Newbie with first welds from the IMIG 200

[johnnymg]

OK, so these are some of my VERY first practice welds. All I have right now is some old/rusty 14 gauge box tubing from a cut-apart truck rack. These welds were done using 17 volts and ~250 in/min of 0.030 wire and C25 gas. Other than blowing through at the end of the tube (my fault I'm sure) and being a little wavy, I think the welds looks OK for a newbie. I'm going to practice more on getting the weld beads to be straight. LOT's to learn ~~~~~~~~

I'm also going to buy some 1/8" and 3/16" angle tomorrow so will have more newbie pics to post. The IMIG works great!

cheers
JohnG

Attachment 10201

[performance]

Turn down the wire speed to about 205. You can go a little lower with the volts I'd imagine.

[johnnymg]

Thanks for the tips Mark

I tried a couple different settings and was getting the "best results" with 18.4V and ~200 in/min.
Note: I calibrated the wire rate and my machine spits out 250 in/min when the display indicates 200 m/min and 200 in/min when the display indicates 160 m/min.

Here are a couple pics from that last setting:


Ignore the blown-through hole on the lower right of the first pic! hahahaha
regards
JohnG

[youngnstudly]

Very cool! It's exciting once you get the basics down and begin realizing that you CAN actually start welding on projects without becoming embarrassed around your buddies. It seems like everyone around you is a welding critic when critiquing your welds, even though theirs can sometimes be compared to welds done by a blind guy!

Are you using a tape measure and stop watch to calibrate your wire feed speed?

[johnnymg]

Yes, using a timer and tape measure. Thanks for the encouraging comments................... looking for suggestions also.

Later today I'm going to give it another try.

cheers
JohnG

[johnnymg]

Small towns rule ~~~~~~~~ went to the metal supply shop and they gave me ~20# of clean steel and aluminum (cut offs). They just asked me to bring back the material when I was done with my practice welds.

[youngnstudly]

Yes, using a timer and tape measure. Thanks for the encouraging comments................... looking for suggestions also.

Later today I'm going to give it another try.

cheers
JohnG

Years back, I trained a new apprentice to tack weld and square up HVAC duct, mainly so he'd learn about welding and fit up, while I was able to do more important tasks elsewhere. He somehow got the idea to use one welder to calibrate the other welder. That's when I started asking "Do you have any questions before I go?"

That's very cool you were able to get some free material to practice on! So much drop is wasted in shops that use large quantities of material daily. A few of the shops around here donate excess scraps to the local JC and high school shop programs.

Edit: I forgot to ask what your method was for welding the 2 pieces together. Are you running a straight bead, or weaving across the gap to join your 2 parts together? You can try many different motions including circles, half circles, whipping motions back and forth, etc. Or you can just run a straight stringer bead by dragging the stinger along at a steady pace.

[johnnymg]

Hi Andy
Thanks for the comments.

That was a straight stinger. I tried a couple 'short weave patterns' and the welds looked way too lumpy, I suspect due to a 'too high' wire feed rate. I've got some clean material now so I'll hopefully post some additional pics later today for comment/critique.

JohnG

[performance]

A couple more things that might help. From the ends of the tubing you are getting over penetration. You really should be getting just a little penetration. There is NO merit in having too much penetration. If you get any penetration, and it's consistent, that's all you need. I recommend turning your arc force UP to about 3 o clock position for best operation. This will affect the bead and sound of the unit. It will be a little more raspy, but it will lay out a flatter bead and wet in better. With what you are doing you could get away with 16.5 volts and about 185-195 on the wire speed.

[johnnymg]

Mark

Thanks for the hints: I didn't realize the Arc Force control worked with the MIG gun! I thought it was a stick only adjustment. Anyway, I had it set at 11:00 for those welds. I was also trying to get full penetration as I had read MIG welds are infamous for looking good while sometimes having negligible penetration. I'll try the Arc Force setting at 3:00 and back off on the penetration for the next go-round. Heading to the garage now............. will see how long I last at 95 degrees.

cheers
JohnG

A couple more things that might help. From the ends of the tubing you are getting over penetration. You really should be getting just a little penetration. There is NO merit in having too much penetration. If you get any penetration, and it's consistent, that's all you need. I recommend turning your arc force UP to about 3 o clock position for best operation. This will affect the bead and sound of the unit. It will be a little more raspy, but it will lay out a flatter bead and wet in better. With what you are doing you could get away with 16.5 volts and about 185-195 on the wire speed.

[Kempy]

Heading to the garage now............. will see how long I last at 95 degrees.

cheers
JohnG

Did that 28 years ago and never again I put in a large air conditioner set to 65F and never look back at hot weather again. We do get -35F in the winter.

[johnnymg]

OK, back from the 'oven'............... more on that later

Getting slightly better results on 1/8" clean steel. These strips were done with 0.030" wire. Went to switch to 0.035" and Monsoon cell (big lightning) knocked out the power. Waiting for the cell to clear out before plugging the welder back in. The blobby looking bottom weld was an experiment with multiple passes..........

18V and ~200 in/min. Set the arc force to 3:00 but I can't really tell any difference.

[johnnymg]

Here's a couple more pics ...... Getting a little better but I'm getting a bit of popping sound which may be from impurities/dirt. I brushed off the metal but it may have some oil on it since we dug these pieces out of the cut-off machine bin. ??? I'm using Inefil ER70S-6 0.035". These pieces are 1/8" mild steel. What's the simplest way to remove oil/grease from metal before welding? I'd prefer to NOT use acetone which I see mentioned as a common cleaning agent.

