Lidl fcaw wire feed

[Prajna]

My Lidl PFDS 120 A1 fcaw welder is great, been doing a cracking job but... the most recent roll of 0.9mm (Lidl) wire has been intermittently failing to feed. I reamed out the nozzle with a fine drill bit and that seemed to improve things briefly and I also sprayed some break cleaner down the liner, which may also have helped, but it still jams from time to time. Often I can just tug a few cm of wire through with my mig pliers and then it runs ok for a while but then it will randomly jam again. Do I need to change the liner or maybe do a more thorough job of cleaning it? Anyone else met with the same problem and cured it? Is it maybe the wire and will come right when I put the next roll on?

 

[Mark 2]

1mm nozzle.

 

[Cobbler]

Is it a metal liner, or a bit of plastic windscreen washer tubing? If it’s the plastic, change it, the wire tends to bind up in the plastic & jam. Have a look at curtain wire, never tried it, but it’s been said it’s the same size several times.

 

[Prajna]

Is it a metal liner, or a bit of plastic windscreen washer tubing? If it’s the plastic, change it, the wire tends to bind up in the plastic & jam. Have a look at curtain wire, never tried it, but it’s been said it’s the same size several times.

It appears to be curtain wire kinda thing, certainly where you feed the wire in, I haven't disassembled the torch yet.

 

[Blue Chips]

A few thoughts:
Remove the torch cable from the welder and try sliding a length of welding wire in and out of it (round off the sharp end of the wire first with a bit of sandpaper). That might help locate where it could be hanging up. A kink inside the cable might not be noticeable by looking at the outside of the cable. If the wire slides freely, try bending the cable in different directions while you're sliding the wire in and out, since it's possible that there could be a break in the spring-wire sheath inside the cable that could cause intermittent problems. A damaged cable liner could also cause a hang-up. I replaced the cable liner a few years ago on my Miller welder, and that helped immensely. If the wire still slides freely through the cable but hangs up while you're welding, try cleaning the drive wheels with some solvent, check the alignment of the wheel groove with the end of the cable, and if that fails, try increasing the pressure on the drive wheels; there might not be enough pressure, but keep in mind that too much pressure on the drive wheels can warp the wire and cause it to bind where it enters the welder end of the cable. Also make sure that there isn't too much drag tension on the spool.

 

[Prajna]

Thanks. I was hoping for an easy fix rather than disassembly. Probably worth stripping it anyway to check things. I like @Mark 2's idea of trying a 1.0 nozzle. Had no problems running 0.6 or 0.8 and have fiddled with the roller pressure - backed off till it slipped and then tightened till it fed. When the weather picks up I'll take another look.

 

[Blue Chips]

I should add that as a spool of wire gets used up and the wire is pulled off closer and closer to the center of the spool, the wire has decreasing leverage to turn the spool, so the tension increases. If the spool drag is set a bit too low, the wire might feed OK with a fresh spool of wire but start slipping as the spool gets closer to empty.

 

[Cobbler]

Thanks. I was hoping for an easy fix rather than disassembly. Probably worth stripping it anyway to check things. I like @Mark 2's idea of trying a 1.0 nozzle. Had no problems running 0.6 or 0.8 and have fiddled with the roller pressure - backed off till it slipped and then tightened till it fed. When the weather picks up I'll take another look.

With the Clarke gasless wire, from memory it’s 0.8, but they supply 0.9 tip as the wire deforms in the rollers & jams up. I haven’t used it for many years though.