hobart welder

[Brian Ski]

Thats why dad said to stay away from them. Still want to try one though. We have an old HF auto darkening helmet that worked fine last summer for stick and worked for about 5min today but at some point they stopped so im going to be miserbale tommorow.

The instruction on the auto darkening helmet say if it not used in a while put it in bright sunlight for a while to get a charge on the nicad in the helmet. I had to do that with mine once in a while. Worth a try I guess.

 

[freekforge]

yea we let it sit in the sun for the whole day before i used it. Worked for about five minutes then crapped out. It was given to me used 2 years ago when i started stick welding so it had a few miles on it. My eyes were just slightly irritated so nothing serious.

been working on my vertical up and am getting a decent bead. the welder is rated for 1/4" single pass but with flux core and vertical up i can easily do 5/16" and probably a little bit more.

 

[Brian Ski]

Sounds like the battery died. I think they said they were good for 5 or 8 years??? In those helmets the battery is integrated in it.

 

[freekforge]

well bought a 20cf pony bottle today to play with until i buy a bigger bottle and to use when we need to take the welder somewhere. Unfortunately the regulator/flow meter that came with the welder is crap the pop off valve is faulty and leaks like a sieve. luckily we have an older one from a tig setup that works (might be the tiniest of leaks but there may be some debris causing that). still trying to figure the welder out i think the door chart runs hot for flux core and cold for mig. I am getting better looking welds with the flux core but i just need more practice with this machine. I was having trouble welding anything under 1/8" because i couldn't keep a steady travel speed but i have been hitting some 16ga with a fair amount of success after some practice.

on another note i switched the stinger and ground clamp on my stick welder and am getting way better welds now. was laughing about how i spent $17 on my first welder and about $700 on my newest welding setup. right now we can stick,flux core, mig, and torch weld and hopefully dad will get his tig set up soon. oh and dad can forge weld. So with some more practice we will hopefully have pretty decent weld capabilities.

 

[freekforge]

arrggg i cant get a good looking bead with the gas to save my soul. i keep getting an ugly cold looking bead. with flux core on my welder and mig at work i can get pretty nice looking beads but with the mig and my machine its just weird looking. gonna take a piece of 3/16" i welded up to work tomorrow and have one of the guys check it out and see what he thinks is going on (probably me) hopefully get everything figured out.

 

[17 squirrel]

If I had to guess without seeing a picture I would say,, not enough amperage and or wire speed is too fast. Also maybe wire size is to large.

 

[freekforge]

I'll try and get a picture tomorrow. the wire feed was too high, i could feel it pushing the gun back so i went down and down and down to the point it was too low and no matter what it look like crap. I played it by sight and sound like i have been with flux core but it still looked really cold. also played with the gas settings going from the min. clear up to above max and it didn't change the outer appearance (obviously there was porosity issues when it was low)

 

[17 squirrel]

On a mig in shop conditions gas pressure generally will be 20 psi. If using a vacuum welding table or outside in windy conditions a few more psi might be needed. What size wire do you have in the machine ? Are you using a extension cord ?

 

[freekforge]

.030 er70s6 wire i ran 20cfh most of the time. its plugged into an outlet directly.

 

[Brian Ski]

.030 er70s6 wire i ran 20cfh most of the time. its plugged into an outlet directly.

That should be doing quite well. What kind of gas are you using??? Can you tell if the shielding gas is coming out of the nozzle??? Only thing I can think of is low heat level or a problem with the shielding gas. MIG should be a lot better than flux core.

Just an idea I know when I cranked my shielding gas too high I popped a hose loose in the machine. Hold the nozzle by some dust and see if it is blowing the dust out of the way.

 

[17 squirrel]

I would certainly hope the supply house gave him 75-25 mixed gas.
I would try welding with your amperage around 80% and wire speed super slow maybe 8 to 12 inches per min. And watch the ark and see if when you are welding the wire is piling up or melting back towards the inside of the nozzle.
Hold your mig gun up and decrease your welding angle. And see what happens.
If the wire piles up.. You need to slow the wire speed down or your amperage up.
If the wire heads up inside the nozzle take away amperage or add more wire speed.

 

[freekforge]

about to head out and tinker with it a bit more. its a hobart bottle of c25 i bought from bigr so hopefully they got it right. the thought occurred to me today that maybe since the solid wire has more metal maybe im not pulling in enough juice to the garage. i cant stick weld in there but i can run flux core so im going to check and see how much power im getting out there when im not welding and when there is an arc. Another reason to run new wire out to the shop.

 

[freekforge]

well as much as i hate to admit this i will just in case another noob reads this. the problem with the welder was we didn't switch the polarity all this aggravation was caused by a simple misunderstanding. I asked my dad yesterday if he switched it and he thought i said "do you" and he answered yes because he said yes i didn't even think to check it. but tonight i went looking for the serial number so i can have the regulator warrantied and looked inside of it and said "that aint right" switched them and its running awesome. ran some weaves, figure 8's, and some lower case e's and they are looking pretty decent considering my experience level.

 

[Brian Ski]

Great I am glad you got it figured out!! And it was something simple.

 

[freekforge]

yep never even thought to check there since i thought he said he already changed it.

and hobart is sending me a new regulator/flow meter

 

[17 squirrel]

Good glad too hear you found what was wrong.

 

[freekforge]

well guess the higher ups are bi polar or something because today i was told to go to a guys booth and learn to weld. And its sounding like i may be welding at work soon if i keep practicing. I have been dragging but today i practiced pushing the gun and you can tell a difference gave a flatter almost concave weld. I was told if i was comfortable i could do some production today but i told them i would hold off a day or two to get some more practice in.

so considering what all i have done, will do, and that it may get me a better job i think i made the right choice buying the hobart 140

 

[Brian Ski]

Sounds like most work... Too many bosses contradicting each other... What would you be welding for??? A place around here is making air tanks for braking systems. Besides good welds they have to be air tight. My buddy always like to watch in the box where they would pressure test the tanks.

 

[freekforge]

We do a little bit of everything. Bumpers, utility truck parts, electrical boxes all kinds of weird stuff.

 

[freekforge]

Ran my best bead yet today and showed some guys at work. They chased down the supervisor and he likes what my welds are looking like now. he said i can weld when someone doesn't come in (substitute welder i guess). He's hesitant to switch me around because of all the people fighting for the weld spot obviously if someone more qualified shows up they would rather have them and not a guy who practices in his garage.