http://www.millerwelds.com/products/multiprocess/product.php?model=M00361

Does anybody have one of these in their arsenal? In your experience how does it weld? Mig? Stick? Running a 1/8" 7018 how many rods before your waiting on the duty cycle? What about Mig and a .045 flux wire?

I'm thinking about this for longer welds, 12" to 18" and pulling the trigger and just going but at 20% duty cycle I don't know how it would handle it. Looking at lap joints, 1/4" or better base with the other member being 1/4" or better. Using a .045 flux core wire. Just thinking that it's not going to have enough buttocks to do it faster than a stick rod off my SA. We've also got 1" flanges and stiffeners that range from 3/8" to 1/2" so going by the specs this would not do the trick using the mig option. Reading about the smaw side it would be multiple passes but still with the duty cycle seems to be lacking.

What kind of drop would there be in the machines capacity over say a 200 foot 10 gauge cord? Also would be a concern and weaken the output of the machine I know.

Just looking and wanted to see if anybody had experience with it. Thanks!

Shawn

Nice machine for home use, but I don't think it is a machine for the professional.

The voltage and current range are on the low side. It is fine for short circuiting transfer on sheet metal. As for 1/4 inch material it is a little under powered for the big time.

Running long leads will compound the voltage problem. There is a voltage drop associated with the length of the cables and the number of connectors. The higher the current, the greater the voltage drops per foot of cable. Don't forget you have a cable going out to the work and another coming back to the welding machine.

As for the use of CC for GMAW and FCAW, you are correct, tons and tons of steel have been welded with CC, but there have been enough problems identified that the code committee has decided to throw up a red flag. If you want to use FCAW with CC, you are fine provided it is worth your while to qualify the WPS. Once you qualify the WPS the Engineer has the final say whether he is satisfied the results are repeatable. The same is true with prequalified WPSs as well as SWPSs; the Engineer has the last word regarding their use on his job.

It’s back to my 10%-80%-10% rule. 10% of the welders I work with are true tradesmen. They know their craft inside and out. Their rework rate is next to nothing. 80% of the welders make a living, but their skills are less than perfect. They need to be lead, they aren't the leaders. 10% should be doing anything but welding. Their hearts are not in for it, they would rather be doing something else, and they produce the majority of the rejects on the project.

The same rule applies to engineers, inspectors, dentists, and medical doctors.

Any welder that is earning a living welding to code as a contractor should have a copy they can refer to when a question arises. The 10% will spend the money because they are the upper 10%. The 80% cannot see why they need to buy a copy, that's why they work for someone else. They depend on someone else telling them what to do. The lower 10%, what can I say; they probably couldn't make sense of the pictures, never mind trying to make sense of all those big words.

The upper 10% are smart enough to ask questions when the code isn't clear. They develop a network of experts the can trust and they use their resources wisely.

Best regards -Al

As a young welder I figured everyone knew how to put in a good bead. What constituted a good weld? One that had a good appearance and was consistent with no undercut, no porosity, the proper size etc.

Then I had an engineer make a comment that always stayed in my mind. He said, "Al, I can always tell a welder, but I can't tell him much."

Yes, it was an insult because I did things my way and I wasn't always receptive of other people's ideas about welding. He challenged me and I took him up on the challenge. He said, "Al, you have a pretty high opinion of yourself and your abilities as a welder, but you have no credentials that support your abilities. You are one of the best I've worked with, but there's more to welding than laying in a good looking bead. What is your opinion of welding inspectors?”

I told him in no uncertain terms that most of them were clueless. None of the inspectors I knew could strike an arc, never mind make a decent weld.

He didn’t argue the point, instead he agreed with me. He said it was a problem because there were not enough good inspectors that were skilled as welders and knew inspection. He told me about the new program the AWS had started called the CWI. He asked me if I had ever worked with a CWI.

My response was no, I had never worked with an inspector that knew his butt from a hole in the ground.

He laughed and challenged me to take the CWI examination. He cautioned me that it was a very difficult test, but if I passed, I would receive a credential that people would recognize. The credential told the person reading it that I was not just a welder, it meant I actually knew what I was taking about.

I took him up on his challenge. I passed the test in 1981. I continued to weld, but I became the “go to person” when there was a welding problem on the job site. I was shipped from one project to the next when the welders were experiencing problems and the inspectors started raising hell. Most of the inspectors had well founded reasons to raise the red flag. It was my task to fix the problems so the contractor’s pain was eased.

I didn’t attend any seminars before the examination, but the examination tweaked my interest in learning more about welding. I have attended many CWI seminars since the test and I have learned something new or was reminded of something that I had forgotten. Every instructor had a different back ground and each presented the subject matter slightly differently than the last. Some instructors were more interesting than others, but each bought something of value to the party.

