handirifle
Veteran Member
I have a small Campbell Hausfield 110v welder I have used about 20 years. It has done very well for me. I am pretty much self trained and can most of the time run good beads and get the penetration I need, for what I am doing. For settings, it only has hi-lo and 1-2 so hi-1 or hi-2 etc. I am using lincoln .035" flux core, like I usually do.
On this current project, I am making a T bar from 1" and 1.5" flat steel. I got the steel tacked up like I wanted, and started filling in the gaps. I worked about 45 min on filling in the gaps, still not done. What the issue is, is when I first started I would strike the arc and run about 1" bead to tack it in place. The when I started running about 4-5" beads to fill in the gap, it worked very well. Nice and smooth crackle sound, little splatter.
Then after about 15 of these (T bar is 10ft long) it popped off on overload. Ok duty cycle is what it is. When it kicked back on, it would not hold a steady bead. It would be more like bzzz stop bzzz stop, and so on, in rapid succession. It seemed like the wire would keep feeding but not welding. I hope I am getting the description right. Almost like I was doing rapid touch and lift. My technique was the same, same distance from tip to work, same speed. After that I tried varying the speed, the distance, heat settings, and nothing worked, consistently. Every once in a while it would run about a 1" bead the start all over again.
Is this me or the machine? This is not the first time I have run into this issue, I just have to put it down and go do other things to avoid the frustration.
On this current project, I am making a T bar from 1" and 1.5" flat steel. I got the steel tacked up like I wanted, and started filling in the gaps. I worked about 45 min on filling in the gaps, still not done. What the issue is, is when I first started I would strike the arc and run about 1" bead to tack it in place. The when I started running about 4-5" beads to fill in the gap, it worked very well. Nice and smooth crackle sound, little splatter.
Then after about 15 of these (T bar is 10ft long) it popped off on overload. Ok duty cycle is what it is. When it kicked back on, it would not hold a steady bead. It would be more like bzzz stop bzzz stop, and so on, in rapid succession. It seemed like the wire would keep feeding but not welding. I hope I am getting the description right. Almost like I was doing rapid touch and lift. My technique was the same, same distance from tip to work, same speed. After that I tried varying the speed, the distance, heat settings, and nothing worked, consistently. Every once in a while it would run about a 1" bead the start all over again.
Is this me or the machine? This is not the first time I have run into this issue, I just have to put it down and go do other things to avoid the frustration.