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Hey guys,Just wondering if you can help me out with my welder. I just picked up a used Century 90 MIG welder and can't seem to get a consistent bead going. I'm used to Oxy welding but have decided to jump over to MIG to fab up a buggy (1/8" walled mild steel and 1" sched 40 pipe) so not sure what I am doing wrong here. I have shot a quick video here:The wire feeds just fine when I'm not welding, but is jerky no matter what feed setting I have it on. I am running solid core and have set the ground to -ve as per the chart. the ground was +ve as it was set up for flux core from the person before.Any help would be greatly appreciated!Thanks!Mike
Reply:Hello and welcome. Post up what settings you are using, both in power and wire speed, as well as wire size and so on. Also how far away from the material is the tip of the gun?I can see all sorts of things that could easily combine to give you issues, but without more information and weld picts, it's hard to give any good answers. Basics things to start with, a 90 amp mig is really too small to do a really good job on 1/8" material. Even 140 amp class migs are maxed out on 1/8". Manufacturers all over rate these little machines and under real world conditions what they can weld is a lot less than what the lit says it can. Next, anything that drains power from the system will just make things worse. If you are plugged into a 15 amp circuit rather than a 20 amp one, if there are other draws on the line, if you are using a long or undersized extension cord, these will all rob the machine of input power reducing it's output. Using really large diameter solid wire will also give you issues as that machine doesn't have the power to run it well. 1st thing I'd do is set the machine to it's maximum power, and make sure it's plugged directly into a wall outlet on a 20 amp circuit and unplug anything else that might be on the same breaker. 2nd assuming you have the polarity set right, I'd be using .024 wire on a machine that small. .030 is probably borderline on what it can use. Set the wire speed based on what the door chart suggests to start. keep the gun lead as straight as possible so you don't have any extra drag on the wire. Also you want the distance from gun tip to work to be no more than about 1/2". The farther away the gun is from the work, the "colder" the machine welds, and the longer the wire has to feed causing that pop, pop I'm hearing. It could also be due to the wire speed being wrong.See if any of that helps with some of your problems..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:Thanks! Glad to be here. I'm using 035 wire on max power ( max 2 as per the chart). I have went through the full range of wire feed speed from 0 to 10 and many speeds in between. I have tried holding the gun from 1/4" away from the piece up to an inch, just to see if that made a difference. Not so much. Oh no way! Funny, I checked the chart on the inside of the welder just to make sure I can do 1/8... Never though they would be overestimating their ability. Starting to think I should have stayed with oxy, I have gotten a lot of bad info on mig lately. I Was told this welder should be able to do 1/8" but I would need to run gas to get max penetration. And of course the local store doesn't rent bottles, so i dropped 300 on a bottle of 75/25 and a regulator. ... I wish I would have found this forum earlier, there seems to be a lot of good info/people on here and might have saved me some money/headache. I am running on a 15 amp circuit (I asked about this and was told that's what this welder was run on before and I would be ok) and I do have a long length extension cord, but nothing else is running on the circuit. So, I guess my question now is: what setup do I need to properly weld 1/8' square tubing and 1" schedule 40 pipe?Thank you very much for your help! Mike
Reply:Lol. Turn up the amps
Reply:You need atleast a 30 amp more like 40 tho
Reply:Originally Posted by motolife313You need atleast a 30 amp more like 40 tho
Reply:Food for thought, .035 solid runs best from about 50 amps up to about 190. Not that It won't go lower or higher, just that the 50 to 190 is the best overall. Plus the lowest preferred voltage would be maybe 18v then up from there. Your machine caps out at 90 amps so .035 may not be the best bang for what you want to do. The .030 probably would have been better to try. Would give you a little more room to play with and a wider sweet spot."The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first, the love of soft living and the get rich quick theory of life." -Theodore Roosevelt
