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Up Topic Welding Industry / General Welding Discussion / GMAW Short Circuit Problem
- - By Lawrence (*****) Date 04-29-2008 18:00
Inverter power supplies  Lincoln PowerWave 355M's and Miller 350P's and Axcess

Problem........ Unacceptable Short Circuiting with 0.035 ER70S-6 and 100% C02.  Manifested by extream stubbing, spatter, lack of fusion and inconsistancy, an inch of good buzz and then spatter and stubbing to beat the band.... All machines acting about the same

3 Phase 208 power  all legs checked within normal range

Gas from manifold and Gas from control bottles produced the same poor short circuiting. Also tried 75/25 with similar results but at a slightly lesser extent.

200 ipm

17.5-20 Volts

Changed liner..... no go

Changed whip..... no go

Changed tip........no go

Changed inductance through the entire range........ no go

Called Miller and Lincoln.... Recieved advice.... No go

Miller Maintainence Tech visited and brought new machine.... New machine no go....

Cried softly.......  no go

Bigger Miller rep with palm pilot and cell phone connection to appleton arrived...  After 2 hours he shamed me with the solution....

Can you guessssss ?
Parent - - By GRoberts (***) Date 04-29-2008 19:18
Sounds like grounding or wire feed problems to me, but I know you would be right on top of that.
Parent - By Lawrence (*****) Date 04-29-2008 19:26
Yep,

Basically, Brand new power suppies  (less than 2 years on all)  so work clamps and feeders all were checked and found to be within spec. 
Parent - - By Kix (****) Date 04-29-2008 19:56
It's got to be something with the incoming power if all those machines were doing about the same thing and you used a controlled bottle of gas.
Parent - - By Lawrence (*****) Date 04-29-2008 21:10
That's what I thought... Some kind of tainted or inconsistant power...  Thought about it till smoke came out my ears... but wasn't it.
Parent - By hogan (****) Date 04-29-2008 21:11
dcen
Parent - - By weldgault (**) Date 04-30-2008 00:09
wire reel to tight.  John
Parent - - By Lawrence (*****) Date 04-30-2008 01:03
Hogan and Gault

Nope and Nope........

This problem repeated in 6 different welding power supplies and one replacement right out of the box.

Any more guesses?
Parent - By DaveBoyer (*****) Date 04-30-2008 02:29
The local mechanic has a poster on the wall with a big black circle on it. It reads: "BANG HEAD HERE"  :-)
Parent - By jrw159 (*****) Date 04-30-2008 02:39
Sabotage?
Parent - - By DaveBoyer (*****) Date 04-30-2008 03:57
Wasn't there a thread a month or 2 ago about poor short circut performance on the 350P?
Parent - - By Lawrence (*****) Date 04-30-2008 07:26
Yes there was........ I thought about that too... But our problem occured with both Bernard Centerfire and Tweeko #4 guns.

Anyhow  This is what happened:

After much wailing an gnashing of teeth, the Miller rep (a very sharp fellow) asked me to get him a roll of Lincoln L56...... Thats all it took...

Our entire supply of Hyundai 0.035 solid wire would not short circuit.... I don't know what was in it that made it so bad, but simply switching to L56 cured the problem in each machine...

Even more amazing is the fact that my local supply vendor is going to take back all 18 rolls of Hyundai wire and replace it.

Many of the local players use the Hyundai wire, but they all use it for high volume spray transfer applications and it seems to do ok.... It was 40% cheaper than the L56 so we gave it a go.

Would have rather have bought American... But when the taxpayers are footing the bill and the competition is offering a 40% price reduction it was just too tempting not to at least explore it.

That was a hard lesson......  We had great difficulty getting guided bends to pass even with spray transfer and I'm really wondering if it was not also related to this.  It's a pretty good bet.
Parent - By jon20013 (*****) Date 04-30-2008 08:20
Who would have ever thunk???  I would have sided with Greg Roberts, a grounding problem... very odd stuff.  Thanks for sharing this information, I would have never guessed!!!
Parent - By Kix (****) Date 04-30-2008 12:39
Cool find!!  I'll have to throw that into my trouble shooting bag O tricks.;-)
Parent - - By MDG Custom Weld (***) Date 04-30-2008 13:16
We had a similar problem on a single heat of 409 metal core wire also.  The manufacture shall remain nameless, but it was domestic.  The process seemed to be very inconsistent in short circuit, and even worse in pulse spray.  It seemed like the arc would not maintain a consistent length and wanted to snuff out regardless of welding parameters.  After many hours of working with it we changed to another heat and all the problems went away.  The manufacture took the entire heat back and did some analysis and found the wrong lube applied on the wire.  Somehow in their process they mixed up the lube from another wire and applied it to the 409 wire.  They did everything they could do to ensure our confidence and made many process changes in their manufacturing to prevent if from ever happening.  
Parent - - By 803056 (*****) Date 04-30-2008 16:11
Very interesting.

It would be interesting to see what the chemical analysis of the wire was versus what it should have been.

As a tax payer, I would rather see my money spent on American made products period! If I didn't feel as I do, I would solicit people from several third world nations to run for political offices and pay them half of what our current crooks , oops, politicians are paid and I would do away with the benefit packages that go with the offices. As I see it, California has it partly right, they elected a foreign born governor, now they have to smarten up and cut his salary!

Best regards - Al
Parent - - By Lawrence (*****) Date 04-30-2008 16:32
Al,

I sure learned my lesson on this one in regards to purchasing.

I got a private communication that was right on the same wavelength as you are as far as chemical composition.  Apparently this problem had been experienced by others, including some AWS officials.

He said this:  (I edited out brand names)

"For good short circuiting process the closer to a ratio of 2:1 manganese to silicone will considerably help your with low voltage welding.
The Lincoln wire normally is very close to this, I recently tried a ___XXX___ wire ( From XXXXXXXXX  brand) and it did not perform
as well in the lower ranges I asked the rep for a wire composition and it did not show the manganese content at all - when I questioned
them about it they said they didn't know it was a problem but guaranteed it was within the AWS specs. "
Which the specification "window" for ER-70S-6 and -3 wire is a pretty wide window."

I'm going to do some research before I make any sizable buys of solid wire.
Parent - - By 803056 (*****) Date 04-30-2008 16:38
As I've said many times before, there is always something new to learn when the subject is welding.

Excellent information to be aware of.

Best regards - Al
Parent - - By Steve.E (**) Date 05-01-2008 09:57
I'm shocked,..............The miller rep asked you to use Lincoln wire?
Parent - - By Lawrence (*****) Date 05-01-2008 10:37
Steve

Shhhh!

Besides,  Miller does not sell wire..   

L56 is a good benchmark consumable... Also top of the price scale  :)

"By any means necessary"  ~~~Malcom X
Parent - By Goose-em (**) Date 05-01-2008 18:01
Miller itself does not have a wire brand but they sure do sell wire.

Hobart, Tri-mark, McKay, and a few others I can't think of.

Miller is owned by Illinois Tool Works who also owns Hobart, etc.
Up Topic Welding Industry / General Welding Discussion / GMAW Short Circuit Problem

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