Lincoln spool gun ?

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Has anyone used the lincoln sp100 spool gun? My next project will be an all aluminum gold highbanker. My welder is a pm140, and the manual says to use a spool gun to feed the wire. I guess i'm leery of buying it because it's only $180. The comparable miller gun is $700???? I'm not afraid to spend money on good tools! What's the deal? You only need to be 2% smarter than what you are working on.Lincoln pm140hacksawa big hammer
Reply:Anyone? You only need to be 2% smarter than what you are working on.Lincoln pm140hacksawa big hammer
Reply:I would save your money and buy a TIG. Even if you have the option on that small 110V welder, you won't be able to do much past 1/8 inch material in aluminum. The other option is to see if someone on the forum is local to you, which has a TIG, and see if they'll weld it up for you for a 6 pack and a 50 spot.John -  fabricator extraordinaire, car nut!-  bleeding Miller blue! http://www.weldfabzone.com
Reply:I thought the SP100 was a welder...
Reply:MicroZone, what is a 50 spot?
Reply:50 dollars...as in "loan me a 50 spot" ...or "can you spot me a fiddy".  John -  fabricator extraordinaire, car nut!-  bleeding Miller blue! http://www.weldfabzone.com
Reply:Thanks micro. I know my machine will only do 1/8 alum without multi-pass. The projects I have planned will be 1/8 or less. I got this machine to learn on, my garage is a rental at my apartment complex. 110 is all I have in there. Once I get somewhere where 220 is available, I will get a tig. Mabey I will get someone to do it--I'd rather do it myself. You only need to be 2% smarter than what you are working on.Lincoln pm140hacksawa big hammer
Reply:I have played with one awhile back.  My supplier brought me one to play with for a week to demo it and let them know what I thought.  All in all it was not that bad of a product.  It's definitely not for production use, but for the occassional hobby welder it would make a pretty good add on.I'm a Lover, Fighter, Wild horse Rider, and a pretty good welding man......
Reply:Ah, that's right I forgot about that. You can try just running a 5356 wire through it and hold the gun and cord out as straight as possible. I hope a few guys will chime in as they've done it and it works...but it isn't pretty.  If you were closer I'd do it for a sub sammmmich and a 6 pack.John -  fabricator extraordinaire, car nut!-  bleeding Miller blue! http://www.weldfabzone.com
Reply:AFAIK, the Lincoln SG100 works OK with the new PM140 and PM 180 MIG units.  It is not a heavy duty gun, nor is it for production work, but it is supposed to work OK.  It is less than $200.  It has a duty-cycle of 30% at 130A and weighs 3.5 pounds.The Miller guns are production-level guns.  The SpoolMate 3035 ($600 base list price) has a 60% duty-cycle at 160A and weighs 9.1 pounds.  The Spoolmate 3545 ($715 base list price) has a 60% duty-cycle at 200A and weighs 10.0 pounds.
Reply:Thanks guys. Moonrise as always has all the info- even the weight of the guns. I also had heard of running 5356 with the regular gun, so I'll try that first. I really want the spool gun though, and with hammac's input I'll be hoping the 5356 wont feed cuz I'll have a good excuse to buy the gun. THANKS ALL You only need to be 2% smarter than what you are working on.Lincoln pm140hacksawa big hammer
Reply:years ago, I tried running 5356 thru the leadof a Lincoln 120V mig, but all I had was constant bird nesting, or the knurled drive roll kept chewing off flakes of the wire, and made a mess of the liner.  Definitely did not take long to decide that wasn't the way to go.I'm a Lover, Fighter, Wild horse Rider, and a pretty good welding man......
Reply:Originally Posted by MB2005TI also had heard of running 5356 with the regular gun, so I'll try that first.