Reply:.035 solid wire is probably your 1st big issue. It takes a lot of power to melt .035 solid wire. .035 flux core wire is probably even to big for a 90 amp machine and it's got a lot less section to the wire. 15 amps will allow the machine to run, but you are starving the machine for power. No big deal if you are welding thin sheet metal to do auto body work, but when you need to get everything you can from the machine, it's like trying to put out a fire thru a straw. Same goes for a long extension cord. I don't know what gauge cord you are using, but I doubt it's really a heavy one. You get what is referred to as voltage drop when using a long extension cord. Smaller cords cause more voltage loss over distance than larger cords.I noticed this very clearly last year. I needed to run my air compressor on 200' of extension cord to reach where we were building a shed. I actually had two runs of cord out. 2 12 ga cords connected together to run the compressor or chop saw, and 2 lighter gauge cords to run the radio and battery charger. 1/2 way thru the compressor started to act up. Eventually I figured it out that the guy helping me kept playing musical cords depending on what he needed to use. When the air compressor was plugged into the lighter cords, it would stall and wouldn't start because it wasn't getting enough power thru the smaller cords. Plugged into the heavy cords, it ran fine.Also Flux core wire usually gives you the most penetration with small machines. You'll notice that to do the max thickness the chart lists, it's usually FC wire it's listed under. With only 90 amps, .030 FC wire is your best option for max penetration. 75/25 runs "colder" making it a good choice for doing sheet metal. 100% CO2 gas will give you a bit more penetration than 75/25 does on small machines, but not quite as much as FC wire will.To do what you want, you'll want to stack the deck in your favor as much as possible. Max power and .030 FC wire would be my choice if I wanted to get the best results on 1/8". If you go with solid, go with .024 size wire. Prep on the pieces will be key. Either a gap or a bevel will allow you to get the most out of the units limited power. Also you will want the material to be clean with no scale, so that means either grinding with a hard wheel or sanding disk. Not only the area you want to weld, but where you put the ground clamp as well. As mentioned you will want to use a 20 amp outlet if at all possible. Many machines if you read the fine print in the manual, they will want to draw 25 or 30 amps at max power. Way more than you get out of a typical house hold outlet circuit. DO NOT just put a bigger breaker on the line. There's a real chance you can start a fire if you do this. Some guys have made up 30 amp cords using only one leg off a 220v dryer circuit. Heavy 10 ga cord wired up right will do the job.Also welders have what is called a "duty cycle". That's how long the machine can weld at a certain power setting before it needs to "rest". Part of this is to deal with heat, but part of this also deals with the fact many small welders use capacitors to help boost the power output. The caps act like batteries and the machine will drain those caps and after a certain amount of time, they need to "recharge". At max power, your duty cycle is very small, possibly measured in seconds. That means you can only do short welds. After the caps are drained, output power drops off. Even though the machine still welds, it's now starved for power. Many think that if the machine still welds you haven't reached it's duty cycle limits yet. That's not true. Many machines have a thermal cut off to prevent over heating, but usually you are way beyond the duty cycle limits when they shut down.Depending on they type of buggy you are trying to build, I think you can make this work. I wouldn't trust the welds for some of the ASME carts that go super fast or a dune buggy, but for the average small go cart you should be ok.I will say that if you can take this back and return it, you might want to think about it. A 90 amp machine is about as tiny as they get and are very limiting. Even 130-140 amp migs on 110v power have some serious limitations, but 1/8" is quite doable under real world conditions. The newer dual voltage migs are a good choice as a starter machine. On 110v power, you are still limited just like the 140 amp 110v migs as far as max thickness of about 1/8", maybe a bit more using FC wire, assuming you are still using the same 20 amp circuit and no extension cord criteria mentioned above. However on 230v power they will easily do 1/4" to 3/8" depending on the machine. Down side is that they are a bit expensive. A dedicated 230v mig is a bit less expensive than the dual voltage machines. A 180 amp 230v machine will do 1/4" and a 200 amp machine will do up to 3/8". Again a lot of guys use a heavy extension cord plugged into an electric dryer circuit to power the 230v machines. a 50 amp range circuit would also work.You might also think about adding your location to your profile. Many guys here browse CL regularly and might be able to point you towards a nice used unit that can save you some money. Others occasionally have offered to help with projects..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:Originally Posted by AKweldshopSeriously?Let DSW do the talking.