One of the better welds of two pieces. 18.5V ~200 in/min


Stringers welded in the vertical orientation (in the down direction)....... stringer on the right was freehand and the others were with my welding hand braced.


cheers
JohnG

[Rambozo]

Here's a couple more pics ...... Getting a little better but I'm getting a bit of popping sound which may be from impurities/dirt. I brushed off the metal but it may have some oil on it since we dug these pieces out of the cut-off machine bin. ??? I'm using Inefil ER70S-6 0.035". These pieces are 1/8" mild steel. What's the simplest way to remove oil/grease from metal before welding? I'd prefer to NOT use acetone which I see mentioned as a common cleaning agent.

One of the better welds of two pieces. 18.5V ~200 in/min

Stringers welded in the vertical orientation (in the down direction)....... stringer on the right was freehand and the others were with my welding hand braced.

You can use a variety of degreasers either solvent or water based depending on how dirty the metal is. Simple Green will usually do a fine job, and can be rinsed off.
By and large MIG is not as picky about the material being clean like TIG. So for things like a film of cutting coolant you can usually just weld over that with no trouble. Popping is usually from the wire speed not being quite right.

Most of the time you will want to go uphill for vertical MIG. Downhill never has as good a fusion as uphill.

[Mr120]

Is the popping sound infrequent or periodic? It is tough being properly covered in safety gear when the thermometer bulb starts to rise. I usually end up reaching for the the stick welder or flux core mig when it gets hot so that I can use a fan pointed at me.

[performance]

You are moving too fast. Also with the popping, you could have the gun at too much of an angle or as it appears, you have some inconsistencies in arc length and that alone can create popping as it is brought in and out of ideal arc length. Spatter looks fairly low...so it's probably ok on wire speed. But one thing, go back to the .030 for 1/8 or under for sure. I use it up to 1/4", with this MIG, but with my ESAB, I keep .035 and I have gone pretty thin. But it isn't as pretty as the .030.

Slow down, allow the puddle to widen out. Lower the voltage IF it is burning through. I'd put it a 16.5 and slow down with a lower wire speed as well.

[youngnstudly]

At least your metal has a smiley face on it! Haha. Looks like you're getting the hang of MIG welding too. You'll want to weld your thinner materials, say 10 or 12 gauge (and thinner) material downhill. Heavy material needs better penetration which means you'll want to weld that stuff uphill as Rambozo already mentioned.

I've gotten in the habit of grinding a bevel on most any material that is 1/8" or thicker, which allows me to get better penetration using a downhill pass. I like to use some sort of weaving or circular motion when doing those types of welds too, if I can. The exception would be sheet metal, which you can get more than enough penetration on simply by welding stringer bead. I don't MIG weld much material that is over 1/8" thick anyways since the welder I have access to is only 120 amp (230V input!), with like a 30% duty cycle....not one of Millers better ideas!

It was hotter than heck here today (102 in the shop this afternoon) but I'd be out there welding too if I had a new welder to play with! Keep practicing!

[johnnymg]

You are moving too fast. Also with the popping, you could have the gun at too much of an angle or as it appears, you have some inconsistencies in arc length and that alone can create popping as it is brought in and out of ideal arc length. Spatter looks fairly low...so it's probably ok on wire speed. But one thing, go back to the .030 for 1/8 or under for sure. I use it up to 1/4", with this MIG, but with my ESAB, I keep .035 and I have gone pretty thin. But it isn't as pretty as the .030.

Slow down, allow the puddle to widen out. Lower the voltage IF it is burning through. I'd put it a 16.5 and slow down with a lower wire speed as well.

Hi Mark

Thanks ALL for the suggestions. I tried 16.5V and slightly lower wire (140-170) speed and the popping went away. The stingers look good but I'm still "working" on lap/butt welds. Best way to describe the main issue with the lap/butt welds is that I'm not getting enough heat/melt to make nice concave welds. Perhaps that's just the nature of MIG welding???

Here's some stringers with the lower voltage and wire speed:


Here's my MIG welding mountain.............


cheers
JohnG

[performance]

If it's 1/8" or over, you don't just make butt welds with that size welder. You should bevel the weld first. But the first picture you posted looks very good. You have some issues with running a straight line, and a little height inconsistency, but this type of welding would pass in a trailer plant. These welds are concave and fairly decent. I am not sure what you are looking for. Crank your arc force a tad bit more maybe to 4 o clock...and see what you get. That tubing looks like stainless to me from here. You can go up to maybe 180-185 on wire speed, but keep your volts the same. You're getting wet in, but now you might want to speed up just a hair to prevent too much metal piling up on top...just slightly more, not too much more.

[johnnymg]

If it's 1/8" or over, you don't just make butt welds with that size welder. You should bevel the weld first. But the first picture you posted looks very good. You have some issues with running a straight line, and a little height inconsistency, but this type of welding would pass in a trailer plant. These welds are concave and fairly decent. I am not sure what you are looking for. Crank your arc force a tad bit more maybe to 4 o clock...and see what you get. That tubing looks like stainless to me from here. You can go up to maybe 180-185 on wire speed, but keep your volts the same. You're getting wet in, but now you might want to speed up just a hair to prevent too much metal piling up on top...just slightly more, not too much more.

Hi Mark

Thanks for the quick reply.

That shinny box tubing was magnetic and it seemed to weld real clean with C25/ER70S-6. So, I don't know ~~~~~~~ sure looked like SS to me but IDK. ???

I'm heading back to the metal supply shop tomorrow to trade in my pile for a new pile. I'll ask them about that box tubing. I'll also try upping the gun speed a little bit to perhaps reduce the convex bead issue a little bit. I also have some unplated 3/8" and 1/2" REBAR so I may try some butt welds on that stuff.

When everything was running nice the weld process had a really sweet sizzle sound!
regards
JohnG