first time with new welder

[spaniel]

I bought my first welder and had a play today, its a sealey 130amp.
I have done a bit of welding before and had some advice but thought it was time to get my own and practise.
I have been welding some 3mm angle, even though I think I am doing a constant weld I am still getting gaps between the welds, also some times I end up with a ball on the end of the wire.
Where am I going wrong?

 

[PTvor]

Sounds to me as if the power and wire speed are nothing like right for the steel thickness in question.

There's usually a table on the inside of MIG welders giving, for a shielding gas, metal thickness and wire thickness, the power level and wire speed you should set the welder to. When it's set that way, it probably won't be exactly right and you'll have to try it out on some scrap to tune the wire speed. A good guess for power is 40A per mm, so that welder would need to be on its highest setting and you couldn't expect to use it for long at that power level before it overheated. You're advised to set the wire speed so that you hear a sound like sizzling bacon.

The other thing is to make sure you have shielding gas coming out of the torch. Some people dip the tip of the torch in a glass of water. Pea shooter type flow meters are cheap, something like a fiver, and involve less guesswork.

http://www.weldequip.com/gas-flow-tester.htm

There are loads of videos on Youtube about setting up MIG welders and tuning the wire speed. Search on "setting up MIG welder".

This is one

I assume you are using gas, not gasless wire.

 

[J.F]

Have a look at this link, these are some of the best video tutorials

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp0pALmMwc6v2ScmEGbvNSpNKcYA8GiGA

 

[spaniel]

Ok cheers, I had the welder on the highest power setting but only using 0.6 wire it came with.
I found I did get some good welds when tweaking the speed setting a bit

 

[PTvor]

The videos on Youtube are very much worth watching.

Backstreetmechanic is a bit low priced for my taste but is more or less sound. Note the demonstration of using the peashooter flow gauge in one of the videos. If you are paying through the nose for using gas from disposable cylinders then the price of a peashooter flow gauge ain't much and can save a fortune. I think his estimates of 3l/m are possibly OK in a very draft free environment. I use 10l/m but not from disposable cylinders.

What sort of gas are you using? Disposable cylinders - bad news; rent-free - can be a good deal; rental - a good to very good deal if you use enough; pub CO2 - best for over 3mm IMHO.

You might ask on here if there are any members in the Huddersfield area who can come round to your place and have a look at what you are doing, or you could take your gear round to their place and see what they are doing and they maybe have a go with your stuff.

Myself, I think 3mm steel and the idea of doing a lot of practice with it is a big ask for a small transformer MIG like that.

 

[spaniel]

I am using disposable bottles while I get started, wasn't too sure on regulators and didn't wanna be buying the wrong thing.
I will post some pictures of my best and worst welds when I get in the garage tomorrow.

 

[PTvor]

Those disposable bottles are an incredibly expensive way to buy gas.

The Halfords ones give 60 litres for £15. A refillable bottle scheme, either with a deposit or the Volkzone deal might give 4000 litres for £30 to £60.

If you want to know about regulators and whether you are buying the right one, ask on here or phone Weldequip, or another supplier, and ask them.