Mig Welding Basics: Mig Welding Machines

Mig welding machines can be broken up into four basics main parts or areas that are very critical to the successful operation of the machine.

The first area I will talk about is the power supply. The power supply on any mig welding machine is a key area in which controls many variables. Some of the “made to a price” mig welding machines are very basic in their functions and abilities. Take for example a small 110Volt or 220volt hobby or DIY type welding machine.

A lot of these machines will be made to run at very low maximum amperage outputs. They will have lower duty cycles and often used aluminium windings in the power sources.

Now lets take a comparative look at a tough industrial high workload mig welding machine like an OTC Daihen XD400 or XD500.

First thing you will notice is the sheer size of this machines power supply compared to that of a smaller hobby welder. The maximum power output will be much higher and this machine will run day and night in a production environment hassle and trouble free. The duty cycle will be much longer and there will also be a better current output from the machine which means you will have far superior weld beads.

The second area is the welding torch, or the mig welding gun. Once again on the lower end of the scale, the welding guns that are supplied with the cheapie mig welders are usually proprietary to that particular brand of welding machine. The mig torch welding consumables will not be as “mainstream” and the quality of the actual welding torch can be of much lesser quality and durability, which will lead to failures and lots of swearing and cursing.

Mainstream mig welding guns will offer higher duty cycles, many more consumable options, longer service life and a wider availability of spare parts and consumables. Also these industrial trade quality mig welding guns will be more comfortable to use which means less user fatigue, they will have smoother feeding resulting in far superior welds and if you are in business the reliability of these torches will save you money.

The third most important aspect of any mig welding machine is the mig welding wire. The mig welding wire is absolutely critical in the mig welding process. Selecting a quality mig welding wire is often very hard to do. Unfortunately people buy mig wire on price and usually price only.

Sadly though cheap things aren’t good, and good things aren’t cheap. This is very true with mig welding wire. The cheap wires will have bad copper coatings, sometimes even being sold with rust on the wire itself. The wire diameter tolerances will not be consistent which will result in irregular wire feeding, which will then result in burn backs, which will then result in having to replace contact tips which cost money and then you loose the production time as workers are walking around fixing welding machine feed problems all day.

The fourth and last critical area on a mig welding machine is the earth clamp or ground clamp.

You have to remember that when you are welding, you are simply creating an electrical circuit. And for that circuit to complete you must have a good earth connection. This can be solved by having an earth clamp that has clean contact faces. Over time little arcs will form on the welding ground clamp which will hinder its operation.

Then if you put the earth clamp onto rust steel or painted steel it will be even harder for the mig welding machine to complete the welding circuit. Resulting in the person welding getting angry because his mig welder isn’t working properly.

For further reading please visit

http://www.learn-how-to-weld.com/mig-welding-basics-1.html

Cheers,

Peter Apalais