new to mig please comment

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here is one of my first mig welds. I am using this welder,farmhand 115vac 70ampflux core wire set on 4 with wire speed on 21/8 mild steel any comments would greatly appreciated.
Reply:Slow down and let the puddle develop.Miller Dynasty 200DXMiller 252 Miller 250xMiller Syncrowave 250Miller AEAD200 LegendMiller 375 Xtreme plasmaLincoln WeldPak 100Victor O/A
Reply:Bead looks cold. I assume that's a small 110v machine. Crank up up to max to start and adjust wire speed accordingly. If you are already on max with that machine ( I'm unfamiliar with that model and what the settings actually are) the issue with it being cold might be that your distance from the work to the gun tip is too far away. 1/4" is about right, 3/8" max.You also need to slow down and not out run the puddle like I see you doing on most of that weld. Keep in mind with FC wire you need to learn what is slag and what is molten metal when looking at the bead, just like with stick welding. The slag fools a lot of new guys into thinking they are putting down more metal than they really are. Remember "If there's slag, you drag", so if you are right handed, you start usually on the left side and move right with FC wire, keeping the gun pointed back towards where you came from. Looks like you were starting to slow down enough to maintain a puddle on the far right near the end.One other minor thing since I'm not familiar with that machine. Just double check how the polarity is set. With gas mig, gun is positive, ground neg. With FC wire, they are reversed, gun neg. ground positive. Some machines come set up for gas mig, even though they include a roll of FC wire in the box. Having the polarity wrong will also mess with how the beads look.You may also want to grind your material a bit better. Don't use a wire brush to remove rust. All it does is polish it, not remove it. You want to use a grinding wheel or sanding disk and sand to bright steel, both in your weld area and where you attach your ground clamp.Keep practicing and post up picts. I've seen way worse from guys on their 1st welds..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 for the input guys that is why im here, to learn from the experienced ones. going back out to practice some more post up some more pics later.
Reply:ok did a couple more welds and here they arenot seeing much of a puddle, there is one there that I know travel was too slow and still didn't see much of a puddle.
Reply:You are improving. Beads appear aimed too much towards the upper piece. When doing a lap weld like that, I usually suggest students aim just away from the corner on the lower plate. Then the "wash" the puddle up against the upper plate until they see the top edge melt and then they need to move back to about where they were. On thin steel like 1/8", they almost barely have to touch the upper plate before they need to move away.If you look at the 1st pict on the left, you'll notice the bead does not extend above the upper plate and forms roughly a 45 deg "slope" to the lower plate. That is what you are sort of looking for. You want that slope to have a slight crown to it vs being concave. Not really a big problem when welding small plate with big wire. Most students have issues keeping the beads small enough. Remember that more bead doesn't always help. Once you exceed the thickness of the thinner piece, any extra is waste and too much weld can cause damage to the base material by over heating the work in some cases. So for 1/8" material, an 1/8" up on the vertical and 1/8" out on the base plate is ideal. As I said it's tough to do this with small plate and big wire. At the tech school if the students have a 1/8" to 3/16" bead on 1/8" plate, that's acceptable. More than that and they still need to work some more.2nd pict the bead on the right isn't too bad. It's inconsistent, but that's not a surprise at this point. It will take more hours of practice to get this down. You are still a bit high on the right side of pict 2 and on the left the bead is way too heavy. Last pict the end on the right is much more consistent, but it's a bit blurry, so it's tough to get a good look at the lower toe where the weld meats the plate or see how high up on the upper plate it is. Overall not bad.It's also nice to see you ground down the rust. Don't forget the edges, especially if they are torch cut. I can't tell if the far left side of plate one was torch cut, or if that's just a poor weld with only fusion on the upper plate.Keep practicing. It often takes the kids at the tech school hours of weld time before they can differentiate between what is slag and what is metal. Some rod's/wire are easier to do this with than others as well. You need to train yourself NOT to look at the bright arc. Your eye will naturally be drawn to the bright light. You need to learn to use your peripheral vision to watch where you are going at the same time you are watching the puddle and moving it where you want it to go,Part of the problem with new welders is that they lack any reference to work from. I like to describe it as trying to explain "red" to a blind person. It's easy to explain a shade of red to someone who can see, but to someone with no reference, telling them it's a bit more orange than fire engine red, or about the color of a good burgundy won't do them any good. It will come however. It's like when you first started to drive. Maintaining 35 MPH without looking at the speedometer was difficult. No I bet you can do it without ever looking, and while eating lunch, listening to the radio or talking on the phone. Subtle clues like how fast the phone poles are going by, how the car feels, what the engine sounds like etc all clue you in. It's the same with welding. At some point all these little clues finally click and you will have an "Ah ha!" moment, and it will all make sense..