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mig wire sizes

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edwin

11-25-2003 10:55:40

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I have just bought a mig welder. Could anybdy give me some guidance about wire size and the thickness of iron that can be welded with each .
0.030"(0.8mm)seems to work with 1/8th"( 3mm ) tubing. Some help would be appreciated

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D.L.

11-26-2003 18:37:42

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Re: mig wire sizes in reply to edwin , 11-25-2003 10:55:40

Yeah, these guys are right about the wire sizes and number of passes, heat, etc. If I'm welding pretty heavy stuff, 1/2", etc, I'll use .035" and crank up the heat... gets good penetration and will lay down a lot of metal in a hurry. .030" wire is good for lighter gauge steel (1/4",or so), but when you get down to the thin stuff like 20 gauge (like welding up the fender on your truck), you need to get down to the .023" wire. You'll mig just about anything with the correct wire size and current!

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T_Bone

11-26-2003 10:43:34

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Re: mig wire sizes in reply to edwin , 11-25-2003 10:55:40

Hi edwin,

A short answer is about 200amps for .030 but that is really not of a concern with Mig welding.

What controls the heat input on Mig welding is the amount of volts at a pictular wire speed at a given travel speed.

This is why you can weld a very wide range of plate thickness with one wire size.

As the plate thickness increases then you can run out of equipment range spec's (volts and wire speed) on a single pass weld.

There is no upper plate thickness limitation on a multi-pass weld.

This is somewhat also true on very thinn plate. In most cases you can adjust for lower volts with a slower wire speed with a final adjustment of travel speed to weld very thinn sheetmetal. In some cases (very rare) you will have to change too a smaller diameter wire for welding light gauge sheetmetal.

Then why do they make different machine and wire sizes?

In a production enviroment it's all about time. It's more cost effective to make a single pass weld.

T_Bone

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Wayne

11-25-2003 20:28:30

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Re: mig wire sizes in reply to edwin , 11-25-2003 10:55:40

The wire size doesn't really matter that much except for getting too big of a wire for light guage material. If you go too big you run into the heat to melt the wire being too great for the base metal to withstand without burning through. As long as you are getting a good burn in with the weld you can weld as heavy of a material as you want with whatever wire you want. The drawback is you will have to make more passes to achieve the same amount of weld/strength with the smaller wire than you would with the larger wire. I used to build service truck bodies for a manufacturer and we used .035 for everything from the lighter guage material on the bodies to the 1/4"-1/2" thick material on the main frames. The guys doing the frames had to run alot hotter and alot higher feed rates than we did on the body itself, but I havn't seen an Adkins body come apart yet. Personally though, if I was planning to weld mainly material 1/8" or thinner then I would stick with the .030/.035 but if your going to be doing the heavier stuff the majority of the time I'd go to .045. Beyond that the next step is .052 and that's getting more into the amp range of the bigger industrial power supplies. If your running a gas shield wire and not a flux cored then you can play with the shielding gas some and achieve hotter arcs with the same amperage allowing you to achieve a better burn in as well as higher deposition rates with whatever wire you choose, that is as long as you can move the gun fast enough to keep up with the weld. For that though you'd talk to your welding supply guys because all I can tell you about that would be what works for us and what you may or may not need may be something totally different. Good luck and have fun...

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DaveCA

11-25-2003 19:05:23

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Re: mig wire sizes in reply to edwin , 11-25-2003 10:55:40

What is the amperage output of your welder?

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edwin

11-26-2003 12:48:11

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Re: Re: mig wire sizes in reply to DaveCA, 11-25-2003 19:05:23

Thanks for the help-- it is a 245amp welder and i am looking to see how light i can weld with 0.030 wire . light sheet is tricky with a stick welder so the purchase of the mig (also quicker)

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DaveCA

11-26-2003 18:04:29

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Re: Re: Re: mig wire sizes in reply to edwin, 11-26-2003 12:48:11

Yes I have a hard time with a stick welder on any thin guage when some others can come along with the same machine and do fine. I spent the dough for a wire welder at home so I could relatively easily weld thinner guage and also run solid core wire so I don't have all the slag to clean up, less smoke etc.
Wayne and TBone have a lot more experience than me, I've only been welding off (mostly off) and on for 30 years.
Try the .030 out, like they said you can adjust the machine down to compensate quite a lot. You can also increase stickout and also push the torch instead of dragging also you can speed up a little. Of course where you aim the intensity of the arc can make a difference too, oh and also different gasses make a difference. I havent used .030 yet, I usually run .045 and .035. I think that .030 is a versatile wire for many lighter uses. On my machine at home I use .035, then .025?-.023 for 16 guage and thinner, it makes it easier for me so I don't spend more time filling burn through than moving along. The most serious problem I have seen with wire welder is not with welding thin guage, rather that you can lay a real pretty looking bead and not penetrate the steel enough to get a weld of any integrity. I'm always thinking of all the things to do to make sure I'm getting enough bite into the metal. I think you can download an owners manual from one of the Welder manufacturers that will have a chart with the recommended wire sizes for different thicknesses, gasses and such.

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