Hi everyone, been frequenting the forum for a while on the build up to finally getting a mig welder. Last week I picked up a used but good condition Clarke 135Te. I am currently running it on the co2 disposable I was given with it but planning to move to the volkzone argoshield deal if its still running soon.
Spent some time today playing with settings and getting myself comfortable with some 1.5mm sheet. I started with Clarke recommendation of 1 Max for 1-2mm sheet and tweaked the wire speed until I got a nice sizzle.
I cut my sheet in half and tacked it back together using the thin sheet technique, I changed the settings multiple times throughout the line of welds which will explain the different looking tacks, elsewhere on the sheet I was just testing different settings.
Here are some pics
From these pictures Im sure you already have things to mention but 3 things that stood out to me were;
1. Balls forming on wire: appeared to get better when I increased the wire speed but occasionally happened
2. The welds seemed pretty sooty to me, I was doing the work outside but there was 0 breeze, I was making sure my gun angle was around 20% from perpendicular at all times.
3. Poor penetration, when I counted to two in my head I was getting close to 0 penetration, but with a count to 3 I was getting a moderate amount. My power setting was fairly high at 1 max, how could i change wire feed to improve this or should I just continue to arc for longer?
I would be over the moon if I could get some pointers, on a plus side I have tried pretty hard to break the sheets in two and failed so I cant be doing too badly
Spent some time today playing with settings and getting myself comfortable with some 1.5mm sheet. I started with Clarke recommendation of 1 Max for 1-2mm sheet and tweaked the wire speed until I got a nice sizzle.
I cut my sheet in half and tacked it back together using the thin sheet technique, I changed the settings multiple times throughout the line of welds which will explain the different looking tacks, elsewhere on the sheet I was just testing different settings.
Here are some pics
From these pictures Im sure you already have things to mention but 3 things that stood out to me were;
1. Balls forming on wire: appeared to get better when I increased the wire speed but occasionally happened
2. The welds seemed pretty sooty to me, I was doing the work outside but there was 0 breeze, I was making sure my gun angle was around 20% from perpendicular at all times.
3. Poor penetration, when I counted to two in my head I was getting close to 0 penetration, but with a count to 3 I was getting a moderate amount. My power setting was fairly high at 1 max, how could i change wire feed to improve this or should I just continue to arc for longer?
I would be over the moon if I could get some pointers, on a plus side I have tried pretty hard to break the sheets in two and failed so I cant be doing too badly