Mig welding

[Wayne]

What is the upper limit for .035 with CO2, Volts, Amps, gas flow?
I am welding 3/8" plate and 3/8 wall tubing.
Thanks for your help.
Wayne.

[ASKANDY]

3/8 would be the high end for .035. You are starting to exceed the voltage threshold that the wire can handle.
With CO2 try 23-24V 400-420IPM wire speed. This will put you at around 200-230Amps.

The CO2 is a good penetrating gas but will also have more spatter.

Good luck, hope this helps.

Andy

[HAWK]

Andy,

I worked around a machine shop for several years doing medium to heavy fabrication. We stayed with .035 bare non copper coat wire in ER70S-6 using 92% argon and 8% Carbon Dioxide. 1/2" material was not uncommon. Here again we had golden oldy tapped slope and variable slope machines to get where we needed to go.

Maybe we pushed the wire limits, but it is not like aluminum. The parmeters are much more forgiving. We did everything from dozers to mixers and odd ball 1" sand stir paddles. We naver gave .045 and up a thought.

[ASKANDY]

Wow.
I'd say you are pushing it. With that gas combo, that's almost a spray gas. It suits itself nicely for globular transfer at the higher voltages. This however doesn't give it very good out of position performance. But I'm sure there is someone out there who welds 1/2" with .023 in some way shape or form with those old slope units. I wouldn't build a battleship with it

A-

[HAWK]

Andy,

We ran a lot of glob transfer for positional welds and tons of spray on flat and horizontal fillets. We also ran some pulsed spray for out of position welding. Our thought school was make it work with what you've got. I tried a few times to introduce .045 E71T-1 and the XMT technology to no avail. That probably influenced my choice of mobile welding over the shop. I have passed up a few fine offers for in shop, enviromentally clean, SS and specialty alloy TIG jobs. I have looked over my shoulder a time or two and without regret!