Seemingly low output on my Miller Diversion 180

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Ok, so I'm about as noob as it gets right now -- had a 1/2 day class from a local Miller dealer and a couple of evenings in the garage at this point, so please be gentle  I have a Miller Diversion 180 that I picked up from Craigslist for doing some light fabrication for a shooting-table business a couple of buddies and I have.   I have been having problems getting a big enough puddle to practice running beads while practicing on 1/16"  to 1/8" steel plates. I set the welder to 100 and the maximum the numbers on the front show when I am welding is 45 with the pedal all the way down.  When I go up to 125 it reads 54, and when I set it to the maximum of 180 AMPS it shows 78.  The same welder showed higher numbers when I was practicing at the class.....so I am  thinking it is either my power supply or the welder.  OR, will different kinds of steel conduct electricity differently?    For power, I am running it off of my 30 AMP 230V dryer outlet.  Using a 30amp dryer cord, I made a patch-cords to get from the dryer plug to a 30AMP rated RV extension cord.  The cord is 50' to get out to the garage.  Then, on the welder side I have another patch cord to convert it from the RV cord to the NEMA 6-50P that the welder uses.Electrode is 2%thoriated tungsten and I'm using 100% argon with 20cfh flow.Last edited by hoekma; 02-15-2016 at 12:05 AM.