Reply:30 and 40amp breakers are very rare and hardly needed by most hobbiests.That machine will be just fine on a 20amp with no extension cord.Your not the easiest to like, I'll admit.Just a couple welders, big hammers, grinders, and torches.Work will free you.Men in dirty jeans built this country, while men in clean suits have destroyed it. Trump/Carson 2016-2024
Reply:What are they only welding pop cans? We can be friends!
Reply:Wow, Thank you so much for the detailed explanation, that completely makes sense. I think I'll try the less expensive options first, namely a larger sized extension cord and 025 solid core wire. I figure I already paid for the argon, might as well use it.... Or do you think I should just go for the 030 flux core?.. If that doesn't work, I checked my breaker box and my kitchen counter plugs are 20a. I could just get a 50' extension cable and run that out the door to the garage. Not a permanent fix but not that much of an inconvenience. Will a 12 gauge extension cord work or would I need 10?And if this doesn't work I'm pretty much left with the option of getting a better quality 110v welder or paying a bunch of money to wire my garage to 229 and getting a better quality welder. Not really an expense I was looking to do considering I probably won't use it much at all after this project... Thanks again to everyone for your input, it has all been appreciated Mike
Reply:Originally Posted by AKweldshop30 and 40amp breakers are very rare and hardly needed by most hobbiests.
Reply:Originally Posted by cdnjaguarWow, Thank you so much for the detailed explanation, that completely makes sense. I think I'll try the less expensive options first, namely a larger sized extension cord and 025 solid core wire. I figure I already paid for the argon, might as well use it.... Or do you think I should just go for the 030 flux core?.. If that doesn't work, I checked my breaker box and my kitchen counter plugs are 20a. I could just get a 50' extension cable and run that out the door to the garage. Not a permanent fix but not that much of an inconvenience. Will a 12 gauge extension cord work or would I need 10?
Reply:Wow, Thank you so much for the detailed instructions! I have attached a few pictures of my first welds. First, I got a nice 50' 12 gauge extension cord and plugged it in to the 20 amp outlet in the kitchen. This combined with downsizing to 025 solid wire seemed to do the trick! Got a nice sizzling bacon Weld going with that I thought to be a good pool. Here is my first and second weld:I pushed these two welds. They seemed to be higher than what I thought they shod be so I decided to pull the next one. I also turned down the wire feed a bit. I started this pull then slowed down half way through and it seemed to make a better Weld... I think lolThen I decided to try and Weld those two pieces of tubing together. I think it looks decent although I don't know how deep the Weld penetrated. So, I was going to Weld a little more and it really started sputtering and acting all crazy. Couldn't figure out what was wrong, till I noticed I heard gas escaping inside the handle and not coming out the end. So I took the gun apart and the air supply tubing slipped out of the nozzle. I tried to pull the tubing back towards the gun so I could slip it back in to the hole where it should be, but I couldn't get any extra slack. I almost want to tack it in with crazy glue... Really double thinking buying this thing second hand! Oh well. Here's the issue:I really appreciate your help this far and am really eager to get your feedback on my welds. Don't worry about sugar coating, I love honest feedback! Thanks again! Mike P. S. Here is my setup. It's just a homemade MDF table in the garage. Nothing fancy. Last edited by cdnjaguar; 12-17-2014 at 11:56 PM.
Reply:I thought i had a basic understanding of electricity, but not i think maybe not.. I know the limitations of wire size, length, voltage drop, wire heat, etc... but why does a 15amp breaker limit the welder compared to a 20 amp.. If it's not tripping the 15 amp breaker on max power and speed then why and how does it need more amps..
