistically be able to weld say 3-4mm.
I am really struggling to get anywhere with it. I am welding it using gas, with 0.6 mm wire and tip. Regulator and disposable CO2 bottle is taken from the SIP. Polarity is correct for gas (ie -ve earth). The wire spool tensioner is backed off to the point the spool just starts to unwind itself, the drive roller is set to use the smaller groove and it is tensioned just enough to give a consistent feed. Gas is coming out of the shroud ok, regulator is near max and the welds don't look porous so I assume the flow rate is ok.
The problems I seem to get are poor penetration, splatter and it always feels like the wire feed is pushing slightly - no matter if I increase the power or how far I back off the feed rate to compensate (even to the point the wire is virtually not feeding at all). I'm welding on 1-1.2mm steel and have played with the power and wire feed settings for a few hours but I can't get it correct. I just can't quite get to the 'sizzle' noise stage

Apart from buying a bottle of CO2/argon mix in the hope that might improve things I'm stuck for ideas. Any thoughts on what I am doing wrong? Technique? Wire feed setup? Other?
Many thanks