input on my first mig beads ?

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this is on 3/16 plate, first pic is with flux core wire. with my lincoln 180looked to me like good penetration.and these are the first run with gas, 25cfm , max amps, about 4 on the wire speed.on the door it lists the max at 3/16 thick with .035 wire. i was using .030 and there was no setting on the door for it, so i guess im at the limit here ?looking for some tips, when im at the max should i be increasing the wire speed or slowing it down? thanks for looking
Reply:Get the birds out of the garage. Keep going...I can remember in the 7th grade my mom said "people will offer you drugs" by the 10th grade I was like, "where the hell are these people?"
Reply:A few things. The selector knobs are for voltage and wire speed. You mentioned "max amps", but I believe you meant "max volts". Amperage is determined by the diameter of the wire and the feed speed. There's typically some easy math formulas to use in the back of your owners manual that explain the amount of needed current for mig welding steel (typically 1 amp per every .001" of steel, 1/8" steel is .125 and therefore needs 125 amps). Per the Hobart (from the manual for an HH210 mig), .023 wire takes 3.5" per amp (if you needed 125 amps, you'd take 3.5 x 125 = 437 inches per minute). .030 is 2" per amp (2 x 125 = 250 ipm) and .035 is 1.6" per amp (1.6 x 125 = 200 ipm). So, all things being equal, more wire speed = more current. Sadly, that machine doesn't have a display to tell you the actual wire speed (though it will list the range of wire speeds in the book, you can try to guess and fine tune from there). For thicker material, you'll turn the wire speed up to increase current.If your voltage is too high, you will have excessive spatter (I see a good bit of spatter on the second plate). I'd try turning the voltage back a notch and/or turning the wire speed up more.I hope that information helps a bit.Just keep at it!KevinHobart Handler 210Tweco Fabricator 181iLincoln Squarewave Tig 175
Reply:Originally Posted by joefitzGet the birds out of the garage. Keep going...
Reply:not bad keep practicing your best results will come from clean metal and a good ground350P 30A spool gun cut master 51  syncro 250 other stuff " take a dog off the street and make him prosper and he will not bite you sad the same cannot be said for man" i didnt use punctuation just to piss you off
Reply:And, there are some limits to each wire size. The spool laying on my desk shows .023 for use from 35-70 amps, .030 for use from 50-100 and .035 from 100-150 amps. However, this is the lowest rated chart I've ever seen for mig wire. Most of them are shifted higher and show .035 in the 185-200 amp range on the top end. Do some research for better numbers (I just happen to have a spool of mig wire on my desk). I only mention this to say that there is a proper wire choice for each thickness of material. Don't assume you can turn the wire speed up and just use .023 for "everything", or that you can turn .035 down far enough to weld really thin sheet metal, etc (I'm not saying you would, but explaining this in hopes that things make more sense).KevinHobart Handler 210Tweco Fabricator 181iLincoln Squarewave Tig 175
Reply:some more playing around. i need some more material so i can start building some stuff