First MIG beads !

[Higgins420]

hi, i got my old sip running today and had a go at few beads as you can see it started off abit shakey but i think they improve toward the end, any advise would be brilliant, its a Top mig 195 turbo running C25/ .8mm wire.
the wire feed speed seemed way too fast, i measured the wire after 6 seconds on each setting to get the meters per minute and on the 1 setting it was 12.3 meters per minute, does this sound about right :/ if i went over the 3 setting it seemed way too fast
these were all laid on a peice of 6mm mild steel sheet

 

[Rob85]

Not a bad rattle at it there matey.... Did you weave on a few beads or try a circular motion, careful of the 'do not weave' brigade... They will be along soon! Haha but yea experiment with all methods, push, pull, small weave etc but definitely none too shabby for a first go. Especially that fillet weld

 

[Higgins420]

ye i started off just layin em straight then got abit carried away with the e's haha, i found i favoured pushing and tried tracing the front of the puddle,
nice one cheers ill have another go tomorrow, wanna try and get them a bit more uniform, their a bit hit and miss haha

 

[skotl]

They look really good - especially as you're using a SIP (I started with a TopMig 150 so know how hard work they can be).

The first couple of pics look a little high - maybe running too slow, or not enough amps? The third pic (tee joint) looks really good, and the subsequent pics (aside the obsession with e's!) look good too.

It took me months to get anywhere near that kind of consistency, so you should be chuffed. Just keep burning the wire and playing with the settings.

 

[skotl]

the wire feed speed seemed way too fast

A common problem on SIPs - the variable resistor on the PCB is set too high, so first step is to turn that way down, but you'll benefit from replacing it with a lower variable resistor. From memory, this is taking it from a 1K ohm to a 100 ohm but I'll do a quick trawl of the SIP section to dig up more details.

Edit: Here you go - have a look here...
If you have other questions, I'd post them in the "SIP and Cosmo" sub-forum as that will likely get feedback from people more experienced with the SIP

 

[skotl]

Have a look here and here, too, if you have ten minutes. It's the list of mods I made to my SIP with links to threads (most by other members) that go into more detail.

As per my earlier response, I think your initial results are great so it's very likely you don't need to do any or all of these (excepting the wire feed speed) but it's possibly a useful reference.

 

[Higgins420]

nice one cheers, i think ive come across your list of mods at some point, the volt meters a great idea, i've just got a steel liner gonna fit that tomorrow and i've got a 19v power supply i'm going to wire up to the WFS, you can really here it struggling and it was kind of pulsing today, i had a go at tweaking the pot today and i couldn't notice any difference really :/
im going to be using this welder for a while so i want to get it running as well as i can (i find it hard to own anything and not modify it some how haha)

 

[skotl]

nice one cheers, i think ive come across your list of mods at some point, the volt meters a great idea, i've just got a steel liner gonna fit that tomorrow and i've got a 19v power supply i'm going to wire up to the WFS, you can really here it struggling and it was kind of pulsing today, i had a go at tweaking the pot today and i couldn't notice any difference really :/
im going to be using this welder for a while so i want to get it running as well as i can (i find it hard to own anything and not modify it some how haha)

It's a bit of a labour-of-love pain, but I think there's a massive benefit in that you end up knowing your welder intimately and are in a much better position to diagnose and repair it in the future.

 

[skotl]

The problem with trying to measure feed speed on these is you can't

because the feed motor is fed from the weld output, measuring the feed o/c will give hugely misleading results as the voltage droops when welding (yeah, it's supposed to be constant voltage) so the feed slows - samr reason you get pulsing/machine gunning.

Oh, and don't weave

That's why the second* recommended mod on one of these is to put in a dedicated power supply for the wire feed motor. I agree that trying to measure speed/voltage without doing that is pointless.

Spoiler: *

First recommended mod is the brace across the wire roller

 

[Swift&Bold]

I really don't know how you got welds like that from an unmodified SIP. If you go to a half decent machine they will be faultless!
Really good first beads.

 

[Higgins420]

really? cool im happy with that haha im looking forward to having a go with the steel liner

 

[Higgins420]

changed the liner, tip and made up a bracket for the rollers and WOW! what an improvement! it felt soo much smoother, and certainly less 'pulsing' so thank you all very much for the advise, i think i will be switching to a euro torch as soon as i can afford it as the standard torch is falling to bitz slightly, the thread that the tip screws into has worn/broken away a bit on one side and the nozzle/shroud is very loose so that the contact tip ends up off center within the nozzle if you know what i mean.