Thread: Buying a mig, is WIA worth the money?

i use wia machines at work every day. if i had the money i would buy one, as they are excellant quality, made and owned by miller and made in australia. as for wire feeders it depends on how big the work you wish to do is.

I've always been under the impression that WIA are a good brand. I had a WIA stick welder and it was great. I only sold it to justify an inverter that I bought. I'd go for it.

Yup all the WIA units we have at work are great Rigs to use.............You can tweak a good setting N there as reliable as the other industrial units we have on hand.

Well worth considering...............

REgards Lou

I agree, WIA are a very good brand.

Hi Mitch
Welcome to our forum.

If WIA are still made here then they should be pretty good stuff.They always have been reliable to the point of being nearly bullet proof.
.Any vendor worth his salt should be at least willing to have a test drive of a machine, if you are wanting to buy one.

Grahame

WIA machines are made in adelaide. as i said befor worth the money. just a little expencive for my budget.

Thanks
It sounds as though you cant go wrong with WIA, i haven't found anybody yet that wouldn't buy one.
I made the decision today and bought the 255 goes great. All i have to do now is learn to weld! a few more adjustments than the old stick welder.

Remote feed, we call them spoolguns, will be advisable for aluminium because it kinks so easily. Not necessary, but recommended by most pros.mt

Mike,
Our trade jargon is slightly different to yours in the States.

We term a remote feeder as a wire feeder being remote from the welders powers source. The unit is often placed on a trolley with universal direction castors.

There can be several metres of cabling and hose between the remote feeder and power source.

A spool gun is a pro unit but an unlikely purchase by the likes of the average bloke.Due to the high price, A Cobramatic purchase in this country may be worth the cost of the entire welder.

One of the more devious ways of overcoming the frictional problem is to hang the feeder on an over head boom and use a shortened mig gun cable.

I have done surgery on a Tweco gun cable and cut it back to 2 metres.

Not a problem with the correct wire drive roller, a Teflon liner and an enlarged contact tip.

Thanks for your contribution though.

Grahame

Originally Posted by mitch

I made the decision today and bought the 255 goes great. All i have to do now is learn to weld! a few more adjustments than the old stick welder.

You are in the right place then Mitch.
Remember adjust the voltage first,then set the wire speed until it crackles.

The voltage provides the right amount of heat in the arc pool to fuse the incoming wire. The voltage setting is relative to your thickness of material. wire speed controls the amperage and penetration of arc into the metal.

The metal to be welded must be shiny clean. No dirt,rust ,paint, oil or contaminants of any sort.

That should get you up and running fairly quickly.

Grahame

Thanks Grahame
Took me a few hours to get it smooth.
Have been building sheep yards to learn through repetition, 30-40 welds per panel, done 25 panels this week.

Hi Mitch

Great to see theres no grass growing under your feet then!
I assume you are jigging the panels to gain minimum assembly time.

Are the panels made from box section(shs or rhs) ?

If you need any info on jigging or welding fixtures just say so.

I am assuming if you are knocking out 25 panels a week you already have a fair grasp of it.

Cheers
Grahame .

Hi Grahame
My panels are just out of a sling of D/G 20nb black pipe I got for a good price, with 25nb upright supports both medium wall good to weld. 3.3 metres long 975mm high 6 rail.

I first built a jig out of a panel I had fabricated, I used short pieces of 10x10sq bar i had left over to make guides as such. All the pieces dropped into place and i went through and welded pieces together.
But. I then had trouble getting the panel out of the jig and turning it over to weld the other side. Someone suggest that i build a jig on an A frame so that i can flip it over, not sure how this would work though?.

After fiddling around I just went back to making them by hand, I clamped one of the 25nb uprights to the edge of my bench which has a right angle in 50x50mm angle right along the edge. I chalked on my marks with a purpose made ruler, 20x3mm with marks cut in with the grinder. I laid my 6 20nb rails on the bench and just lined them up roughly with the edge of the bench and held them with a magnetic square and welded them on. I then spun the whole panel around, welded the other end. Then I flipped it did the underside, spun it again welded the other end. Done.

I got this pretty downpat and after a few I could whip up 5 in an hour and a half welding (when all parts cut) approx 50 welds in each panel. It takes approx 25min per panel when including cutting, squishing ends and welding.
I thought that I wouldn't be able to do them much faster in a jig anyway.

Any thoughts on jigging would be appreciated. Is my method of jigging on the right track?
I am now working on getting the weld penetration as good as possible, the welds look very neat but there dosent seem to be much wetting in (is this the right term) along the edges of the material being welded.

Can you tell from a photo if a weld is strong. Not that i have any concerns with them, but future structural work i would.


Thanks
Mitch.

Hi Mitch,
I can pretty much predict from visual if the weld is suitable for its application.
With anything like that, what you can't see is the problem.

Sometimes with Mig when the voltage setting is not correct, and the approach angle is incorrect there are problems with lack of penetration on the bottom plates in a fillet.

To ease your mind there,the procedure is to do some test samples noting all the settings and angles used and test the piece to destruction. Usually this means just bending the single fillet weld back on itself and inspection of the fusion along the broken surface. any failure will be blatantly obvious.

If your doing big volumes its good insurance to do test samples as a regular quality assurance.

Grahame