Different size wire

Date 06-07-2014 20:04

Thanks for the response electrode, honestly I had to look pretty far back up the thread to even get an idea of what my original question was.

Relating to the topic and discussion contained in this thread, it always helps me to review and consider more information on a lot of these topics. I continue to learn everyday and hopefully stay ahead of my forgetfullness curve. Thanks again and regards, Allan

By electrode (***)

Date 06-13-2014 20:28

Allan,
further to Metarinka's statement: "I'm just curious on how significant of a factor it is in overall deposition rate calculations.", (a good one btw), I'm just wondering/waiting whether somebody is going to open "Pandora's box", and digging a little deeper here.

By Metarinka (****)

Date 06-11-2014 02:03

Ahh yes JS, we were on the same page. I'm familiar with effective stickout and how it effects IR^2 heating in wire fed CV machiens. Somehow I've escaped all these years of weld development without ever having used the term burn-off rate in regards to GMAW, I usually think of burn-off rate as a SMAW term or interchangeable with deposition rate. Thanks for a new term to tuck away in the back off my head. When doing equivalency testing I would usually assume or maintain the same stickout/ or measure WFS after the process had been dialed in therefore I always call it WFS as that's the variable I measure. I would be interested to measure Deposition rate using a CV machine and varying stickout, I'm just curious on how significant of a factor it is in overall deposition rate calculations.

Final note: A lot of my parameter development has been in CNC applications where we controlled WFS, Amps, voltage and stickout as independent variables, although we rarely switched wire diameter we would even more rarely change stickout and arc gap settings from what we found already worked. With a full CNC setup you maintain both constant current and constant amperage within a pretty tight window. Our specs were usually around +- 5amps and +- 0.5V.

Thanks for the clarification.

By kcd616

Date 06-03-2014 20:17 Edited 06-04-2014 00:38

Delaney,
this imho
I disagree with everyone :eek:

I need so much more info
power cost, labor cost...etc
do this job without true knowledge of all costs
it is a recipe for disaster
you opened up a can of worms here
sincerely,
Kent
edit: none has said what type materiel, or the thickness and back to my key point is this to make $$$$??? or a government job which you always make $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
throw a bone to an old dog here
this could be a great discussion for years

By d_paul71 (**)

Date 06-06-2014 15:39

Thank you all for the reply’s. So much knowledge to take in.

Kcd616…. You brought up some good points. I will agree that it is about making the company money and being efficient at the same time.

After visiting with a colleague, this was our thought process.
- Dependent upon the thickness of the material being welded, that will determine the wire size we will use.
- i.e. I can adjust .052” wire to weld a thinner thickness material, however, you will be cleaning up a spatter mess as you will have to use a rapid arc or CV setting.
- Do we want to wire wheel and scrape parts? No
- We feel that with running .045” wire we will optimize our robot run time and we will be able to run in a pulse mode setting to minimize clean up.

Again, thank you all for the input.

Delaney

By Lawrence (*****)

Date 06-06-2014 15:46 Edited 06-06-2014 15:49

I guess we didn't know what your minimum thicknesses were.

Rapid Arc and .052 filler will make 3/16" robot fillet welds on material of 10 gage or even a bit thinner at a robust travel speed. Spatter should be zero.

If you are looking for a 1/8 fillet than maybe .045 is the way to go.

But I don't think we drilled that deep due to lack of information from the OP

By kcd616

Date 06-07-2014 14:48

Delaney,
robots :eek:

I am out, never worked robotic stuff
listen to Lawrence, and his friend Ed Craig
and my good friend Henry, will have a zillion links
hope this helps
sincerely,
Kent

By Metarinka (****)

Date 06-03-2014 20:56

Usually my selection criteria is a decending list of importance:
-base material thickness, i.e will a certain wire size produce an unacceptable transfer mode or heat input (obviously you don't weld 1" plate with 0.023 wire)
-Are there any quality or wetting concerns (ties into number 1)
-If aiming for spray I would prefer to center parameters in the spray regime instead of being on the very low end or high end

Usually those three will narrow it down to one or two valid sizes after that we generally go off of previous experience if we have already developed parameters. Since we mostly do thin wall I pretty much select 0.035 wire 100% of the time as getting into spray with .045" or higher would be right on the edge of blowing through.

When I look at it, you optimize for deposition rate, travel speed, or quality and let the wire select itself from that.

By nantong (**)

Date 06-05-2014 16:28

I am not that familiar with GMAW as it is normally reserved for flat welding or positional welding in thin sections normally vertical down. In heavy construction GSFCAW with rutile cored wires are preferred due to their much higher deposition rates in all positions even though they are more costly.
I think JS55 said deposition is higher with a smaller diameter wire for the same current and this is correct. This is due to the increased current density and there are charts available for SAW welding which shows the current carrying capacity for each size of wire (overlapping) and the deposition rate. If you want to increase the current capacity beyond of say a 3.2mm wire you need to look at the current you will need for a 4.0mm wire to better the deposition rate of the 3.2mm wire. The same is true for a FCAW sheath which has a very small x-sectional area compared to a solid wire hence the high wire feed speeds.