Reply:Not too bad so far. Beads look a bit tall, but beads on flat plate usually do to a limited extent. I think your wire feed could possibly use a bit more tweaking and that might flatten the beads. You could speed up slightly and that would also help flatten the beads some. Pushing tends to yield a flatter bead than pulling does.Beads are also a bit on the wide side. I don't know what motion you are doing with the gun. Motion has a lot to do with bead manipulation. A circular or cursive e motion tends to put down more material for the same travel speed than other motions do. This is worse if you pull rather than push. A Z motion puts down a bit less material in the same time/distance. Both of these motions allow you to make a wider bead than just a straight no motion bead.Edges on tube like that can be a bit deceptive. You have a beveled edge that tends to "eat" up a lot of weld material. It's easy to hide weld flaws in beads like that. It's also a joint that isn't used all that frequently. T joints and but joints are going to be a bit more common.You aren't doing bad so far. Now it's just a lot more practice. Welding isn't something you are going to do well with over an after noon. Sure you can just stick some metal together at this point. But as soon as you need to weld something in a position other than flat, your lack of practice and skill will show very quickly. The only way to get this is thru a lot of repetition and practice..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:Thanks again for the help! I was a little worried that if I went faster that I wouldn't get the penetration, but I'll try varying my Weld speed to try and lower the bead. As well I think I'll slow the wire feed as well, I believe I was at about half speed. And I'll switch back to pushing. I ended up going with an e motion strictly out of fear of not having the penetration on this tubing. I'll give the z a try next. I have a lot of extra metal kicking around so I expect to be doing a lot of practice. I think once I get the flat bead perfected then I'll hack up a bunch of this tubing and start practising T joints, then progress to joining together samples of the notched round 1" schedule 40 I'll be using for the cage. I really appreciate you taking the time to critique my welds, thanks! Mike
Reply:So, decided to test the strength of the welds did holding the 2 pieces together. Clamped 1 side in a vice and started wailing on the other side with a good sized hammer. While they did start to separate, the force I had to use to get to that point made me satisfied that this Weld is strong enough for what I need it to do. Now the trick will be for me to be able to repeat this consistently on my notched tubing.
Reply:Travel speed / penetration is a fine line. Move too fast and you don't get good penetration. However if you move too slow, the excess weld material builds up and you end up making the piece "thicker" effectively, and with out enough power to over come the extra thickness, you loose penetration. Best way to know actual penetration is to cut and etch the welds. On 1/8" material it can be a bit tough to see the actual areas etched due to size. These are the posts I remember best that deal with etching welds. CEP also has had a thread recently on etching.http://weldingweb.com/showpost.php?p...4&postcount=38http://weldingweb.com/showpost.php?p...8&postcount=47Small round tube is some of the hardest to do well, especially with small machines. In many cases it can be tough to get the gun as close as you would like in some parts of the joint, The farther away you have to get the gun, the more "power" you loose and it's not uncommon for the weld to simply lay on the surface. Also you have to constantly keep adjusting the gun angle as you rotate around the tube. Smaller the tube, the faster you need to make these adjustments. Also because of the way tube joints are usually done, you usually have to weld the joint in all positions. 2 pieces but welded in the horizontal plane, require you to be able to weld overhead, vertical and flat. i you turn that piece on a 45 deg angle, now you have to weld overhead, vertical, horizontal as well as flat, all in the same joint. After we get you dialed in well on normal joints in all positions, we'll start on tube joints..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:Originally Posted by barthowesI thought i had a basic understanding of electricity, but not i think maybe not.. I know the limitations of wire size, length, voltage drop, wire heat, etc... but why does a 15amp breaker limit the welder compared to a 20 amp.. If it's not tripping the 15 amp breaker on max power and speed then why and how does it need more amps..
Reply:ok.. i have seen people keep saying in many threads " you should be on a bigger CB" and it always threw me for a loop and made me wonder if i was missing something.. sure enough I was.. it necessarily isn't the CB its the wire size that most people are running with the CB.. I always run 12/3 in my house for my 120V.. just too cheap to always change CB's.. thanks for the clarity.. helped a lot..
