By -
Date 06-24-2003 18:29
Hi,
I am new to the board, learning to weld as a hobby and to do fabrication on an old Chevy truck I am building as a street rod.
I have recently bought my first welding machine (a Firepower 160 amp MIG). After I installed a 10 lb roll of .030 flux-core wire, I had to haul my welder a few times in my car to the evening welding class. In one of those trips the roll of wire rotated and part of roll loosened up. No big deal, I thought, I just rotated the spool to take up the slack. Now i realize that the wire does not come out of the roll cleanly, there are always a few strands of wire on top of the strand going out to the gun. The end result is that the wire does not feed smoothly, causing a "jerky" sound and the weld does not look as good. Anyone can suggest a remedy for this?
Thank you!
Charlie
What happened is that one or more of the coils became overlapped when you re-spooled the wire.
You can fix it by carefully un-spooling the wire until you find the overlap(s), fix it, and then re-spool correctly.
Keep tension on the wire during the process or you'll just make it worse.
Also, when you are re-spooling the wire, wipe it as you go with a clean rag in order to remove contaminates.
Good Luck!
Tim
Been der, dun dat! You are not the first or the last to have this happen, Tim gave good advise to fix your problem. Be glad it wasn't one of those $600+ spools of wire. Some of it gets too pricey to throw away and get a new spool, and you have to gently respool it back on the roll again.
John Wright
Volunteer a friend to walk the wire out ahead of you while you keep tension on the roll, and then respool.
Just another thought,
John Wright
Just don't let go of the end or else all hope is lost!
a.k.a. "how do YOU spell bird's nest?" :)
Chet Guilford
In your case, with the welder that you have, you will most likely have to take the wire out of the feeder before transport. This has happened to me on my LN-25 while it was riding on the back of my truck. What I do with it is just before transport, I tighten up the little tension nob in the center of the cap that holds the wire in place. If your welder has a tension device you can do the same. The tension device is in place so that the spool will not keep rolling and unwind when you release the trigger. On some welders, when running around 450 to 500 ipm of wire, when you let off the trigger the spool will keep going and loosen up.
Hope this helps
Chuck
If you make up a little bungee so you can hook it to the little hole that the wire is stuck through when you take the spool out of the box, and anything else in the machine, it should make an effective travel lock. How's that for a run on sentence?
Bill
Hi 53Charlie,
Pardon me, but I forgot to welcome you to the forum!
John Wright
