Welder Woes

The guy at Miller also told me that it could be a bad spot in the metal. But I don't think there would be that many bad spots. It's frustrating as hell though. Good luck man. It sucks spending money on quality tools and they not working right.

Yeah its definitely not the metal. Its been going on for months on end. Sometimes it goes for a while without acting up, and then it goes crazy. It was doing really good for like a month, not a single problem, then it came back hard. I'm tired of this, it needs fixing right now. I can't stand to lay down shat welds.

leed looks good? If you can feel the gas coming out, you know the ground is good, It will strike an arc just with with nasty welds here and there, im sure you tried on multiple pieces of metal, I dont know what else to tell you besides it could be bad wire. Iv had it happen more than once. go get a small roll from lows and check it out.

The last thing I can think of and would suggest is to call up Miller and find out the specs you can check with a DMM. You may have some deviance in amperage somewhere internally. If you replace your trigger and that doesn't solve your prob, try that. Maybe call the tech line and have them do a walkthrough with you on the phone.
You could try running a spool of inner shield through it and see if it ever acts up with that...eliminate the gas idea altogether.

Edited: 4/22/2007 4:39:58 AM by toreadorxlt

What kind of shielding gas are you running?

I have a hobart 180 (built on the same factory floor at the millermatic). Anyways, when I first got mine, I didn't have the line for the torch fully seated in its home inside the welder. It was kind of acting the same exact way. There is also an o-ring there, might want to check that as a shot in the dark .

Is your polarity correct?

has the company you get gas from changed lately? we had a problem with a welder of my friends.. he gets 'master mix' which use to be 75/25.. unhooked the bottle, went and got a new bottle, hooked it up and it wouldnt burn, it melted the wire as it left the tip, i had to completely resetting the whole welder.. guessing the gas is no good or master mix changed mix's..

try turning the regulator up really high.. in the 40 area.. might be bad gas

Change the tip that he wire goes through!

If the welder is only 4 or 5 months old, you should be able to drop it at an authorized dealer and have them take a look at it. It sounds to me alot like the gas valve in the machine is on the skitz. If the trigger was shot, you wouldnt be getting any wire feed either (there's only one hot line in the gun, it feeds back into the machine and splits to the electronics from there) You may also be having issues with the machine end of the gun..check to make sure the o-ring is still good, and make sure the braided wire is still crimped to the end...

Originally posted by milkfat



If the welder is only 4 or 5 months old, you should be able to drop it at an authorized dealer and have them take a look at it. It sounds to me alot like the gas valve in the machine is on the skitz. If the trigger was shot, you wouldnt be getting any wire feed either (there's only one hot line in the gun, it feeds back into the machine and splits to the electronics from there) You may also be having issues with the machine end of the gun..check to make sure the o-ring is still good, and make sure the braided wire is still crimped to the end...

Yeah the O-ring is good, the wire is still fine. I checked both of those a while back, and again yesterday. My friend was telling me that the purge valve is probably on its way out. I'm guessing one of those would have ot be ordered.

what kind of gas are you using, and it might be your gas solenoid valve. Your regulator should be set around 21-25psi. Also, how much spatter around your tip. There are small holes in the base for your contact tip, they may be blocked with spatter or there may be enough spatter oround the edge of your tip that it is restricting good flow when you are putting down a bead, but enough to do a tack.