Can anyone help?.... I have a fault with my mig which nobody seems to be able to trace. The unit is a Cebora Autostar 200. It suffers from the wire sticking in the contact tip, the wire doesn’t burn back, it sticks inside the tip. You can feel it as you weld and eventually it sticks solid. Sometimes if you stop welding, when you next pick the torch up you feel the wire twang and free itself. This never happens when everything is cold, it’s usually after a ‘while’ of intermittent welding – but I’m not talking mega long runs – and it even does it on mid to low power settings.
As I understand it the sticking is caused by the tip overheating and the copper becoming ‘sticky’ – and so the wire sticks to it. The hole doesn’t get smaller as is sometimes thought.
The unit has something of a history – I got it from a friend who was getting the problem (he’s a professional welder/fabricator so knows how to use a mig!), he got it fitted with a euro torch which he thought would’ve solved the problem (but had already got a replacement machine). I have had it looked at by a local repairer who of course couldn’t find anything wrong – I think it is difficult to replicate the fault, you can’t expect the guy to mess about welding on and off for the whole afternoon. Anyway, it has had a new earth lead and clamp (which never even gets warm), new mains lead, new ‘25’ torch, new wire…. Oh, and I checked the polarity and it’s running torch positive which I believe is correct.
I had a Clarke mig before, which I bought new and was fine apart from having a crap duty cycle and never got this problem…. So I really think that it’s not something I’m doing wrong! My repairer offered to lend me an enormous torch to try but they seem to be missing the point… a 200 amp mig shouldn’t need a 300 amp torch if it’s working right???!!!
Tip dip helps but it gets to a point where you just have to change the tip. I’m currently trying out some heavy duty tips which I gather are able to withstand higher temperatures.
Apologies for putting lots of detail on here, but wanted to avoid all the well intentioned comments about checking the earth clamp and adjusting the wire speed… I think that’s all been covered!
Any suggestions very gratefully received!
As I understand it the sticking is caused by the tip overheating and the copper becoming ‘sticky’ – and so the wire sticks to it. The hole doesn’t get smaller as is sometimes thought.
The unit has something of a history – I got it from a friend who was getting the problem (he’s a professional welder/fabricator so knows how to use a mig!), he got it fitted with a euro torch which he thought would’ve solved the problem (but had already got a replacement machine). I have had it looked at by a local repairer who of course couldn’t find anything wrong – I think it is difficult to replicate the fault, you can’t expect the guy to mess about welding on and off for the whole afternoon. Anyway, it has had a new earth lead and clamp (which never even gets warm), new mains lead, new ‘25’ torch, new wire…. Oh, and I checked the polarity and it’s running torch positive which I believe is correct.
I had a Clarke mig before, which I bought new and was fine apart from having a crap duty cycle and never got this problem…. So I really think that it’s not something I’m doing wrong! My repairer offered to lend me an enormous torch to try but they seem to be missing the point… a 200 amp mig shouldn’t need a 300 amp torch if it’s working right???!!!
Tip dip helps but it gets to a point where you just have to change the tip. I’m currently trying out some heavy duty tips which I gather are able to withstand higher temperatures.
Apologies for putting lots of detail on here, but wanted to avoid all the well intentioned comments about checking the earth clamp and adjusting the wire speed… I think that’s all been covered!
Any suggestions very gratefully received!
