Mig Welding Basics: Mig Wire Installation

Mig Welding Basics: Mig Wire Installation

Installing your mig welding wire is really quite simple. The first step is to make sure that you are using a very high quality mig welding wire. Why? You can have so many troubles with mig welding wire not feeding, burning back, excess spatter, birds nesting and so on.

Assuming there is no old spool of mig wire on the mig welder. The first think you have to do is physically open the welding machine or wire feed case up.

Then you will have to remove a cotter pin or a large plastic nut that is attached to the hub or axle the welding wire will slide onto. Now open up the box of mig wire, check that it is the correct size wire that you want to use and the correct type of wire. Also give it a quick glance and check for rust.

Lift up the spool and slide it onto the axle/hub. Replace the cotter pin or plastic nut.

Now go to the end of the mig welding gun and remove the nozzle / shroud. This will either pull off or screw off depending on the brand of welding torch. When it’s off, remove the contact tip by unscrewing it with pliers.

Set the nozzle and contact tip aside.

Go back to the mig wire, and in between the spool of mig wire and where the welding torch attaches to the front of the machine or remote wire feeder you will find the feed rollers or drive rollers.

There will be some kind of latch which can be flicked open. This action will raise the top feed roller and allow you to feed the wire onto the drive rolls.

Note that on the feed rollers there are usually two grooves. The wire needs to sit in one of these grooves. On the side of the feed rollers will be a punched marking showing what size wire to use in which groove.

Usually mig welding machines come with two different sized grooves. For example 0.9mm and 1.2mm which is 0.035” and 0.045”.

Make sure that the mig welding wire diameter fits the right sized grove in the feed roller. When running a precision welding wire you need to use the right feed roller groove for the correct diameter sized mig wire.

You can get away with using slightly different sized feed rollers when you run a cheapie low quality mig wire. Why is this? This is because the wire diameter tolerance will go up and down. So the wire will be getting thicker and thinner all the time which will compensate for the slightly wrong sized feed rollers.

I do not at all recommend this for anyone who is serious about making money in a production welding environment or welding and fabrication business. It will cause to much trouble.

Now you will have to carefully and I stress carefully find the end of the mig wire and hold onto it and don’t let go. If you do it will go whirl, whirl, whirl and you will have a big mess of mig wire all over the place.

With the end of the mig wire feed it into the driver rollers, you will have to go through a small feed tube. This helps guide the wire over the feed rollers.

Keep feeding the wire through past the driver rolls and into the start of the mig welding gun. Feed it through about a foot or so.

Lower and lock down the latch for the drive rollers, and adjust it right back to number one or the lightest setting possible. Then screw / adjust the tension down a bit.

Next if you are using gas, turn off the bottle to save your expensive welding gas lay you welding gun and cable out straight from the welder and pull the trigger. The wire will slowly fed through the liner and pop out at the tip holder. You can crank up the feed speed adjuster to get the wire through faster.

Now when the wire emerges put the contact tip or contact tube back on. Put the nozzle back on and trim the wire to about half an inch sticking out.

You are just about done now. Turn you gas back on. Now ideally you want the wire feed tension mechanism to be as light as possible so that it does not deform the shape of the welding wire. Deforming the shape of the welding wire will case premature wear on the feed rollers simply because of too much force. It will cause irregular wear on the contact tip and the welding wire will have tiny bits of material shaved and squeezed off it which will go down into the liner of the torch, and over time cause it to build up internal resistance which will cause more trouble welding down the track.

For more go here

http://www.learn-how-to-weld.com/mig-wire-installation.html

Cheers,

Peter Apalais