MHill,
I think you are mistaken about your program selections for your Powerwave 455 STT.
Program 43 is not STT, It is plain CV mig with pre-set Voltage/WFS separation to accomodate He Ar CO2
and provide a Pinch type transfer for operations on stainless steels with 0.045 diameter filler wire.
Program 44 is a Pulse program for the same wire and gas.
The STT program for 0.045 stainless with Ar/He/CO2 is #124 or 125
If you are working on plain carbon steel you would be using another program set.
Here is the key
http://www.lincolnelectric.com/powerwave/system/pdfs/Z051970I_Power_Wave_455M.pdfSTT is pretty much designed for stainless sheet and open root pipe... You are wasting your time on 1/2 inch carbon steel... You would be better off setting the thing to Program #5 or #21, Set your wire feed speed at 350 and your voltage at 27........ Of course you could also do that with a 30 year old Lincoln CV unit :)
Maybe they will give you some rusty galvanized for that Fronius :)