MIG with argon

[GQtdauto]

Gas shouldn't come out till you press the trigger (pre flow) then after you finish welding and release the trigger you still get gas coming out (post flow) these are fully adjustable on more expensive (better) welding machines .
Gas should only come out when trigger is pressed or for a short time after it's released .

[dom14]

Gas shouldn't come out till you press the trigger (pre flow) then after you finish welding and release the trigger you still get gas coming out (post flow) these are fully adjustable on more expensive (better) welding machines .
Gas should only come out when trigger is pressed or for a short time after it's released .

Yeah, but this cheap MIG machine doesn't has those pre flow and post flow from what I can see mate.
I hope I'm wrong about that.

Even for the TIG machine I have, I would have to control pre-flow/post flow manually until I get the AC TIG unit that I'm planning to get soon.

[BigRAWesty]

Thanx mate. I'll try a thinner wire(0.6mm?) then, and see how it goes.

BTW, opening the regulator slightly or running the bead slowly and steady won't make any difference, neither would doing it on a super clean
piece of steel.

Videos are working fine. Something's not right with your end, perhaps the youtube app in your phone may be playing up.

So it's working on a quote but not on your original post lol..
Anyway.
So Yea, reg ain't the best.
I'd suspect it's built for lesser pressure, that's why it's so far on your bottle gauge and skittish..
But, will that affect flow at the nozzel. Doubt it.
If you can hear it and feel it you have gas.
However by taking the lines on and off all the time you are filling them with oxygen, so purge the system by allowing gas to flow through, 10 seconds will be plenty..

Personally, get some black steel as the galv will have fully penetrated that stiff you have.
Grind it up clean.
Half wire speed (5) an and voltage set to max 1.
Adjust wire from there.
These cheap welders have a poor duty cycle so on max 2 you may only get 100m weld at a time before it stops..

[dom14]

So it's working on a quote but not on your original post lol..
Anyway.
So Yea, reg ain't the best.
I'd suspect it's built for lesser pressure, that's why it's so far on your bottle gauge and skittish..
But, will that affect flow at the nozzel. Doubt it.
If you can hear it and feel it you have gas.
However by taking the lines on and off all the time you are filling them with oxygen, so purge the system by allowing gas to flow through, 10 seconds will be plenty..

Personally, get some black steel as the galv will have fully penetrated that stiff you have.
Grind it up clean.
Half wire speed (5) an and voltage set to max 1.
Adjust wire from there.
These cheap welders have a poor duty cycle so on max 2 you may only get 100m weld at a time before it stops..

Thanx mate.
Duty cycle is not an issue at this stage.
I guess as I progress, I will move onto a better machine, but my real focus is on TIG, particularly TIG AC.
I need MIG to handle more rugged work like the trailer cage that I've been building out of scrap, as I've made a mess of it by
doing most of it using the stick welder.

I can hear and feel the gas 100%, but just can't decode what I see on the flow meter.
I turned the below pictured(arrowed) screw on the regulator anti-clockwise using a spanner(which I haven't had a clue about as an adjuster of regulator pressure, but it appears that is the case), and the flow rate on the flow meter started moving higher than 10L/m with open hose. I'm yet to test it with the MIG welder as it got dark, so It's gonna have to be tomorrow morning or late arvo.

I think I was getting argon flow, but not strong enough for MIG to work at least a little bit. I reckon it was working with the TIG with low flow 'cos I used the smallest TIG torch with the smallest tungsten tip.

I'm pretty sure it's not the metal 'cos I did it on a clean piece of steel as well. I think as you described above, it is the low amp weak machine combined with too thick MIG wire to handle with argon.

I might have some luck with thinner MIG wire, but that means I need to buy the 0.6mm rollers as well, don't I?!

[GQtdauto]

Yes you will but check the feed roller isn't double sided (two grooves) you may be lucky enough to have .8 and .6 grooves .
You also need smaller contact tips .
If what you did to the regulator gives you a steady flow try it all again with a weld .

[dom14]

Yes you will but check the feed roller isn't double sided (two grooves) you may be lucky enough to have .8 and .6 grooves .
You also need smaller contact tips .
If what you did to the regulator gives you a steady flow try it all again with a weld .

