Thread: Welding blues

Hi guys, it has been a while since my long thread entitled a little big job, and my battling with MIG welding.

I have since finished my preliminary job of fencing up a section of the house with security fenicing, and all the welding and fabrication necessary to make up brakets and extensions to suit a very steep landscape, plus the fabrication of 3 separate gates made with the same material from the fence, fitting locks and latches make up frame etc.
Have not started on the I beam extension yet.

Now the reason for my new thread is to rattle on a little about my experience with my new CIG Transmig 250.
If you remember I purchased this machine new and from the start had a lot of dramas. Initialy was flabergasted at the fact that the factory supplied the machine with a 15amp plug and a relatively thin lead and states that if I want to use it at full potential I must rewire to 32 amp plug and I believe 6mm wire. My protest to the manufacturer produced a week explanation but a generous gift of a new $300 electronic helmet with all th whistles. Can't complaint now.

Yet I also had lots of problems to get a straight welding bead, to a point that I started asking questions on this forum believeing as you do, that after so many years of welding stick, I was just hopeless to learn a new skill. After a lot of help from many on this forum, I decided that perhaps I needed some technology help and went to the expense of fitting a digital amp and volt meter. Nice gadget but my welding did not improve.

This is what I experienced from the start. Inconsistency. Every time I would start rather well only to end up a total mess as soon as I was getting warmed up. I couldn't get the setting right. And I tried believe you me I did. No matter what I changed, I would get some times the right sound and most of the time a hissing that would get me in a hissing fit.
I was ready to get a number 8 axe and put the machine out of its misery.

And after many month, yesterday it hit me. I was trying to weld the last two hinges to the last gate with a lot of trial land error, and a lot more of grinding and re-doing when I observed that the arch would start good and then get longer and the wire was back burning and pieces of molted wire would drop on my welding. Pathetic really. So I said, I am not getting enough wire, lets crank up the voltage... (hehe)... Nothing, no change. So I said, the wire must be slipping lets increase the tension. Nothing.
And finally I did what I should have done a long time ago, check the bloody spool. I tried to turn it to no avail. It was very heavy to turn.
I scratched my head, and pulled the spool out and then I saw it. The thing is turning on a plastic tube that has a tension mechanism, more like a braking system. I took the nut off, pulled the centre roller out and there it was.
First, the section of metal that the friction washer is supposed to rub on was rusty. Polished it off with fine sandpaper, gave it a bit of a wax and put it all back, only to discover that there was no spring nor washer under the nut. Someone at the shop had cannibalised the part and put it back with the nut directly on the plastic. So what was happening is that when cold the thing would turn reasonably well with some harder points hence the inconsistence feeding of the wire, and then when it got warmer somehow cached on the nut and stopped almost completely still feeding enough to get me going that it was me.
Bloody hell, as soon as I freed the spool, you should see the welding! Never welded such smooth and perfect beads ever in my life, vertical horizontal only thing I did not try was overhead, because I did not need it. If I only had pull the thing apart earlier, A few dollars part missing made a lot of difference.
It goes without saying that I called the shop today and called them idiots and stupid and incompetent for releasing the machine with missing parts TWICE since they fitted the digital gadget and re tested it....
Oh the delights of dealing with the trade!