Miller 252 feed problem

[BrShan01]

I have a miller 252 I purchased new about 2 years ago and had feed problems when I used it last night for the first time in about 6months.

Problem - inconsistent feed rate. What appears to be happening is the wire is "binding" on the spool and causing the drive rollers to slip while it's peeling it off the spool ( you can hear the tension is super tight because it sounds like a guitar string as the wire tries to hop sideways off the spool). While watching the spool turn it looks like it has a wobble, makes it 2/3 of the way around fine and welds great then it binds for about 1/3 of the spool rotation when the spool kicks off center, if you weld through this it tries to burn back and wire will get a glob on the end but doesn't fry the contact tip and will continue to weld normal again for about 2/3 of a spool turn.

Ive tried changing to a new spool, adjusting drive rollers up and down, jogged off about 20' of wire... After reading a bit last night it sounded like it could be the tension on the spool spindle (lack of a better name).

Any input or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks - Brandon

[aametalmaster]

Loosen up the nut at the spindle end. I had the same problem with my brand new MM252...Bob

[WillieB]

What he said. You want only enough tension on the spool spindle to prevent backlash. Drive rollers must be matched to the wire, and just tight enough to feed steadily.

Willie

[BrShan01]

Thanks for the replies, the drive rollers are .035 same as the wire - it has to be the tension on the spool spindle. I read you want to adjust it so the spool will loosen the first coil of wire just a little when you let off the trigger, I'll give that a shot tomorrow and report back.

[BrShan01]

This seemed to have fixed the problem. Thanks again.