I admit that engineer that first challenged me had a valid point when he said, “You can always tell a welder, but you can’t tell him much.” He opened my eyes to the fact that I didn’t know as much as I thought I knew. I listened to what he had to say, because he took the time to explain things and explained why the code required the welders to do things a certain way. He explained that the welding codes were not written with the expert welder in mind, they were developed with the average welder in mind. Put another way, the code is a cook book, if the designer, fabricator, and welder follows the code’s recipe, acceptable, predictable, and consistent results can be expected.

In the vast majority of cases where there were problems on the job site with weld quality, weld failures, etc., there were numerous code violations that once corrected resulted in successful welding.

Over the years I have discovered that most welders have a very poor understanding of the science behind their profession. How many welders know the difference between carbon steel and austenitic stainless steel? How many welders understand why they need to preheat carbon steel, but not austenitic stainless steel? How many welders know what the classification numbers and letters on an electrode actually tell the welder? How many welders understand why a highly deoxidized single pass flux cored electrode should not be used for multipass groove welds or large multipass fillet welds? I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point.

To reinforce my position that many welders are weak in the theory of welding technology, I offer this example: a couple of years ago when I hosted the Welder’s Rendezvous I included a ten question quiz. Of the contestants that participated, the welder that won the competition in the hands-on welding also was the only person to pass the written quiz. It was interesting to note the individual that won the competition was a CWI.

By the way, the engineer that proposed the challenge those many years ago became one of my many mentors. I frequently work with him on his projects. What amazes me about my friend is that as he approaches his 80th birthday, he still loves his profession and still works at it five or six days a week.

As I said before in a different post, we need to develop a network of experts and mentors we can call on when the level of expertise required is beyond our capability. Our world is too complex for most of us mortals to conquer without help. Anyone that believes they can do it alone is only kidding themselves.

Over the years I’ve had welding mentors that taught me what they knew. I’ve got mentors I can call upon for issues relating to NDT. And I have mentors I can call upon when engineering issues arise. I have no problem asking for opinions on issues that are in contention.

Regarding D1.1 structural welding code, it isn’t perfect. Few things developed by man are. There are parts that can confuse the person using the code. I’ve made several official inquiries regarding different code requirements because I didn’t understand what the intent was. A couple of the inquiries resulted in changes to the code. The changes involved clarifications to the code requirements to make it easier to understand. Even when my inquiry didn’t result in a change, I got a better understanding of what the code expected and what it required.

I don't want to be that person my friend encountered. When people think of me, I don't want them to think: "You can always tell a (fill in the blank), but you can't tell him much."

It is up to each of us to decide whether we want to be recognized a being one of the upper 10%, one of the middling 80%, or one of the lower 10%. I would like to be one of the upper 10%. I might not be there yet, but that is my goal. To that end I try to read, attend seminars, and direct questions to people I believe are already members of the exclusive 10% club.

End of rant. I’m on vacation this week. I have to go make a scrapbook with my grandson.

Best regards - Al

I believe my point of my post has been well reinforced by a few people that have responded. I may have side tracked the thread, but the truth has come out.

We have welders that know how to lay in a pretty bead or how to cover poor welds to make them appear to be acceptable quality weld. Fortunately most welders know that the latter is not the proper way to conduct one’s self. The truth of the matter is there are always a few contractors that cannot be trusted to do the job they were hired to do without someone looking over their shoulder to ensure basic code requirements and good welding practices are followed. What is surprising is these same individuals cannot fathom why the general public and engineers don't trust them. They cannot understand why they get no respect from other professionals. It does not take an Einstein to see why so many engineers and owners in the construction industry have lost faith in welding as a viable joining process. I consider it to be fortunate that the majority of welders take pride in doing the job correctly. It is unfortunate that we tend to remember the one or two screw-ups on the job-site as representative of the typical contractor.

I have attended numerous engineering functions where I have asked designers why they prefer bolted connections to welded connections. Their usual response is that there are not enough qualified welders to meet the production schedules and they cannot trust the contractors will do it properly when they do weld the joints. As much as I would like to take the position that welding is still the best method of joint two members together, I cannot defend my chosen professions by making excuses for the few that simply refuse to follow the engineer’s requirements. 

During my time as a welder it was not unusual to see a welder apply insufficient preheat or fail to maintain the required interpass temperature. It was common to see welders ignore the requirement that exposure time for low hydrogen electrodes be limited and ignore proper electrode storage requirements. All too often the contractor didn’t supply electrode ovens and all too often the site foreman would scream and holler if the welders didn’t use all the electrodes regardless of the exposure time. That being said, I can tell you I never once got fired for “using too much gas” to maintain interpass temperature or to preheat the steel. And I never got fired when I tossed a half can of low hydrogen electrodes in the river because the exposure time had been exceeded. Did I get my butt chewed? Yup, sure did. There’s no doubt about that, but the next day there was a rod holding oven on-site. The problem can be summed up in one word, “IGNORANCE.”

