Wire Speed help - stuttering/punching seam weld - help!

[keiserwill]

Hello all, i apologise in advance if this is in the wrong place or is a serial repetition of other threads (i did search first) I've been welding MIG gasless for a short while and seem to have plug welds sorted, but when i try a seam weld i have a problem i'm calling stuttering or punching, to give the full picture:

Welder: lincoln electric handy MIG on the lowest settings (1 and low, gasless)
Material: sheet steel 0.8mm mostly at the moment as that matches the car (hense the lowest power settings)
The wire feeds through lovely and smooth so theres no problem with the welder, its either the wire speed/power settings or more probably me.

tryed to find a balance with wire speed,(too low and its on-off-on-off weld as the arc continually breaks) a little bit higher and the wire seems to punch the sheet hard over and over and push the nossle slowly away from the sheet, which seems to almost stall the feed motor over and over in v short durations (which feels pretty unhealthy for the motor) this again leaves a kind of machine gun spattering of weld along the line. I was inclined to think the speed was too high and the wire wasn't welding in quick enough hense the punching, but after testing a few things i'm no better off, and i really don't want to break my feed assembly with this punching syndrome.

is it possible that the contact isn't good enough? and that the wire speed is still too low? could the power be too low for a faster wire speed?

Any advice would be much appreciated
Will

 

[malcolm]

Try holding the torch much closer to the metal. Maybe try for 5mm between the contact tip and the steel. The closer you get the wider the sweet spot in wire speed when you are welding at the edge of the machine capability, and it'll allow you to turn the wire down a bit to reduce amps.

Gasless wire won't be great for 0.8mm. It's hotter than ordinary gas shielded welding (which is still a pain at those thicknesses).

Things like earth clamp contact and clenliness of steel will be really important - you are working outside the design range really, so everything has to be great.