Thread: Gas or Gasless MIG welding

Hi Rossluck,
I have had an Unimig 250swf since late 2003. Since that Time it has had a 1 Roll of 0.9 Solid wire 15kg (Gas), 1 Roll of 0.9 Gasless Wire 4.5kg some 1.2 Gasless Wire 4.5kg. I Have started using other Wire Rolls quite a while ago since them. I have never had to Replace a Liner Yet only Contact Tips.I use 'Hobart' Gasless Wire and 'Wia' Solid Wire. I am however now to switching to mostly 'Boss' Wire due to I have bought a 'Boss 202A'. I found that due to a difference in tolerance (unusual I thought) A 'Wia' Roll of 0.9 Solid Wire would not fit onto the Drive Pin. In regards to Long Power Cables I have used mine on a 20 metre 15amp Lead and have had some Trouble. It depends though how far You crank the Welder up. You Should and I should try to keep our Extension Leads as Heavy and as short as possible.
In reference to Feeding Problems the Wire Feed Roll for Gasless Wire should be a 'V' Groove Roller with a Knurl in the Groove. A normal 'V' Groove Roller will work but with some feed Problems. The knurl is their, because Gasless wire is soft. If Your Wire Feed Roller is 0.9 then make sure Your wire is either .035" or .889mm or .9mm . Your Contact Tip should be 0.9mm or 1.0mm for 0.9mm Gasless Wire. Your Gun Liner should be Steel (generally with some Red colour on it for 0.9mm Wire). In time 'Graham Collins will probably give You a better answer than I can.
I hope this Helps all the same.
All the Best Stewart

Originally Posted by Rossluck

1: Gasless wire ruins liners much faster than gas wire.

2: Gasless wire doesn't run very well through long power cables.

A lot of drive wheels for gasless wire are serrated.In turn these serrations mark the wire.

The wire in turn in fouls and marks the inner surface of the liner,which in turn exacerbates feed problems.

My view, is that flux core gasless wire for some home /light duty wire fed machines is a gimmick.

Flux core works very well in industrial situations with wire above 1.2mm diameter,but I have yet to be convinced that its a alternate for solid wire in the DIY.Yes it works for some ,but not the majority.

Theres no free lunch-as they say-you end up paying somewhere.

While we have people thinking they can run their wire feed system cheaply,this situation will persist. Partly its ignorance on the part of some of the vendors and partly its greed in selling the unsuspecting customers whatever they believe will do the job cheaply.

Grahame

Interesting. Havent had my Unimig 240 that long, but have run several rolls of gassless thru it. Was having issues with feed, so I went up a size with the tip. Fewer problems now. The unit runs smooth drive wheels.

Unit runs a Binzal torch, so its easy to get bits and pieces.

What Grahame says about serrated drive wheels makes sense. The small SIP in the workshop has serrated and tends to have moments where it "gets the jitters" as far as wire feed is concerned.

Yes, Grahame has summed it up well. The fella at the welding shop told me that the drive wheels loosen the flux and the wire drags it through the liner until it eventually clogs it.

Now what we NEED Grahame, is for someone to invent an "auto-cut-off-valve" that shuts off the gas if you haven't pulled any for, say 15 minutes. I once lost a whole bottle by accidently leaving it on for a week or so, and that's the thing I don't like about gas.

Gasless wire I think is often given a bad wrap.

I suspect that this might be because a lot of people go and buy a cheapo mig welder, and and the cheap welders only use gasless wire. Then to add to the problem the gasless flux cored wire that they end up buying is rubbish.

And if they can't weld or just learning everything is against them.

Result = This tool is a piece of crap......."always the tools fault"

With regards to the drive/feed rolls.

Interesting though that the Japanese and Asian countries shake their heads when they hear that people use knurled feed rolls for flux cored wire.

The issue is that (it has been mentioned before) as the wire runs through the serrated/knurled groove of the feed rolls that actual action will put cuts into the wire.

This can bee seen in the photo below.

These little indents cuts, or whatever you want to call them will do a few things:

Off the top of my head they will,

1. Cause faster premature wear of the welding torch liner.

2. Cause faster premature wear of the contact tip through physical abrasion. Each little mark in the wire will wear out the tip bit by bit.

3. Will possibly cause what is know as "micro arcing". These are little arcs inside the tip itself. Leading to premature wear and electrical corrosion (eating away) of the inside of the tip. Incorrect wire diameter tolerances and contact tip internal diameter tolerances can do the same thing.

Gasless mig wire and long liners

The main issue here is the fact that the wire is very soft. It is not solid all the way through. Much like ally mig wire.

• The softer the wire the harder it is to feed it through the gun.
• The longer the gun, the more "wire feeding resistance" there is.

Also you can start looking at the diameter of the drive rolls. Smaller cheap migs have smaller feed rolls. Larger industrial machines have bigger diameter feed rolls and or a 4wd setup, offering more surface area contact that gives more traction. Meaning better feeding and less slippage.

Gasless mig wire compared to solid mig wire needs to feed much faster into the weld, so you have to turn up the wire feed speed. The faster the wire feeds the more chance of trouble occuring.

For example: One company was having troubles with their current supply of mig wire. The problem was that when they were welding, the wire was not feeding properly. And they were having to use the next size up contact tip to help it feed a bit better. This larger tip still did not fix the problem.

What was it?

Most likely it was inconsistent wire diameter tolerance.

If the manufacturer of your wire does not, and can not produce consistent wire diameter tolerance. It will change along the length of the wire.