Yep, I'll try tomorrow first thing and if I get reasonably ok weld beads with that, I don't need to spend money on MIG gas bottle that I don't have atm.
Of course, eventually I will need to get proper MIG gas mixture, but need to go easy with spending in the meantime.

I think the roller is 0.8 and 0.9 double grooved(That's the way it is with the gasless one).

To get it to roll 0.6mm wire, I need to swap both top and bottom rollers don't I??!!

[GQtdauto]

Bugger about the rollers but I don't think they're too expensive , and yes if the flow is now stable worth trying again .
Meant to ask how much the gas cost .

[billyj]

tbh mate with the power level of this mig or more the lack there of you would be better off putting the time and effort into becoming better at stick welding and save the gas for your tig efforts if you need to weld real thin stuff. between practice and trying some different electrodes you will find a combo that works for you. ive successfully gone down to 1mm sheet with a stick before, yes it was slow and tedious but its doable. and the difference between a generic gp rods behavior and a nice low hydrogen rod is massive. you can get rods that will freeze up faster or be more liquid

the hard truth is that with a small hobby mig and pure argon your never going to get good results

[dom14]

Bugger about the rollers but I don't think they're too expensive , and yes if the flow is now stable worth trying again .
Meant to ask how much the gas cost .

It's D size. So it has 2 cubic metres of gas in it according to the label on it.
The empty bottle is $200 which I can recover when I return the bottle to Bunnings.
The gas is $99. It's the same price for both pure argon & argon/co2 mix.
The same size refill is $69 at Gasweld Dandenong, but they charge too much for the bottle & the bottle
can't be returned. So, Bunnings has the best deal overall.
I'm ok with the cost of the gas 'cos I won't be using much of it as a hobbyist, but the bottle cost is too
much from Gasweld or Total Tools for me to own it.

I think the either the rent or outright owning it, the price tag on the empty bottle is a rip off.
They aren't worth anywhere near that in terms of their manufacturing cost.

A mate of mine picked up a large E size bottle(a spotless one) from the side of the road near Sydney and
brought it home & was planning to get it stamped. The only issue is all these companies won't accept bottles
other than their own. It is a well organized rip off I reckon, be it a rental or buying a bottle from them.
What Bunnings is doing is a good thing I reckon. Their $200 deposit system is a quite fair, 'cos Gasweld charged
around $270 for the D size empty bottle that we can't return to get the money back.

P.S.
It appears Gasweld has revised their prices in last few days or so.??!!
Here their D size argon refill is $97 now.
I was sure it was $69 few days ago.
This means their empty bottle is $225 now.
http://www.gasweld.com.au/speed-gas-...ly-gas-d-argon
http://www.gasweld.com.au/speed-gas-...as-argon-d-kit

[dom14]

tbh mate with the power level of this mig or more the lack there of you would be better off putting the time and effort into becoming better at stick welding and save the gas for your tig efforts if you need to weld real thin stuff. between practice and trying some different electrodes you will find a combo that works for you. ive successfully gone down to 1mm sheet with a stick before, yes it was slow and tedious but its doable. and the difference between a generic gp rods behavior and a nice low hydrogen rod is massive. you can get rods that will freeze up faster or be more liquid

the hard truth is that with a small hobby mig and pure argon your never going to get good results

Yeah, I agree with you 100% mate. It is only temporary thing for me to use(or rather try to use) argon with my el cheapo MIG unit.
I am focusing on TIG and particularly TIG AC as I progress.
I did an OK job with the stick welder on the trailer cage and other projects and yes I did learn to weld really thin sheet metal with the
stick welder by managing heat and adjusting the amp, and yet it is time consuming and somewhat noisy comparing to MIG or TIG, but far
lot cheaper than MIG or TIG.
Basically, I built the cage with a $10 pack of welding sticks & some electricity and some time.
Time was the most concern 'cos I had to take time with scraping off the slag.
But, couldn't have been any quicker with MIG and TIG 'cos the scrap I used had to be wirebrushed regardless of that.
And the stick welder came really handy on bits where I couldn't be bothered to wirebrush.
It's the burning toxic gases of paint and gal I need to worry about, so I did my best to wear a hanky around my face as much as I can.

Stick welding is necessary one way or the other when building a trailer or trailer cage I believe.

Believe it or not, I patched up a 0.5mm thin sheet metal muffler using the stick welder.
Don't ask me how I managed that, I have no memory of it.