scottonthefen
New Member
- Messages
- 22
- Location
- England
I have a Portamig 216S (15-215 amps, 12 voltage steps).
I'm welding approx. 2mm sheet steel with 0.8mm wire.
Couple of questions today.
1. Setting wire speed relative to voltage
I've dialled in myself to wire speed 5 voltage 4. The MIG settings calculator on this site suggests wire speed 3.5 voltage 5, so slightly lower wire speed and slightly higher voltage. What does this mean in practice? Smaller bead more heat? But my bead seems ok and last time I tried voltage 5 it was melting the surrounding metal too much..
(edit: Just saw this on the calculator page "The markings on welder wire feed controls do not represent speed in metres per minute. Measure the speed using a stopwatch and tape measure. It might be useful to mark positions around the wire feed knob for future use.")
In my (beginner's!!) mind I turn up voltage until I get good penetration, and set wire speed to the size of the bead being right for my torch speed, and not having excess spatter. Is this an ok rule of thumb for a beginner?
What am I looking for to make me turn wire speed up/down? And how about voltage?
2. Issue with bead stopping and metal turning to liquid
Yesterday sometimes I'd be going along with a nice sizzle putting a decent bead down and then the sizzling would stop and the metal around where I was welding would just sort of start to melt and the bead would stop forming. A quick restart in the same place would start with a good sizzle and bead as before and then it would go quiet and liquidy again a few seconds later.. What's going on? At the end of the session I saw my reg was up at 20 so blowing quite hard, I normally have it set around 8, don't know if that's related? I have had this issue before and thought I'd fixed it by turning the wire speed from around 4 to around 5.. don't see why I'd need to turn that up again to 6 though, I'm working with the same metal thicknesses as before.
I'm welding approx. 2mm sheet steel with 0.8mm wire.
Couple of questions today.
1. Setting wire speed relative to voltage
I've dialled in myself to wire speed 5 voltage 4. The MIG settings calculator on this site suggests wire speed 3.5 voltage 5, so slightly lower wire speed and slightly higher voltage. What does this mean in practice? Smaller bead more heat? But my bead seems ok and last time I tried voltage 5 it was melting the surrounding metal too much..
(edit: Just saw this on the calculator page "The markings on welder wire feed controls do not represent speed in metres per minute. Measure the speed using a stopwatch and tape measure. It might be useful to mark positions around the wire feed knob for future use.")
In my (beginner's!!) mind I turn up voltage until I get good penetration, and set wire speed to the size of the bead being right for my torch speed, and not having excess spatter. Is this an ok rule of thumb for a beginner?
What am I looking for to make me turn wire speed up/down? And how about voltage?
2. Issue with bead stopping and metal turning to liquid
Yesterday sometimes I'd be going along with a nice sizzle putting a decent bead down and then the sizzling would stop and the metal around where I was welding would just sort of start to melt and the bead would stop forming. A quick restart in the same place would start with a good sizzle and bead as before and then it would go quiet and liquidy again a few seconds later.. What's going on? At the end of the session I saw my reg was up at 20 so blowing quite hard, I normally have it set around 8, don't know if that's related? I have had this issue before and thought I'd fixed it by turning the wire speed from around 4 to around 5.. don't see why I'd need to turn that up again to 6 though, I'm working with the same metal thicknesses as before.