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:DSW thanks so much for the input. I don't have a torch so I use a grinder with cutoff wheels to cut all my metal. yes I know the left side of pic 2 was too heavy as I was trying to get a noticeable puddle. that seems to be one of my biggest problems at this point. don't have any trouble with stick welding. I will keep trying and post up later on my progress.
Reply:More than happy to help out someone who wants to learn.Stick and FC are very similar. Just like different rods have a flux that looks different, say 6010/11 to say 6013, or even the fact that the flux on different brands of 7018 look different, FC is often the same way. I know a lot of guys really have issues with cheap HF wire that comes with the machines or that they buy separate. It can often pay to dump the cheap wire and buy a "better" wire like Lincoln NR211 or Hobart wire. Think about it when you finish this roll. Good wire/rods are never a "bad" idea, especially if it makes it easier to run well.If you can clearly see a puddle with stick, and can't with FC, I'd look 1st at the wire you are using. I will say that there are a lot of guys who think they can stick "weld" who really have never seen the puddle. They get by doing flat and possibly horizontal welds doing what I like to refer to as "timing" patterns. While they may be able to make good welds, I wouldn't consider them a "welder". A true welder can see what is going on and make corrections if a joint gets wider or narrower, he has to shift positions like when welding 6g pipe ect. Being able to see the puddle is what separates those that CAN from those that CAN"T.Nothing wrong with a cutoff wheel either. I use one all the time and I have a lot of cutting options. You just have to be careful and respect it. It will hurt you in a hurry if you get careless..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 for the tip on the wire as I just ran out of the roll that I had. it was Hobart .035 didn't notice the rating though I will have to go back out and check that part out.
Reply:As noted above, your second set of welds is much improved over your first.  Keep practicing.  Vary things (e.g., current, arc length, gun angle, wire speed) systematically and one at a time and make notes of what you observe.  Try to focus in on a set of conditions that work for you for a given type of weld and position.  You say that you are having trouble visualizing the puddle.  It is important that you remedy this.  What is it that you are seeing?  What do you have for a helmet?
Reply:Your biggest issue is the fact that your little 70 amp welder doesn't offer enough power to properly weld an 1/8" steel lap joint. If you want to weld 1/8"  steel, you're going to need to purchase a more powerful unit. A decent fluxcore weld on an 1/8" lap joint should look similar to my attachment. Attached ImagesESAB Migmaster 250 Hobart Ironman 230Multimatic 215TWECO Fabricator 181i & 211iHH125EZ - nice little fluxcore only unitMaxstar 150 STH - very nice
Reply:Good catch there Dan. I missed that in his 1st post since it was under the picture and tough to pick up. I was thinking the machine had more balls than it does..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:fDude64, To have any success with your current unit you're probably going to need to drop your material thickness down into the .060 - .080 range. If you want to weld 1/8", with fluxcore, as a minimum you need something like my Hobart Handler 125 EZ. If your machine allows the option of running it , I'd drop down to an .030 wire. The smaller diameter wire will produce a more intense arc.  If your gun has a nozzle for shielding gas on it , remove it. Doing so will help improve weld puddle visibility. Just be cautious and don't allow the exposed metal components, at the contact tip end of the gun, to come in contact with any conductive material that will complete the welding circuit back to the work clamp.ESAB Migmaster 250 Hobart Ironman 230Multimatic 215TWECO Fabricator 181i & 211iHH125EZ - nice little fluxcore only unitMaxstar 150 STH - very nice
Reply:yea I know my machine is under powered for doing too much but It was bought just to learn a little about the mig type process. I do plan on buying a bigger unit or a spool gun for my miller aead 200le. I would like to learn aluminum welding as I have several friends that have dump trucks with aluminum beds that need someone to do welding on them. my big picture is to do mobile welding as not too many people around here offer this.
