I finally reached a milestone--first roll of wire gone!

[ZACHV]

Last night, while making a bumper for a friend, I ran out of my first 11# spool of wire in my machine. All of a sudden it seems like the wire is not feeding and I start to get PO'd, but then figured it was something wrong with the drive rollers. Lo and behold, the wire was all gone. I was actually pretty excited, aside from the pain of not being able to finish my project.
I am sure you veterans here are not as enamored when you run through a spool, but I though it was pretty neat. I have had the machine for a little over a year, but did not do much for the first six months.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share and maybe bring back a fond memory for some of you old hands.

[jeffm]

good goin Z
Never touched MIG but saw one of the spools the other day and thought "dang, those must last forever!". I guess not!

Curious tho, you guys always talk about different wire types and such, is it a pain to switch that stuff every time you do something different?

[dysfunction]

haha congrats Zach, I think? Jeff, IMO no more of a pain than electrode changes when stick welding

[ZACHV]

Originally posted by jeffm
good goin Z
Never touched MIG but saw one of the spools the other day and thought "dang, those must last forever!". I guess not!

Curious tho, you guys always talk about different wire types and such, is it a pain to switch that stuff every time you do something different?

Thanks.

For the wire changes, it is a semi-pain because you have to unfeed the wire from the liner and gun and either wrap it up to throw it out or respool it, BUT, the time saved over having to get a new electrode every couple of inches of bead has got to be substantial. Plus, the chipping of slag, etc. makes MIG much faster.

If I was changing between aluminum, steel, and other types of metal often I would get a TIG setup, but I work mostly in carbon steel.

I am going to stop at the welding supply in a little while and I think I may get a spool of .035 wire to replace the .030. The chart recommends that for the majority of what I do.

[morpheus]

congrats Zach, i'm about 3/4 way through my first roll !

In my hobart 175 I found that .030 works best for me.

- jack

[Arc Burn]

I seem to remeber my second roll better than the first,my dealer set the machine up when i bought it so i could try it out,"good,great,box it up,i want it!"They wanted to take the spool off and show me how to change it ,how hard can that be?I'll read the instructions,bye now.Well a month later i'm out of my 12# spool,no biggie,i have another all set to go,pull the empty spool,set the new one on the spindle,trim the bent wire so it will feed thru"thought i was pretty smart at that point)anyways,trimed the end,and there went the wire unwinding off the spool.ALWAYS hold on to the wire on the spool side!i tried in vein to wind it back up,but it was no use,it just woudn't feed right,the kick in the azz now was i was using flux cored wire,$50 bill down the drain,oh well,live and learn

[morpheus]

Originally posted by Arc Burn
there went the wire unwinding off the spool.ALWAYS hold on to the wire on the spool side!

been there, done that. thankfully it was only a 2 or 3 lb spool. in the blink of an eye that little roll was everywhere !

- jack

[ZACHV]

Yeah, it is like a Jack in the box game or something!

I got two spools, like I said I was gonna, so I will see if I like the .035 more or not.

[Guest]

Sigh...memories...you guys are having fun with this, so I'll just read for now....

[atucker]

When I picked up my MM210, we went out in the warehouse. My MM210 was sitting next to 2 HUGE wire spools, about 4 feet tall. The salesman told me that was the MIG wire that they supply to the local Harley plant. Down the aisle was a whole row of them. I forget how much he said each one weighed, but it was a bunch. He said it was unbelievable how much wire Harley uses.

Allen T.

[Hobart Expert Rock]

MOST OF THOSE ROLLS OF WIRE WEIGH INTO 1000 POUND ROLLS. THEIR ARE SOME SETTING OUTSIDE THE OFFICE BY THE STEPS..............YOU WOULD BE SUSPRISE WHO ALL BUYS THOSE 1,000# ROLLS...............FORD, CHRYSLER, GM, TOYOTA ETC......... YOU GET THE IDEA.......................$$$$$....AH ALL PROFIT NO WASTE............... ...........ROCK
[email protected]

[CyberianHusky]

Aweaver,

What cleaning pads? Is that some sort of aftermarket item?

Should you run a cleaner before the wire goes through?

Don

[Dave Haak]

CyberianHusky,

Do a search on this, several earlier posts. I believe aweaver is referring to cleaning wire before it goes through the rollers. Welding supply places have several different types of pads that you can install between wire roll and the rollers. Some are treated with some type of cleaner and you can add cleaner to pads.

Bottom line for me was: I put bag of "foam-type" earplugs in wire compartment to remind me to run wire through plug ahead of rollers next time I change wire. Just let plug run up against rollers. It catches goop & gunk. When dirty, just throw away and thread a new one on. I gleaned from earlier posts that it might not be good idea to put any chemicals on wire at this point in process.

Dave