Hi all. My name is Sam and I live in Scholes, West Yorks. Bought myself a VW camper about a year ago which turned out to be 20% volkswagen and 80% ferrous oxide...spent the last year removing all the rusty bits. Now I am ready to rebuild so have bought myself a PM185 following advice from a friend of a friend.
I have read as much as I can about mig welding, and now I'm off and running welding bits together in a haphazard kind of fashion! Couple of things that I
could do with advice on please -
At the moment I'm using mainly 1mm sheet steel, laying down runs and practising plug welds, butt welds etc with a varying amount of success (and failure). I'm struggling a bit with the concept of voltage vs wire speed and I've read various ways of setting it all up. I thought I had it sussed with -
1) Set up rough voltage for metal thickness
2) Practice weld bead increasing wire speed until "bacon sizzle"
3) Job done.
However, I also read that on this machine the wire speed is automatically adjusted when changing the voltage?? So I'm a bit confused. I normally like to mess around and work it out myself but at the moment I'm just chasing my tail and wasting gas!
So..could I have an idiot's guide to setting up this particular machine please from a fellow owner?
I am looking initially to work with 1mm steel, 0.6mm wire, Argoshield Light
gas. Looking at the power / wire speed charts on here I reckon that I should be using 1/1 or 1/2 voltage setting and about 3 m/min wire speed? Does that sound about correct, and if so what setting on the wire speed knob would give me that speed?
And finally...is the wire speed set automatically with the voltage, and if so does that mean that changing the voltage would give a different actual wire speed for the same physical position of the wire speed knob? If that makes sense??
Thanks!! Sam
I have read as much as I can about mig welding, and now I'm off and running welding bits together in a haphazard kind of fashion! Couple of things that I
could do with advice on please -
At the moment I'm using mainly 1mm sheet steel, laying down runs and practising plug welds, butt welds etc with a varying amount of success (and failure). I'm struggling a bit with the concept of voltage vs wire speed and I've read various ways of setting it all up. I thought I had it sussed with -
1) Set up rough voltage for metal thickness
2) Practice weld bead increasing wire speed until "bacon sizzle"
3) Job done.
However, I also read that on this machine the wire speed is automatically adjusted when changing the voltage?? So I'm a bit confused. I normally like to mess around and work it out myself but at the moment I'm just chasing my tail and wasting gas!
So..could I have an idiot's guide to setting up this particular machine please from a fellow owner?
I am looking initially to work with 1mm steel, 0.6mm wire, Argoshield Light
gas. Looking at the power / wire speed charts on here I reckon that I should be using 1/1 or 1/2 voltage setting and about 3 m/min wire speed? Does that sound about correct, and if so what setting on the wire speed knob would give me that speed?
And finally...is the wire speed set automatically with the voltage, and if so does that mean that changing the voltage would give a different actual wire speed for the same physical position of the wire speed knob? If that makes sense??
Thanks!! Sam