Wire size problem

[giblin99]

I'm confused about wire, I have a sealey mighty mig 100 and it came with a roll of .9mm .45kg flux cored wire, when it ran out I was told I should buy a .9mm .9kg roll, so I did and it welds like ***** I went to a local supplies shop and asked the chap there if he had any ideas, he thinks maybe the .9kg roll is just too heavy for the small wire feed mechanism? I bought another .45kg roll just to be sure it wasn't a problem with the machine and it's working perfectly with that roll, the lad in the shop suggested to roll half of the .9kg roll onto another wheel to take off some weight and see if that would help, is there any difference in .9kg and .45kg or is it simply just more? because the roll looks the same size so im confused Thanks for any help

 

[wheresmejumper]

i had a similar sealey and even 5kg rolls arent a problem

 

[shenion]

What brand wire did you get?

Much of the cheap gasless wire is near useless.

 

[giblin99]

It was sealey wire, I figured since it's a sealey machine that their own wire would be the perfect job? I even brought the first roll back and they said maybe it was an error in production...but the second roll was exactly the same. So I bought a different brand (can't remember) .45kg roll and it works perfectly, do the different weight rolls weld differently atal or should it be identical? thanks for your replies

 

[keith19]

I once had a Sealey 150 for years and it would run 5Kg reels no problem, as wheresmejumper says.
I think your supplier maybe has in stock a bad batch of Sealey wire. Sealey get their wire made different places, I think, and it can vary.
The Sealey .9mm flux-core I'm using in my Clarke 151en at present runs good, but I prefer this stuff below for thin-metal flux-core welding:
http://www.rapidwelding.com/dynamic/DisplayItem.aspx?c=NR-211-MP09&zl=3

 

[mike 109444]

Have you got the spool mounting clutch set correctly (the one in the middle of the spool holder)?? To tight and the wire feed will struggle to feed smothly. To loose and the spool will run on when you stop welding and cause the wire on spool to become loosly wound.

 

[mike 109444]

The bit on the left

 

[giblin99]

Yeah Mike that's all fine, I went back to a different roll of .45kg and it worked perfect and then when I put the .9kg sealey wire back in it done the same thing again, I think Keith is right it must be bad wire, I thought maybe there might be a difference using the .9kg (I'm new to this) but it seems it's just a dodgy batch that sealey are sending down to that supply shop, thanks for your help

 

[giblin99]

Actualy lads if I could ask you something else, there aren't many shops that sell welding stuff around here, so I've been looking at some irish online shops, do clarke or sip make decent wire? They seem to be the most common on the websites and would a .8mm wire be ok in a 1mm tip or would I need to get .8mm tips? thanks

 

[backpurge]

You need 0.8mm tips

 

[keith19]

For using flux-core gasless on a hobby m/c it's generally advised you use one size larger tip than the given size of the wire. This is partly because flux-core gets slightly misshapen by the rollers, so using the same tip as the wire size can lead to problems. It's also because the .8mm tip will be very close to .8mm, for use with gas wire.

On a pro m/c the flux-core tip for a given size of flux-core wire should actually be slightly larger inside, so a .8 mm will actually be .8mm plus, etc, and should accommodate .8mm wire okay.

I started out using gasless flux-core with the same size tip on a hobby Clarke, and had plenty problems. As soon as I changed to using one size larger tip, the problems vanished. This is just my experience.

But I have heard people who weld with flux-core at work on pro m/cs have no problems at all using the specified flux-core same size tips for the job. Superior adjustment on wire pressure rollers, and tips made specifically for the job, probably account for this.