Reply:So, finally had a chance to get back in the garage and practice my welds. Starting to feel like my horizontal welds are looking decent so decided today to practice vertical welds, pushing up. While many leave something to seduce, there are a few that I think look ok and seem to have good penetration. Later this week, I'll cut and each them to see what they look like on the inside. But till then, here are some of the better ones: Ran the machine to overload a few times. I can see that getting rather annoying when it comes to do all the final welds, but will deal with that when the time comes. Thanks again everyone for the help thus far!
Reply:Beads all look cold and tall. Picts 1 and 2 tell a lot. With the slight bevel of the side of the tube, with enough power you should have been able to see the bead come thru on the inside. You don't, and that's due to lack of power. Not much you can do about that with the tiny machine you have. If you had beveled the piece that was square cut to allow the weld to go in deeper and possibly added a small gap, you might have had better results.The fact you are tripping the overload tells me you are way beyond the duty cycle on that machine. That is a killer when trying to get good results. That machine will only give you max power for a very brief period. Once you drain the caps you loose the extra power they supply and it's not worth continuing. Right now a lot of what ever strength you think you may have comes from the excessive bead. If you need to grind down that bead for some reason, say you need a flat surface for looks or to fit another piece, you will no longer have any strength once the bead is ground off, say in pict #1. A good bead that penetrated deeply to the back, the loss of a small amount of material that protrudes on the top, won't significantly effect the strength when you grind it down. Filets are a bit different since you get a lot of the strength from the reinforcement, but with good prep and enough power, you still retain a lot of strength even when ground. None of the beads I see would have that..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:Oh, no way!.... Well that's disheartening... Well, I suppose the next step would be to get 240v running to the garage and invest in a welder with more power. Thank you for the help thus far, I really appreciate it! MikeA bigger machine certainly wouldn't hurt.We can work some on getting what you have to work a bit better. 1st get a grinder and bevel the edges of that material. 1/8" is pushing that machine, but if you make the material a bit thinner, you can achieve a bit better results. Also instead of things jammed up tight, a bit of a gap between each piece can help as the pieces now don't act as heat sinks to each other. I also see no sign of prep work on any of those pieces. Mill scale is your enemy with tiny machines. It acts as an insulator and you eat up power trying to burn thru the scale. A sanding pad or grinding wheel will remove mill scale, not just where you want to weld, but also where you attach your ground clamp. Any thing that saps power you will want to get rid of. Note that a wire wheel on the grinder will not cut thru scale or rust. All it does is polish it. You need to use a hard wheel or sanding disk to get down to silvery metal.I'd also turn down the wire a bit. How much is something that I really can't tell you over the internet. I set the machine by sight and sound and I just can't tell what things are happening by computer. I'd go down until you start to see the wire from the gun looking like it wants to "drip" and you start loosing that crackling sound, then turn it back up just a bit. Again push vs drag to help not build up so much material and keep the gun in is as tight as you can, 3/8" from the work is good..There are a few other "tricks" that you can use to help some, but until we get you dialed in on the basics, they aren't going to do you any good. All of these things, we are talking about minute improvements to try and wring every last bit out of what you have, but nothing is going to make major improvements like simply more power will do..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:Yup, I was only hitting the Weld area with the wire brush and figured that was good enough. Now I sanded down the area and ground a bevel in to all ends.. I turned the wire feed to min which allowed me to move slower than before. I moved in a z pattern, stopping on the longitudinal piece, moving to the end piece then back with a pause again on the longitudinal piece. It felt like it was going better this time so here is what I came up with... Once that was done, I cut in to it with my saw and threw some naval jelly on to it... Here's the results: Now, I am no expert, but it looks like neither Weld penetrated properly. The end piece seems to have gotten good penetration on both welds, with the pushing being more distinctly effected. But as for the longitudinal piece, it looks like the pull didn't do anything to it, and the push just cut in to it a small amount. I honestly thought I would see deeper penetration than this? Thanks again for the time your taking, it is greatly appreciated. Hopefully someone can learn from this in future! Mike
Reply:I may be wrong, but the push bead looks pretty good. The penetration is all the way to the far side at the root. It looks like good fusion on both pieces of metal. The throat of the filler looks like it never gets thiner than the thickness of the upright.Dan----------------------------Measure twice. Weld once. Grind to size.MIG: Lincoln SP100 TIG/STICK: AHP Alphatig 200X
Reply:Originally Posted by cdnjaguarNow, I am no expert, but it looks like neither Weld penetrated properly. The end piece seems to have gotten good penetration on both welds, with the pushing being more distinctly effected. But as for the longitudinal piece, it looks like the pull didn't do anything to it, and the push just cut in to it a small amount. I honestly thought I would see deeper penetration than this?
