MM 185: weld bead quality

[Dan]

Recently at work we acquired a MM 185 to supplement our MM 250. Anyway, on my last mild steel project that I did at work I decided to give the MM 185 a try. I must say that I m very impressed with the quality of weld bead that the machine produces. I can tell you that it is a close competition between my MM 210 and the MM 185 for which machine has a better arc in the short circuit transfer mode. I d have to state though that my MM 210 is a little better. I like both machines though. If someone is looking at buying a good used MM 185 I d recommend it.

Now Im wondering how much difference there is in the quality of the arc between a MM 185 and an Ironman 210. Dave Evans have you ran both of these machines? Any input? What about you ROCK?

Well, of course as usual I ll be posting a couple pictures of the results that I was achieving.

First of all though lets cover all the statistics.

Wire: .035 E70S-6
Shielding gas: C25
Material: 3/16" thick mild steel flat bar
Joint design: Horizontal T joint

[Dan]

By the way, the black area along the edge of the weld is the result of the new anti spatter spray that my work decided to buy. Anyone have a recommendation on an anti spatter spray that doesnt produce this black residue. It is a real nuisance on stainless steel. I have to scrub every weld joint with a wire brush and acetone to remove it.

Anyway, here is one more picture.

[Scott V]

MM-185

Dan,my friend dropped a brand new mm185 off to keep while he moved.I used it a few times here,and there.I did know one thing it really likes .030 wire,and really doesn't like .23 for some reason.I would say my lincoln sp175 plus has a better arc although the the miller is very nice.I just can get a little better bead adjustment with the lincoln.I haven't decided if my new 300 powerwave is better or not.Although It sure is more adjustable to change to suit your style or gas.The way its set it's very smooth type arc.I think you reach a point where it can't get any better,and I think the sp175 is there.

[Guest]

Dan, The anti-spatter spray I have used for years and the black cooked on coating may be removed by another chemical...acetone doesn't do a good job...try either paint or lacquer thinner or MEK. I see your concern working on food handling equipment...I don't have that concern, and most of the time just let it go and let the painters take care of it. I do think you can find something to remove it without having to scratch up the surface with a wire brush.

[Dan]

Re: MM-185

Originally posted by Scott V
Dan,my friend dropped a brand new mm185 off to keep while he moved.I used it a few times here,and there.I did know one thing it really likes .030 wire,and really doesn't like .23 for some reason.I would say my lincoln sp175 plus has a better arc although the the miller is very nice.I just can get a little better bead adjustment with the lincoln.I haven't decided if my new 300 powerwave is better or not.Although It sure is more adjustable to change to suit your style or gas.The way its set it's very smooth type arc.I think you reach a point where it can't get any better,and I think the sp175 is there.

Scott

You seem to have an obsession with .023 wire Do you do a lot of thin gauge sheetmetal that requires you to use the .023 wire?

On the Lincoln sp 175. Before I bought my HH 175 I was ready to buy a Lincoln SP 175, because I wanted the variable voltage control. At the time is was the only one of these compact 175 amp machines that had this feature. Anyway, I made one fatal mistake, I E-mailed Lincolns customer service with a few questions about the machine. Believe it or not it took them over a week to respond to my E mail and then the response that they did send me was so evasive in answering my questions that it detoured me away from there product. So then one evening after work I emailed Hobart about the HH 175 and the Ironman 250. The next morning I get a phone call at home, and the guy (wish I could remember his name now) talked to me for about 45 min about the 2 machines. What impressed me the most was the fact that he gave me straight forward answers even if it was a negative comment toward me purchasing the product. The effort that this person made turned me toward the HH 175 . Then of course you can t over look the customer service that ROCK, Dave Evans and other Hobart/Miller reps provide here. And besides I have no complaint about the weld quality produced by the machines that I have purchased from Hobart/ Miller. And I do own other machine besides Hobart and Miller.

For the $3000 that you spent on that Powermig 300 you better start loving it pretty soon Man if you are married how do you get your wife to allow you to purchase such a nice toy. I had to basically twist my wifes arm around behind her back to even get my MM 210 with the free spool gun or my HH 175 for that matter. And time to time I still get an ear full from her for purchasing a Hypertherm powermax 380 instead of the Spectrum Thunder that I was suppose to be getting. I mean come on how could I turn down the the 380 for around $1000. When the Spectrum thunder was almost $900 and about half the machine that a 380 is. So what is your secret?

[Scott V]

Dan,that is a good point about the email.The lincoln tech has contacted me on the bad .023 wire welding.I used to do alot of autobody,and some muffler work.I lke my welders to work with .023 thru .045 wire period.To me the machine makers post stats for welding with those sizes then make the machine weld with those sizes.I know that doesn't work for all machines,like the little Lincoln.but they don't claim to beable two weld with .045 wire.With my Esab 250 migmaster I could weld with .023 with a 15 foot gun.It had a very nice stable arc welding very thin material.So maybe I just asking to much from the guys that build the machines.I just know it is posible to have them weld with those sizes.There is no reason for me to let Lincoln off the hook on crappy welding on .023 wire.They have emailed me telling me that it should weld fine with .023 so I am following thru to see if it is really true.Also they say advantage Lincoln(superior starting complements the soft,stable welding arc and very low spatter)They said it and it didn't say with .030/.035/3/64 wire only.This thing has enough programing in it to launch the space shuttle,and I only trying to launch some simple .023 wire.The 300 cost about five times what the sp175 cost so just maybe I was just asking a little too much from them?

Dan,you guessed it I am single,and I own 100% of my welders not 50%.That is one reason I have time to find what is up with the welders.