Reply:If you want to do alum mig, you'll need a machine with plenty of output. Alum is a great heat sink and takes more power to weld than steel. You'd want to be looking at a minimum of a 200 amp class 230v mig and bigger would be better. Also from experience fixing dump bodies, you want a spoolgun with a decent sized lead on the gun. The little 10' leads on the spoolguns for the small migs are almost worthless. You'll have to put the welder up on a ladder or in the loader bucket to weld and constantly be moving the machine. If the spoolgun has a 30' lead, like the ones do for full sized migs, then you can leave the machine in one place and move around to do the work. Note that in many cases, the spoolgun is specific to the machine. You can't just plug in any spoolgun you feel like. If you want a spoolgun with a long lead, you have to buy the mig machine that works with it. Trying to do it the other way will be a real PITA.I'm not sure if your engine drive is CV capable. If so you might be able to run the spool gun off it. If it's CC only, don't bother..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:I believe it is cc only, so I guess that wont work. I will have to find another solution to stay mobile and be able to do the truck bodies. thanks to everyone that comments I am learning a great deal.
Reply:Keep your eyes open for an engine drive that's CC/CV capable. That's your best bet. Avoid small 110v migs. while they say they can do alum, they don't have the input power to do 1/8" or thicker. Even a 180amp mig is borderline on 1/8".You may have to do what we did. Get yourself a long 230v extension cord so you can put the 230v mig outside in the driveway and have them bring the truck to the welder. With 50' of 230v extension cord, I could almost get my mig to the street if need be. Option 2 is to get an engine drive with enough Aux power to run a 200 amp stand alone mig. You probably need to look at a machine with at least 8KW output on aux power if not more.They do/did make some small engine drives that are CV capable. Miller had a dedicated engine drive, mig only machine a few years back that I believe was plug and play with a spoolgun. My guess was it didn't sell well as they dropped it fairly quick. I forget the name right now. A Bobcat is the smallest current CC/CV capable engine drive Miller offers, but they did have some smaller CC/CV capable units available in the past. I see them pop up on CL occasionally, usually in need of work to get them running because they have sat for a few years. Lincoln's older Weldanpower's had a version that is CC/CV as well IIRC. You'll probably need to add a spoolgun controller to what ever unit you buy as well as the spoolgun. There aren't many engine drives that are plug and play with one. If you can find one of the slightly older Trailblazers, they are a good machine for mobile alum as they will do both alum mig and alum tig with the right accessories. They aren't cheap though. I think it's a real shame Miller dropped the AC tig option on the newer TB's.Mobile alum work isn't easy or cheap, hence why you are probably finding many guys don't offer it..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:i will keep my eyes open for an older tb or look for a big generator to run a 230vac mig off of. I could mount the generator  on my truck and the big welder on a trailer like my aead200
Reply:Originally Posted by fdude64DSW thanks so much for the input. I don't have a torch so I use a grinder with cutoff wheels to cut all my metal. yes I know the left side of pic 2 was too heavy as I was trying to get a noticeable puddle. that seems to be one of my biggest problems at this point. don't have any trouble with stick welding. I will keep trying and post up later on my progress.