Reply:Lincoln made/makes an 'aluminum kit' for the previous generation 'little' welders (those using the Magnum100 gun), previous to the PM 140 and PM180 machines.  Part number is K664-2, MSRP is $59.It is for feeding 0.035 aluminum wire, and includes a drive roll (smooth, U-shaped), six contact tips, and a teflon liner for the torch, instead of the coiled steel one (which most likely has some oil on it from the previous steel wire you ran through the gun, which means that if you try to run some aluminum wire through that same liner you end up getting oil on the aluminum wire).  The teflon liner also has less friction than the coiled steel liner, so that less drive force is needed to push aluminum wire through the liner.  Also, the teflon liner is SMOOTH (less friction from shape -and- material there), so it won't chew up the aluminum wire either.You could try that in your PM140/180, since they use the same gun (Magnum100) as the previous machines, but you're not going to be able to use the drive rollers.  The PM140/180 machines use a different drive roller set-up than the previous machines.  And you really-really want smooth drive rollers for the soft aluminum wire, not the knurled drive rollers which WILL chew-up that aluminum wire.If you want to try the liner approach, use only the 0.035 wire (don't even try to use 0.030 aluminum wire, it's going to probably birdsnest reallyreallyreally easily), the 5356 wire is a tiny bit stiffer than the 4043 wire so try that, and keep the gun cable as STRAIGHT as possible.You have a PM140?  It's -made- for the SG100 spool-gun, and the SG100 is made for it and the PM180.  I'd say just get the SG100.
Reply:My machine came with smooth drive rollers and knurled for each size of wire. I know to use smooth. I figure that a roll of .035 5356 will cost 10.00. If it wont feed I will buy the spool gun. I have nothing to lose by trying. I would need the wire anyway. The cost of this project is getting out of control, and even though I want the spool gun eventually, I would like not to spend the money now. Howerver I for see a phone call to IOC in my future. The project will require 20 linear feet of beads, and thats gunna suck if the wire wont feed right. You only need to be 2% smarter than what you are working on.Lincoln pm140hacksawa big hammer
Reply:You're going to want/need the non-metallic/teflon liner anyway.  Because of the friction aspect and the roughness of the existing coiled metallic liner and because the existing metallic liner has some crud/oil/grease/lube in it from its manufacturing/storage/use.Your drive rollers include an 0.035 smooth U-groove?  Not just the smooth V-groove rollers?Crud/oil on the aluminum wire = crap welds.  Aluminum is -real- picky that way, aluminum needs to be clean-clean-clean.  The work AND the wire electrode as well.You mentioned 'gold' in your first post.  As in gold anodized, or any color anodizing except grey/black?  You'll pretty much have to use the 5356 wire anyway, the 4043 wire will cause the weld to turn dark grey or black when anodized.  I still say to get the SG100.  Your machine and the gun were made for one another.  No dealing with changing a gun liner or finding the U-groove smooth drive rollers, just unplug existing Magnum100 gun assembly from PM140 and plug in SG100 gun.
Reply:MB2005, I was wondering the same thing, I posted the same question a couple weeks ago and got no response so figured no one had used one. I have decided to go with the spool gun for this reason: The liner kit is about 60 to 70 bucks and will probably still have feeding issues occasionally and for an extra 100 bucks you can get the spoolgun that should feed with no problems at all and would make swapping back and forth from welding steel and aluminum much easier. I would still like to hear from someone that has tried one though because it will be a few months before I get around to getting one.MB2005 here is a link to a site that has them for $157.00 and free shipping http://store.weldersource.com/k2532-1.htmlLet me know how it works if you get one before I do.P.S. Anyone have any MIG weld pics so I can see what a mig welder is capable of doing with aluminum.
Reply:Get the spoolgun.  It will do all that the PM140 can do.  The gun won't be a limiting factor.  As I said before, for hobby/occaisional use I think it will make for a good investment.  My little 120V mig that I keep on my service truck has crapped out and I am thinking of replacing it with a PM 180, and will purchase the spool gun with it as well.I'm a Lover, Fighter, Wild horse Rider, and a pretty good welding man......