Reply:Thanks for the input guys! You (and anyone else) is more than welcome to save and use my pictures, especially for teaching purposes. Now, assuming we keep my technique the same.... Would switching to a 140a 110v welder give me the penetration on the longer piece that I am looking for? Or would I be better of going to thinner material.... Running 240 to the garage is just not in the budget unfortunately. I have the option to use. 095 wall 1.25" o.d. DOM tubing for the frame of my buggy and think I might go that way to ensure I get a good penetrating Weld. Thinking that may be the way to go, as I would rather drop the extra $700 in to a better engine than a new welder...
Reply:Going thinner would certainly help you out with either machine. Going up in tube diameter gains you several things. #1 it gives you more weld area so you spread out the forces over a larger area making it less critical over a small area. #2 larger tube in general is stronger in bending, even if it's thinner. The metal is used more efficiently. You may find 1.5" tube even better.A 140 amp class mig may or may not help. Again it's power coming in that is your #1 limiting factor. Assuming that we take the in coming power out of the equation ( assuming that you have enough to run both) then the 140 would have the advantage. However if you can't get enough power in, you may not get a lot better results. Transformer migs aren't terribly power efficient. Going up to one of the newer inverter based migs may give you some advantage because they can get a bit more out of what comes in, but not a whole lot. You might gain an extra 1/32" to maybe a 1/16" over what you have now, but the down side is that these cost a lot of money for very little return. 220v is really the way to go for cost effectiveness when you talk about how thick you can weld. I seriously doubt spending the money an a slightly better 110v mig will gain you enough to make the cost worth while..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:Originally Posted by cdnjaguarHey guys,Just wondering if you can help me out with my welder. I just picked up a used Century 90 MIG welder and can't seem to get a consistent bead going. I'm used to Oxy welding but have decided to jump over to MIG to fab up a buggy (1/8" walled mild steel and 1" sched 40 pipe) so not sure what I am doing wrong here.