I have had people complain about this and even mention to me they check with micrometers and yes the diameter changes up and down the length of the wire.

So what does this mean?

The feed rollers would slip on the wire where the diameter is small, therefore the forward momentum of the wire feeding into the weld would slow down or stop.

Causing,

1. Burnbacks
2. Funny welds
2. Swearing

On the other end of this issue is when the wire goes oversize. When it goes over the diameter it will push more and more on the feed rollers. This will in fact cause on (solid mig wire) the copper coating to flake and fall off.

This then goes down the liner and eventually blocks it up. Causing more swearing/feed issues.





So there, a long winded response to that question.

For more on welding wire and comparing gasless mig wire to solid mig wire.
Go to:
www.learn-how-to-weld.com/gasless-mig-wire.html

Cheers,
Peter

As a wee apprentice I was taught that gasless was for out in the field where the gas could be blown away or for home doing stuff like gates and trailers and stuff. Otherwise use gas.

Having said that, I have run my mig on gasless for eight years and built three trailers, a deck, an off road buggy frame and lots of other stuff and never had a problem.

I might add that my problems were not caused by gasless wire (which I blamed here) but by the length of a new nozzle I purchased.

Very interesting read Apples, I intend on buying myself a mig welder eventually and one question that would inevitably arise is the difference between cheap and expensive gasless wire, now I know and will purchase better stuff. I assume the better quality stuff has a constant diameter and is better alround than the cheapy stuff.

Matt.

Hi Matt,

Yeah the hardest thing with welding wire is that last time I checked there was about 300 manufacturers of welding wire products made in China. Can't remember the exact figure but it was something like that.

So the problem is not being guaranteed quality.

All the major brands or popular brands in Australia, New Zealand, the states and anywhere else will have the same problem.

Mig welding wire is bought the majority of the time on price.

If you use a pallet at a time and one brand of wire costs say $40 (ER70S-6 15kg) and another brand cost say $38 a spool, it is a big difference.

If a pallet has 60 spools that would be $2 difference x 60 spools which = $120.

So that is a difference of $120 per pallet. You can see why people buy on price. This was just one example but prices are all over the place at the moment so the differences are quite varied.

It's only after having used a few dodgy spools of wire, and you have had bad feedability etc that people decide to spend more money to use a quality product and not have problems. The problems end up costing them more in rework time and extra labor, than it would have if they spend the few extra dollars on getting a better mig wire.

The reality is if you are in business what is an extra 5 bucks for a spool of wire if you are working on a project worth tens of thousands of dollars?

Anyway back to the quality thing...People go to China to buy cheap. Cheap cheap cheap. But the problem is, when the factory bumps his prices up, or they have an argument with their customer etc. The customer simply goes next door to one of the other wire manufacurers.

That seems fine, but here is what happens. As soon as they change manufacurere the quality changes.

It has to.

So you the welder are going along fine using a particular brand of wire then you open up the next pallet of wire and it's absolute rubbish.

But why? you say to yourself. This is **************** brand wire. We have always used it, whats going on? Get what I mean?

Not every brand is like this. But have a look or find out if the name on the box of mig wire is the manufacturer cause then at least you will have a better probability of quality.

Hey anyone can go and order a container of wire from China, Hungary, India or wherever and stick a fancy label on there and say its the best wire etc etc.

But unless you know it is a good wire and it has a reputation you can have troubles.

Here is some more info:
www.learn-how-to-weld.com/mig-welding-wire.html



Peter

Apples, can you recommend any brands of wire that seem to be consistant in quality ?? And where to get them from when I buy a mig welder. Got my eye on a small lincoln (180c I think) one that will weld up to about 1/2 inch or so, which is more than i'll probably ever need. If I need more I'll get a bigger welder or pull out the old Lincoln 225 arc welder

I'm currently looking at that link of yours from a previous post, i'm divided as to whether I like it or not as now i've added a welding table to my list of things to make before an off road buggy, at the rate i'm going the aussie dollar will be worth 90c US before get around to making it and buy some parts from the USA.

Matt.

I have a similar theory to dazzler.
I have always used solid wire and gas in a workshop, why, because I always, in my opinion, found it to be a cleaner weld. That said, where possible I would always use solid wire and gas even outdoors with the use of some kind of shielding to keep the wind away (welding screens, tarp etc).

Only times I have ever used gasless is when away on site and having to hire a welder and purchase consumables for a job. In most cases, I would be hiring a small 240v mig, for portability mostly (hard to fit a workshop machine in the boot of a commodore sedan). For these small machines, the most readily available and cost effective wire was gassless.

I would always run 1 tip size up to reduce feed problems with gassless, nothing worse than the thing chewing up the spool when you are up a ladder with your hands full holding bits of material and clamps and gun and whatever else you are trying to juggle.

my opinion, if you can, use solid wire and gas shield, I always found it easier.

BrisbaneFitter,
Yeah all the shops use solid wire and then the gasless for onsite jobs.

Unless they are into heavy fab then yo would use a flux cored with with gas.

Matty5700,
Yes I can suggest a very good mig wire. send me your email and I can email you our current price list in .pdf.

Peter
apples @ aanet . com . au

if i had a choice when i was doing site work, it would still have been gas shield.

just dont like gassless

i never got into any heavy enough fab to use flux core and gas. We messed around with it at tafe during my aprenticeship, but then we also messed around with a pre-historic looking sub-arc machine also.

beside the point i know, but thought i would slip that bit in.

i must correct myself, i did have a choice between gas or gassless when working on site, but not a time and cost effective one for the type of work i was doing.