hi

[skeen]

Hi. I'm completely new to welding. Because of owning a couple of old beetles I decided that it would be good to learn how to do my own welding.
I have just got a sureweld cea mono-mig 150 (one of the older yellow ones) for a good price to start with. Does anyone know what these are like?
Does anybody have any info on the settings on this, it has a couple of dials on it which look as though they're for a thickness of some kind, they are labeled tx and ty and I'm not sure what they are for.
Thanks for any help.

 

[weldequip]

Deal with Sureweld & they are a good company with excellent spares & technical support; post some pics.of the machine's front panel & I'll help you out
weldequip

 

[skeen]

Thanks. Will ad a photo tomorrow. Can anybody tell me how to upload one please?

 

[weldequip]

Click on the paper clip icon at the top of the page when messaging & it will allow you to insert photo's stored on your PC (nothing smutty allowed! ).
weldequip

 

[skeen]

Thanks for that. Hoping that this will be a good welder. It needs the nozzle and tip part of the gun sorting out as its loose and a bit gunked up but apart from that it seems to be o.k.
Going to get in touch with sureweld like you suggested to see if they can help out with any literature. I'll still post that picture and hopefully you might know what those other dials are for.

 

[skeen]

Picture of front of welder.
Thanks

 

[Chickenjohn]

I've used a mig welder like that at college (resto course) and the TX and TY knobs you can turn them all the way off to 0 - I think they are for some kind of pulsing, but you dont need that for welding repair sections into cars.
The knob in the middle with a pic of two rollers and a wire is the control for wire speed and the bottom big knob is for power (amps). I like to use 0.6mm wire for car work, some prefer 0.8mm.

get some clean pieces of ~1mm steel and practise welding them together after getting a good seam going on the surface of a piece. To start with, I'd set the wire speed around mid way (4 or 5) and set the power to 2 or 3. If you blow holes, go down to 1.

The tutorial section on this site is really really really good- I wish this was around when I (painfully and slowly) taught myself to weld.

 

[Sparkey]

Yes John, you're right... it's for welding on automatic...(dunno how else i could say it) the t x is the time it welds, and the t y is the pause between 2 welds...the only thing you have to do is pull the trigger and the welder does that automaticly...
If you're just starting to learn how to weld, do as john suggests: put them on zero! I've tried to work with it too, but i don't like it! makes me feel kinda lazy! lol

 

[skeen]

Thanks a lot, now I know where to set them. I have looked at the tutorial bits on the site and they seem really helpful, hopefully I will be able to get the hang of it. As soon as I get the gun sorted I'll be practicing some welds.

 

[skeen]

I'm after some advice. I have had a go at welding today and found the best setting but I was still struggling to get the weld started sometime and when I did get a good weld started I struggled to keep it consistent. I was practicing on an old bonnet that I took the paint of so the thickness was about right. I was outside but had plenty of gas coming through.The wire that was already in the welder was 0.8 mm and I found I had to have the wire feed on 4 and the power on number 5 (which seems to be the equivalent of high 1) to get any results but I am not happy with how it was welding.
I was going to try on a piece of new 1mm steel and get some 0.6 wire, would this give me better results or is it a case of just keep practicing?
Thanks

 

[malcolm]

Post some photos of your welds. If your outside was anything like mine today there was far too much wind - you'd have been welding gasless.

0.6mm wire would allow you to reduce current on the lowest setting. On the second setting it probably wouldn't be the problem.

 

[Chickenjohn]

It is a matter of practise to weld ~1mm and get a neat weld without blowing holes etc.
Post some pictures so we can see what the welds look like.

One cause of inconsistency can be wire feed problems, another, the steel is not completely clean, paint, rust etc can cause problems.

 

[skeen]

Thanks for that. I thought I had sheltered myself away from the wind but still probably not enough. I did start to get half decent welds but just couldn't keep them constant. Got rid of the metal earlier but will remember to take some pics of my next attempt and hopefully go from there.