Total Noob

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Hi everyone.  As my title states, I'm pretty much a total noobie to welding.  Yeah I've burned a few sticks on my dad's welder, and messed around with my dad's Millermatic 250.  I've been given a Chicago Electric Dual Mig151.  I've been practicing on some pieces of metal today, my my welds are pretty wormy.  I tend to be someone who picks things up pretty quickly, but my question is, what are the relationships between the settings and how it welds.   The only settings that it has are: a wire speed control, Min / Max, and 1 / 2.  I was welding some "heavy" 1/16th and it seemed like i had to have the wire speed on 8 Max / 1.  Seems kind of high for that thin of metal.  Could some one tell me what changing each setting should do?Thanks.Jason
Reply:You paid too much for the welder you have. You may want to also post your question on the Harbor Freight forum on here for an answer.
Reply:The min/max 1/2 are the voltage controls.  Min 1 is the lowest, Max 2 the highest.  The WFS is adjusted based on what you see and hear going on while you weld.  I hope you're using gas and you have the polarity on the machine set right.  There should be a diagram where te wire feed rollers are.  Your gun should be on the positive lead for welding with gas and the neg for flux core IIRC.  My 131 welds horribly with flux core.  Gas makes a major difference.  You didn't mention wire diameter.  If you are using too small of a wire, there will be no wy to feed it fast enough into the puddle if the voltage setting is too high.  I would watch the Lincoln welding YouTube video on mig welding. They go over the correct sound when all is correct.  Also, Keviin Caron has a video about this, but I personally find his videos to be slow moving and featuring more of him than actual welding.  Check the voltage output of your machine at all the settings, then check the WFS at each notch by pulling the trigger for 6 seconds, measuring how much wire feeds in inches and multiplying by 10.  Then you can go to the Miller website and use their calculator for the baseline settings you will need.  There's also a thread in the Harbor Freight section here that goes over beefing up your machine in detail.  Good luck.TA Arcmaster 300CM3XMT 304S22P12 suitcase feederX-Treme 12VSOptima pulserTA161SMaxstar 150STLHypertherm PM45OP setupStihl 020AVP, 039, 066 Magnum