A point made by a few respondents is that we have a cadre of people entering the profession that are inadequately trained and inadequately prepared to take on the tasks they are assigned to do is well taken. I do agree to a point. There are different ways to gain knowledge. Welding is one profession where the majority of practitioners appear to have learned their trade at the “School of Hard Knocks.” On-the-job training, i.e., TSHK, is not very efficient in terms of time or money, never mind the cost of the corrective work necessitated by the field experiments gone awry. An alternative to TSHK are the schools that teach the subject matter needed to be proficient in one’s chosen professions. They typically offer certificate courses for a nominal fee and offer more advanced courses at additional cost. Most people opt for the basic courses that provide basic entry level skills; just enough to get a job.

Few employers have in-house training programs or offer advanced training to their workers. I applaud those employers that offer financial support to those employees that do try to further their education, but there are few workers that take full advantage of the opportunities unless they fear they are about to lose their job.

Apprenticeship programs have been largely phased out because of the costs associated with them. It appears to be more cost effective for an employer to “steal” a trained worked from a competitor by offering a slightly better working wage. We are currently reaping the rewards of the demise of apprenticeship programs.

We are reaping the rewards of publicly funded school systems that have stripped vocational training from their junior and high school programs. There is no one to blame other than ourselves. How many “working class” people, i.e., tradesmen, sit on their local school boards where decisions are made as to what types of courses are offered in our public schools? How many of us would rather leave the decision making process to someone else because we are too busy when in fact the truth is we don’t want to give up our television time?   

Our state legislatures have gutted technical training from our post high school and two year colleges. They have responded to market forces that demand lower taxes and the move to a service based economy. The professionals in the pinstriped suits are the ones running the school boards, not the tradespeople. It is no secret that people protect their self-interest. Office workers are going to promote programs that favor their interests. If we want to see changes made, we will have to take active rolls on our school boards. We are also going to have to apply pressure on the politicians and show we support vocational training in our school systems once again. There are no quick fixes in our political system. It is a slow drawn out process that takes long term commitment. Last but not least, there is no free lunch. Someone has to pay for the changes we would like to see.

I applaud those individuals that mentor younger welders. I applaud those people that are willing to teach others a new profession. I always appreciated my mentors because they taught me how to be more proficient and how to do my job properly. They were usually the quiet ones on the job. They didn’t spend their lunch tell everyone how great they were, but they would tell stories of the different projects they worked on and the solutions they devised for a particular problem. One of my mentors was especially knowledgeable when it came to welding metallurgy. He usually started his stories with, “Well, if I understood what my brother told me, we have to …….” His brother was a metallurgy professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He was a resource we called upon frequently. You see, it wasn't enough to get the job done, it was and still is important to get the job done properly.

Just to clear the record, I do still weld on occasion. I weld when there are no qualified welders to do the work. Much of my work involves developing procedures to repair machines and equipment that are difficult to weld. I often work with the welders to tweak their skills so they can achieve the desired results. By that I mean I pick up the stinger and show them how to weld the way I want them to weld. It doesn’t matter if they are using SMAW, SAW, GTAW, GMAW, or FCAW; I can show my welders how to do it the proper way so they meet the code when it is applicable and how to do it properly even when a code does not apply.

Sorry Sourdough, you are way off the point with your remark that I have been away from burning wire too long to understand the current state of our industry. I understand you and the current state of our industry all too well. And it is because of the state of our industry that CWIs and SCWIs are needed now more than ever.

I would like to close this post with a couple of questions to all that participate in the Forum; "What have you done to improve our profession and what have you recently done to improve the opportunities for those entering our profession?"

Best regards - Al

My experience has been that knowledgeable people will mentor those individuals that are receptive and ignore those individuals that already know everything. 

I tend to be that way. My inspection report lists the non-conformances I find. If asked, I will tell the contractor or the welder why I didn’t accept the work and I will show them where the specific requirements can be found in the code.

None of us are born knowing everything there is to know about our work. It takes a lifetime to learn how things work if we don’t take advantage of other people’s experiences. A mentor passes along what they have learned so the less experienced welder doesn’t have to learn by making one mistake after another. 

The codes incorporate the accumulated lessons learned so we don’t make the same mistakes time after time after time again. The AWS D1.X structural welding codes are cook books of how to weld structures. They are the accumulated knowledge of lessons learned over many years. They are not text books so they do not provide reasons why the requirements are in place. Commentaries will offer some explanations, but it is not the primary function of the code to be a text book. Not all codes take the same approach as AWS’ codes, but still, they are based on lessons learned. 

Codes change because we learn more about how structures and materials respond to different situations. The North Ridge Earthquake is a good example of what drives changes to the codes we use. The Seismic Supplement to D1.1 was developed to incorporate the lessons learned from researching how structures failed as a result of the earthquake. To ignore a code is to ignore the lessons learned at the expense of life and property. To ignore those lessons is simply stupid. I can’t say it any more clearly than that.

Wow, this thread has covered a lot of territory. It started with the pros and cons of a particular multi-process welding power supply, to how ridiculous it is for the code to require prequalified semi-automatic welding processes to use CV power supplies, to the demise of the welding industry, to code compliance. It is quite a quilt we wove from a single thread.

Best regards - Al