Thread: Gasless Mig Welding

I believe the Lincoln 170 is a straight Mig welder.To be able to weld in gasless wire mode, the unit must be able of changing the polarity of the output wiring connections.

The dead give away will be the positive ( +) and negative (-) symbols at the terminals where those connections are changed over. A true dual mode machine will have these. A standard solid wire MIG will not have them.

The polarity requires positive (+) for the gun and negative (-) earth cable..

The gasless wire to suit is a hollow rolled tube with flux inside.


Grahame

Is the welder an SP 170T by any chance? If so, you are in luck, there are two wires that you swap in the wire feed area to convert from electrode positive to negative for self shielded flux core.
In reality any welder can be swapped provided you don't mind opening the covers up and swapping wires, but the Lincoln SP 170 is designed for easy conversion.
If it is the SP170, then this is the link to the manual for it. http://www.lincolnelectric.com/asset...oln3/im537.pdf

Thank you Grahame & Karl for your information , I will check the welder out next week.
pker

Grahame & Karl,
I went around to mates place and checked out the mig, and it is a sp170t. Opened the spool access door and all the information is provided on the inside of the door. The machine is as new. Where the mate works is a government funded organization and they were going to dump it as they had a new one in the budget. Great isn,t it.
Anyway, swapped the wires over polarity wise & fitted a flux core wire spool. Tried it out & welds perfectly.
Once again thank you both for your help.
pker

Too easy mate, glad to assist.