Setting a lincon classic 300D??

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Having trouble Finding the right settings for a lincon Classic 300D, it has 2 adjustment settings, a min & max setting, "90-, 130- 80, 190-120a...ect, and the fine tune adjustment, 10-100a.  My previous experience with a lincoln welder only had one adjustment knob to mess with, it was easy, you wanted to do a vertical u put it at @ 90 and go from there, same with what ever else you needed to do. I do know what amps to set the welder at for what job i need to do and what rod im using, or at least i thought i did,..lol, My experience in welding so far has been repairing bolsters, odd jobs for diffrent mills, and some structure. Never had a problem. I just got a new job as a structure welder and i swear i never felt so stupid in my whole life..lol, They pull the machine up, the lincoln, and like a rookie i hauled the leads up to where we working with out setting it first.  LOTS of trips up and down the latter..lol. the job was simple, 4 1in welds putting on brackets, the only kicker was the beam was 2in the brackets 1/8th, so it had to be hot enough to penatrate the beam with out blowin through the bracket, i got a few up after alot of grinding.,.lol, but when id strike the arch it was almost like it was too cold or the ground wasnt good, id strike it and have to pull the arch back a bit for it to start burnin. I like the job it looks like it will be fun and its gunna be great experience. but i dont want to look like a bum again come monday, any info would be greatly appreiciated. Sorry bout the length of this, guess i was venting..lol, thanks....
Reply:No worries.  The adjustment on the left, is the coarse range adjustment, or tap.   The knob on the right is the fine adjustment within each range. Take 130 - 80,  for example.  Set the left knob in this range.  Now the knob on the right will give you about 80 amps when it is set to 0.  Set the right knob to 100 and you'll have about 130 amps. The coarse ranges on the left knob overlap.  First tap goes from the machine minimum(about 40 amps) up to 90 amps.  2nd tap goes from 80 amps to 130 amps, and so on.  These overlapping ranges give you some dig control with the machine.Set the coarse tap to the first position, and the right knob to 100.  You'll have a nice soft, smooth arc with about 90 amps of current.  Good for vertical up with 3/32 E7018, for example.  Now set the coarse tap to the 2nd position (80 - 130), and the right knob to 20.  You'll still have about 90 amps, but the arc will be harsher, with more dig.  You might try this with E6010 overhead or in a tight gap open root joint on heavy wall pipe.  The lower the fine adjust setting, more likely you're going to have arc outages, spatter, and a more erratic puddle that's harder to control;  with the average machine. So what settings you use depend on what you're welding, what rods you're using, and to some extent your person preferences for the way a machine welds. My previous machine was a 300D and I did a fair amount of structural welding.  I tended to favor using the lowest coarse tap, with the fine adjustment as high as possible.  A downhill pipeliner would probably give you a much different set of advice about how best to set one of these machines.Here's a link to the owners manual for a Lincoln 300D.  Page B-2 has a longer version of this explanation, that might make more sense.http://www.lincolnelectric.com/asset...oln3/im995.pdfHope this helps.Last edited by A_DAB_will_do; 01-18-2013 at 03:59 PM.Benson's Mobile Welding - Dayton, OH metro area - AWS Certified Welding Inspector