New MIG Problem

[pogster]

Wow... There seems to be a forum for everything these days, I'm glad I found this site.

I have a new welder and am having problems getting it working correctly with 6mm wire. When I try to start the weld the wire seems to always burn back to the tip and then stick for a couple of seconds - it does this with any speed setting / current setting. The wire is very slightly corroded but worked ok in my old Clarke MIG90.

I have tried with 08mm wire and tips and this seems to work fine - although I've now run out of gas so can not fully check until tomorrow.

Has anyone got any ideas? the wire seems quite tight on the tip - should i widen the tip slightly?

Thanks in advance guys..

 

[rtbcomp]

Welcome to the forum.

Could be the tolerance on the tip in the Clarke was slightly wider than the one in your new machine, so the corrosion on the wire is now causing it to jam.

Can you reel some of the wire off to expose new shiney stuff?

 

[pogster]

Could be, I'll give it a try tomorrow and let you know.

 

[Wozzaaah]

Is it a new tip or one that has suffered burnbacks? If it's an old one then fit a new one.
Also, are you sure you're not running 0.6mm wire through the 0.8mm groove in the roller?
Lastly, as RTB says, strip the bad layers off the wire reel, don't run rusty wire through the machine or you'll block the liner and tip with rust dust and have no end of feed problems.
If you can't get down to clean layers then bin it and put a fresh reel on.

 

[danelectro]

Got to be honest, many years ago I had the same problem, no matter what I tried I couldn't get the right result. So I changed to .8mm and use it all the time now!!!