Reply:Thanks for the input guys. Thus is the buggy I am building: The bottom base is the 1.5" hss that I have been practising on, everything above that is spec'd in as 1" schedule 40 pipe. Since there is no way I can Weld schedule 40 pipe with this welder, and I have some wiggle room on the design, I think I can get away with 1.5" Dom tubing in a .095 wall. With the larger tubing, it will overlap the bevel on the hss where I tie it in, however I think that gap may prove to be in my advantage as that is where the hss is thickest and will allow me to fill in that Weld.... I'll definitely have to practice that Weld before doing it. I picture welding the thinner tube to the thicker hss will be a bit tricky. And yeah, I get the feeling that dumping money in to a little better 110v welder won't provide me the benefit I am looking for.... .. Would prefer Heating the hss help at all, or is that not a good standard practice for mig? Thanks! Mike
Reply:It would help some to preheat the joints. I generally don't suggest preheat as it won't make a huge difference, but that would have been the next suggestion I was going to make once we get you dialed in on the basics.For your base, you could use 1 1/2 x 1" rectangular tube vs square. That would give you the extra material to weld to.I think with that buggy, as long as you keep the top speeds reasonable, you shouldn't have any issues..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:Picked up some 1.5". 095 wall tubing and set to try some sample welds. My consistency is improving, so that's the good news. Not anywhere near professional standards, but better none the less haha. I'm definitely able to penetrate the tube Better but no matter how hard I try I just can't get full penetration on the square tubing. I have widened my Weld a bit which seems to help get a little deeper in the metal, as well creates a nice transition from the Weld to the piece.... But I think it may be too wide of a Weld? Here's what I ended up with: Got a little worried as I didn't see anything come through the backside if the thinner walled pipe... I did, however, get better penetration in to the square tubing, so was happy to see a bit of improvement.... Far from full penetration, I know, but for my purposes I'm lead to believe the joint should be strong enough?.... I hope. (and no, I won't be going very fast with this buggy, I'll be using a 50 hp quad engine, and will be doing mostly mild to me trails up here in the mountains... Nothing too technical either, I'd rather not get anywhere near fliping this thing). Here is the cut and etch: Ignore the right side, didn't have my gun on the right angle. Was pointing down from the top too much. So right now, things I see I need to work on are:A) repetition, more practice to create more consistent beadsB) smaller tacks so I don't create such huge globules when I run over them. C) tieing in to the backside of an existing Weld or starting on an existing Weld. But those situations seem so cause a cold Weld. And if I stop on it to heat it up, the metal just piles up before the existing Weld melts. I'm guessing I need to start and end my welds a little more sparingly, consciously using less material knowing I'll be going over it again. D) anything else one of you may notice that I don't know im doing wrong.Thanks again for all the helpLast edited by cdnjaguar; 12-23-2014 at 05:49 PM.
Reply:Filet welds like you are doing never fully penetrate to the back of the material on the solid piece. If possible you want to see penetration to the back on the end of the perpendicular piece and you are really close.Your section there isn't bad on the left. I'd have liked to see the round tube beveled some so you managed to get a bit more penetration there, but you aren't doing badly.Tacks... Tacks can cause issues when you don't have enough power to blast thru the tacks. One way to deal with this is to take a grinder or slitting wheel and thin the tacks down before welding over them. It takes a bit of practice to learn how thin you can make the tacks and still have them hold. You can do the same thing at start/stop points. Doing this is very typical for guys doing pipe work.Round tube/pipe... You have to understand how you angle your gun for doing flat pieces 1st. You keep your gun at a certain angle consistently as you move along the flat piece to get a good joint. Now when you get to round material, you have to take that same information and apply it to the "flat" of the pipe. Think of the flat piece you were welding before as a line tangent to the circumference of the tube/pipe. A line running perpendicular thru the tangent line to the center of the pipe would be the same as a 90 deg line on flat plate. As you go around the pipe, you keep the gun at the same angle to the perpendicular line all the time. That means the gun has to constantly keep changing as you go around the pipe, but the relationship to the really short "flat" of pipe and those imaginary lines all stay the same.I hope this makes sense as I'm not doing as good a job of explaining it tonight as I do sometimes.I see a lot o guys try to weld round sections like they would flat square tube. they start with the gun way a ways from the tube, then it gets closer, then farther away, as they move right to left, instead of maintaining a consistent angle to the pipe all the way around.As far as bead size, you really don't need a bead any larger than the size of the thinnest material used, assuming you do a good job of the weld. However it's really tough with mig on small piece to make a bead that small in reality. 