Reply:Thanks 737 thats the best price I've seen. $160 was the lowest I had found. I am going to get the gun. I work for myself, so I have to be carefull with money. Yesterday I got three phone calls for large jobs. I'll be busy till christmas! Guess I can afford some new toys.Moonrise, to answer your question, I am building a gold highbanker. It's a machine that you shovel dirt into. It seperates gold deposits from the dirt. Gold prospecting is one of many of my hobbys. The machine has to be tough, lightweight, and corrosion resistant. I am using 6061 t6. The portion that the dirt is shoveled into is 1/8 thick, and the seperator (sluice)is 3/32. The whole machine is 2 1/2' tall x 4' long x 1' wide. It will use a 2hp 60gpm trash pump for the water supply. The whole thing will fold up and fit on a big wheel dolly so that I can hike into the woods with it. With fuel the thing should weigh under 40lbs. I would like the welds to look good, but i thought 4043 was the best alloy for 6061? I'm going to leave the whole thing raw (no anodise) so whats best to weld with 4043, or 5356? You only need to be 2% smarter than what you are working on.Lincoln pm140hacksawa big hammer
Reply:Yup, 4043 is the generally recommended wire for welding 6061.  That soft wire is really going to need the spoolgun to feed worth a dang.With some process tweaking (joint size and prep mostly) or if certain properties are needed after welding (anodizing color match mostly), then 5356 wire -may- be recommended for welding 6061.  But 5356 is NOT recommended for service temps above 150F.   Oh, be aware that welding a heat-treated aluminum alloy pushes the material properties after welding waaaaay back toward the "O" temper level.  So that the 6061-T6 you started with will be closer to 6061-O.  Strength will drop from 45ksi down to 27-30ksi ultimate tensile strength and yield strength drops from 40ksi  down to 18ksi.Unless you post-weld heat treat.  Hold in an oven for 1 hour at 400F after you weld it all up.  Better material strength for welded 6061 will be achieved if you weld the 6061-T4 and then do the 1 hr 400F heat treat post-welding.  Or you could go all out and do the full heat-quench-age and pretty much end up at full 6061-T6 properties (1000F, quench, then 400F for 1 hour).  FWIW.We do want to see picks of the project when you start working on it.  We love pictures here.
Reply:What spool gun will fit the SP175 (or Pro Mig 175) ? I see that the one that is linked to says it fits the 180. http://store.weldersource.com/k2532-1.html
Reply:Originally Posted by jh225What spool gun will fit the SP175?
Reply:I was one of the earlier guys to get my hands on one, and use it in a light industiral environment. I run it off of my PM180C, its a good combo. Don't worry about the duty cycle of the SG100, its very much like the magnum100 gun, you can get the thing to hot to touch before it will cook, at least I haven't cooked mine yet, but I do use it as a fab gun and not a constant production gun. The arc is great, but much of that is credit to the PM. The gun is not top quality when compared with something like a 30A spoolgun, but the flipside is that it is cheap and it works pretty darn good considering. I used to tig all of my aluminum, but tig was way too slow for production type of fab jobs, so I switched to the spoolgun setup and am glad I did. Don't get me wrong, tig has its place, just not in what I was doing most of the time, as my customers are concerned with time and cost second only to general quality.
Reply:I don't have much in the way of pictures of Al beads, but here's one where I was just getting everything setup to do a project using 1/8" 6061. IIRC, the filler was .030 4043, but its been a while and may have been .035 4043. Attached Images
Reply:I think he wants to know about the gun not every other gun and tig machine under the sun.... so here ya go...Man i love it... if you have two separate 110 v outlets you can buy the 180 and use the 220 v machine. I used it to make these projects below. lots of power for something so small (fukrs heavy) still needs tuning to get the proper "pretty" bead that all weldors seek. but ya man awesome little machine. here are the pics. I have done aluminum transmissions with pieces missing, speaker stands, bumpers, man when i got this thing i thought it would never pay for itself... first job was $2200 AND ant the machine cost me (including spool gun) $1700 taxes in and the aluminum was $500 so really what does it cost ya??? $0 just one full day so ya its great even tho it was free I would have happily paid the $1700!!! https://www.weldingweb.com/images/smilies/10_1_20.gif  I even got the pretty pics to show ya!!!!!! ***time stamps are off I was useing my back up camera***Best RegardsJay Hollandhttp://www.hamilton-welding.com