One last point I was talking about welding with the sp175 with .030 wire when comparing to the mm 185.

[Dan]

Originally posted by Rocky D
Dan, The anti-spatter spray I have used for years and the black cooked on coating may be removed by another chemical...acetone doesn't do a good job...try either paint or lacquer thinner or MEK. I see your concern working on food handling equipment...I don't have that concern, and most of the time just let it go and let the painters take care of it. I do think you can find something to remove it without having to scratch up the surface with a wire brush.

Darn it Rocky

I was hoping you were going to be my savior with a better anti spatter spray.

When the company safety coordinator isn t around I do use lacquer thinner to remove the residue. He doesn t like lacquer thinner so when he is around I have to use the acetone.The lacquer thinner still requires me to use a stainless steel tooth brush though to lightly scrub the residue off and them wipe it with a rag. After this I run a fine strand SS wire brush in my cordless drill over my weld beads and along the heat effected zone. THis really makes the weld bead shiny. The only problem is after this it is so shiny that It makes it near impossible to get a good example picture of one of these welds. What can I say I m an amateur photographer.

By the way the stainless tooth brush doesn t scratch the surface up. It is just a lot of manual labor when you have to clean up that many welds. It took my helper and I about a half an hour to clean all the joints.

On any of our food contact surfaces I always use GTAW. I mainly use GMAW on our non food contact stainless projects that contain quite a few weld joints so that I can take advantage of the higher rate at which the weld beads can be completed. For example, a while back I built four large mobile platforms mainly out of 304 1 1/2" X 1 1/2" X .120 wall sq tube. To totally weld one of these platforms up I had to run around 150+ weld beads. To weld up the first platform I used my Lincoln squarewave 175. which turned out to be a very bad idea, because it took 6+ hours to TIG weld this platform up. On the second platform after tacking the structure together with my TIG machine,I used my MM 185 with an .030 308L filler wire to weld out all the joints. I was able to complete this unit in about 4 hours. By the way this time frame includes tacking the structure together.

I think I might have one GMAW SS example weld pic to show that turned out. It is a vertical down sample that I ran the other day to tune the machine in for some vertical welds that I had to do out on the production floor. Anyway, the material is 2" 304 SS sq tube with a .120 wall thickness. Machine used was a MM 185 with an .030 308L filler wire. Heres the picture lets see what happens. I tried the paper in front of the flash that Roger mentioned to me in the past.

[Hobart Expert Rock]

DAN...........THE MM185 WAS GETTING A LITTLE LONG IN THE TOOTH..........THE MM210 WAS THE DIRECT REPLACEMENT.... YES I'VE RUN THEM BOTH AT LIGHT INDUSTRIAL AND IN THE FIELD I TALKED A FRIEND OF MINE NAMED SMITTY INTO TRYING THE 210 OVER HIS OLD VINTAGE...............HE BOUGHT THE MM210....... THE 185 WAS A GOOD MACHINE BUT HAD BEEN QUITE SOME TIME SINCE WE HAD UPDATED IT.............................DAN. ALSO WHERE ARE YOU ON THE 175?????.......................................... ...ROCK
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[cope]

MM210 VS Vintage

Rock, isn't the Vintage a 250 Amp machine? If so, why would you recommend the 210 over it?

[Hobart Expert Rock]

GOOD QUESTION COPE................HE HAD AN OLDER VINTAGE THAT WAS PRETTY TIRED.................THIS WAS IN A MACHINE SHOP, OWNER WANTED A RECOMENDATION........... THEY NEVER WELDER AT 250 AMP ABOUT 150-200 AMP RANGE.......THAT IS WHY I RECOMMENDED THE 210 WHICH THEY BOUGHT...........ROCK
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[Dan]

Originally posted by Hobart Expert Rock
DAN...........THE MM185 WAS GETTING A LITTLE LONG IN THE TOOTH..........THE MM210 WAS THE DIRECT REPLACEMENT.... YES I'VE RUN THEM BOTH AT LIGHT INDUSTRIAL AND IN THE FIELD I TALKED A FRIEND OF MINE NAMED SMITTY INTO TRYING THE 210 OVER HIS OLD VINTAGE...............HE BOUGHT THE MM210....... THE 185 WAS A GOOD MACHINE BUT HAD BEEN QUITE SOME TIME SINCE WE HAD UPDATED IT.............................DAN. ALSO WHERE ARE YOU ON THE 175?????.......................................... ...ROCK
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Rock

I was actually asking about the Ironman 210 compared to the MM 185.

Anyway, beings I own a MM 210 and run a MM 185 at work I can state that the design team for the MM 210 did a great job on the machine. I am very impressed with it. The MM 210 is a major step forward over the MM 185. Don t get me wrong the MM 185 is a good machine, but the MM 210 is a great machine. Did you ever see the pictures of the spray transfer welds that I did with an .035 wire on my MM 210? I think you were on that long vacation when I tried it.Give it a try if you can. 98% argon/ 2% oxy shielding gas. Voltage tap #7 and a wire speed setting around 62 does a good job on 1/4" thick steel. Tap #6 and around 57 on the wire speed worked pretty good for 3/16".

On the HH 175 I was just wanting to make sure that there wasn t some thing wrong with my machine that was eventually going to be a problem. I really do not need the settings chart to work from anyway. I haven t tried your inductor experiment yet . Life around here has been pretty busy. Its not much of an inductor , but how much of a current lag is it going to possibly create. I guess I ll find out when I try it. The machine has great arc starts, so I don t want the current to lag to much and start messing with this. I really appreciate your help that you provide.