welder too powerful???

admin

I've been welding for a month now and I'm either burning holes in the metal or getting loose welds that come loose with a couple of hits from the hammer.I have a lincoln arc welder/generator(225AC/210DC)that has a knob called a "fine current adjustment".It's knob settings go from 1-10(10 is auxilary). could this dial be making the current to......powerful?Or does the newbie need practice?ps....I picked up a small electric 80 amp arc welder and I'm decent with it.Practice or unknown knob?
Reply:Which model Lincoln do you have?  as far as the "fine current knob"  that is used to adjust amperage.  You should have another switch somewhere on the panel that gives a certain range of currents.  ie (50-100,  75-150, 100-225)  The fine current knob is used to adjust the amperage in the range that you have selected.  Say if you were in 50-100 the knob at 0 would be 50 and the knob at 10 would be 100.  not sure what you mean by could the knob be making it to powerful, if you are blowing holes and it seems to hot turn the knob to a lower setting.  As far as the "10 is for auxillary", what that means is that when you turn the knob to 10 you will have full generator wattage out of the auxillary outlets when not welding.  Keep at it and you will get it.  It might not help to check on   www.lincolnelectric.com   and see if you can get ahold to an owners manual.  It will help greatly to understand your machine.  Good luck  ~JacksonI'm a Lover, Fighter, Wild horse Rider, and a pretty good welding man......
Reply:Hammock sort touched on a key point when he mentioned a current range of possibly "50-100". Each model has a 'low end' that will be one limiting factor. In his example 50 amps would be the low end or minimum current that machine will give good results with. Then to go along with that low end you need a rod/rod size to match that. Small rods for low amps on thin material. It's not one of those things where you can just take a large rod and easily 'turn it down real low' so to speak.