3/16" up from the joint and out on the base material is a good size that isn't that hard to accomplish. 1/4" is starting to push it some. Having said that, I'd rather see you have a slightly larger bead that was done well, then a small bead you rushed and had issues with.Your cutting thru the beads is showing you what you can accomplish and you are doing well. Now it's on to lots and lots of practice. welding is like so many other things, playing music, driving etc. You have to practice, practice, practice to get decent.Once you get to putting round tube to round tube together things are going to get real challenging fast. 1st thing you will want to do is to have learned to make decent welds on that square tube in all positions, not only flat/horizontal filets like you have been doing, but also vertical and overhead joints. Round tube like on your buggy will be easiest to weld up as it sits with out having to try and roll the whole thing so you can do joints flat. You will also need to work on but joints so you can get good penetration with a slight gap and not blow big holes in things in all positions.Fit up on round tube will be crucial, especially with thin tube like you will be using. If you want to see a real master of tube fit up on buggies, browse thru some of ZTfabs threads. His tube fit up is perfect. You'll note with his stuff there are no gaps and everything is done nice and tight, or if it is gapped, the gap is consistent all the way around, exactly the same every where.Investing in a tube notcher will be a very good idea. HF sells a cheapy one that many have managed to modify to get semi decent results from for single projects. You can also go online and print out paper templates to tube notching and mark and cut the tube by hand. Don't rush fit up. Your success with depend almost completely on how good you do with your fit up. You get what you pay for with notchers. A good top quality notcher will make tube joints a breeze. A cheap notcher can make your life he11 trying to get a good fit up. There are plenty of notcher threads here. ZT's suggestions would carry a lot of weight with me if I needed to buy one, but he does a lot of production work, so his suggestions won't be inexpensive.Looks like a bender will also be something you need to look at either locating access to or buying for thins project.When we do beveled but joints at the tech school, I fit up my joints to the point you can't see light between the two pieces if tight butted. Then I tack them up so the gap is the same all the way along. Students often have no problems doing decent welds when I prep a piece as a demo, but they can't understand why they can't get good welds on their own. The reason is they want to spend 2 minutes on fit up and 10 minutes welding. Their fit up leaves a lot to be desired to say the least. In reality you spend 10 minutes or more on fit up to get it perfect, and 2 minutes welding it all up..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:Hi! Just thought I'd give a little update. As I sit here it's - 30 outside with the wind chill, and being that I don't have an insulated garage, I haven't had much time to get out there and Weld. Hopefully I'll be able to get a few weeks of "warmer" weather where my little propane heater can actually be effective! In the mean time I have been watching YouTube videos on welding as well as preparing for the remainder of my buggy build. Thank you for clearing up a lot for me on tacks, I got a good grasp of it now. You are totally right on the tube bevel, I didn't spend as much time as I should have making the bevel. Hoping to get some more practice in, and yes I'm very glad I have done the penetration tests, they really opened my eyes and I think this should be standard practice for anyone learning how to Weld. I ddfinitely get what you are talking about with welding around round tube. Spacing and angle are constantly changing and it's challenging to try and maintain as you move around. And then add speed of welding and it's quite the balancing act! But like you said, it's all in practice and I'll be getting a lot of that! I have invested in a recent tube notcher so am excited to notch some tubes and start trying to do some T welds. Was able to source a decent bender as well. It is a pipe bender, but after a bunch of messing and I am able to bend tubing it with without kinking on rippling the inner part of the bend. Now all I need is the weather to cooperate so I can get back out there! I'll update when I can and will post pictures of my progress. Thank you again for all of your help thus far! I greatly appreciate it! Mike
Reply:Your welder is just too small for the job..It take a certain amount of wattage to make a good weld...Welds on a buggy are critical,a broken weld could cause serious injury or death.Baby welders make money for the makers because they sell a lot of them to people who pinch pennies.Worse,tight wads never seem to know how to weld.The pix of weld penetration prove it..
Reply:2 things you might want to change, did I read correctly that you were running C25?If so, you may want to use pure CO2.C25 is great for sheet metal and automotive stuff.The other thing you may want to adjust your weld prep so you have an open root and make sure to push. If you don't want to make everything open root, pre heat with a propane torch.old Miller spectrum 625 Lincoln SP-135 T, CO2+0.025 wireMiller model 250 and WP-18V torchCraftsman 100amp AC/DC and WP-17V torchCentury 115-004 HF arc stabilizerHome made 4 transformer spot welderHome made alternator welder |
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发表于 2021-8-31 22:08:20