3200HD Welding

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Guys. I recently purchased a 3200HD from the local Home Depot for general home repairs and some projects on my hot rod truck. Primarily a costom stainless exhaust system. I am a novice to welding so before I attempt to start on the stainless pipe I have been practicing on some 16 gauge exhaust tubing, bought at the local auto zone, using 75argon/25Co2, L56 wire and the recommended power/feed settings per Lincoln for the materials. After welding awhile I have noticed either an issue with the welder or maybe its normal I don't know. Laying a bead every few seconds you can hear the welder make a studder, a da da dum...  the arc will kind of die down, the wire feed will push the tip back etc... then it will pick back up... just like striking a new arc, weld well, then do it again. Wondering if this is an issue, or its way of working with duty cycle. Crap steel? Maybe my welding? Have read up on stubbing and arc blow out and tried those remedies to no avail. Not a big deal. I'll get my project done with it, just some ugly welds.TIA for any input.Last edited by RPH; 04-12-2007 at 11:32 AM.
Reply:Loses the arc and it pushes the gun back?  It's not the duty cycle.  I'd guess that it's dirty steel (you can't weld grease, oil, or rust!) or a loose connection (check the ground conenction to the work!) somewhere or you let your stick-out get too long and thus lost the arc.  Or you have some power problems from the outlet, like something else on the circuit pulling juice, or a little low on the voltage at the outlet, etc.  Or a combination of all of the above.And as a novice to welding, I'd say to practice on some flat stock before doing tubing.  Get some 1/8 inch thick flat stock and weld that together for a while.  Butt welds, fillet welds, whatever.  Why 1/8 inch stock?  It's big enough to see what you are doing as you have the arc melting the stock and adding wire, yet not so big that you are beyond the machine's capabilities nor so thin that you constantly blow right through.
Reply:Try turning your wire speed down a little.DavidReal world weldin.  When I grow up I want to be a tig weldor.