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miller gun jamming

2K views 17 replies 8 participants last post by  oldred 
#1 ·
I got a question for yall. On our miller 175 welder the wire seems to constantly birdnest even on a low speed. My dad talked to the welding store and set it wasn't right and they would fix it, so it's no big deal. I was wondering if anyone else had this problem
 
#3 ·
It could be the tension isn't set right. Here's how I was taught to set it, back the tension off the whole way til the drive rolls slip, when they start slipping start tightening it down, as the wire is feeding out hold your finger by the nozzle, when it bends when touching your finger its set right. Hope that makes sense/helps.


ps if that doesn't fix the problem, make sure the contact tip is clean, if the tip is good its most likely the gun liner.
 
#4 ·
Try to make it a point to run your whip straight out of the front of the welder and straight as possible towards your work area. The straighter it is the easier it will glide through the liner. I get calls all the time to the floor for guys that complain there welders are junk and need to be fixed. I simply rearrange the welder to straighten everything out and it usually does the trick. I have had to replace a few liners because guys would put kinks in them from simply bending the whip too tight. It is easy to do and the usually don't cost that much. Hope the info helps.



And rubbin' son, is racin'!
 
#5 ·
If you are getting "birdnesting" of the wire then the rollers are too tight but that is not the cause of the problem and is a secondary malfunction you will need to deal with. Most likely the tip is bad (most common cause) and one way to check this is to run out a few inches of wire and slide the tip back and forth over this exposed section of wire. It should slide over the wire with no effort at all and if it feels tight or seems rough in places then the tip probably needs to be replaced. If the tip is OK try removing it and pushing the wire though the gun by hand (with the gun lead straightened out) from the roller end, if excessive resistance is felt the gun liner needs to be cleaned or replaced. In either case look at the wire itself, if it is dirty or rusty then that too can cause the problem. Have you been grinding near the wire? It is of course very common to use a grinder near a welder and if steps are not taken to protect the wire from grinding sparks then the spatter from the grinder will stick to the wire making it difficult or impossible to feed, dirty wire might be cleaned and used but if it has grinder spatter on it then toss it and replace it! Any of the above conditions will cause the feeding problems you describe so you will just have to check all of them to find which one(s) it is.



Now the roller tension, AFTER you get the tip/gun liner/wire situation taken care of you need to adjust those rollers. Ideally the rollers should be tight enough to feed the wire smoothly but still be loose enough to slip if the wire sticks in the tip/gun, this will prevent the "birdnesting" if the wire momentarily hangs up. As has already been described back off the rollers until they will be too loose to feed the wire and then tighten them down until they are just tight enough to bend the wire as it is fed against a solid object, NEVER USE YOUR HAND!!! :nono: Never try to stop the wire with your hand, not even while wearing a welding glove! The reason is that although most of the time the wire will be either cut or burned blunt this is not always the case and sometimes the end can be sharper than a needle! It can be clipped at an angle leaving a razor sharp pointed edge or even worse it can be left needle sharp from the last weld. Most of the time stopping a weld will leave a ball on the end of the wire but if this ball falls off before it has solidified it will leave an unbelievably sharp point that will go right through a leather welding glove with almost no effort at all! I have seen this happen at least three times and once the wire went through a welding glove then into the guy's hand and bent! :pain: NEVER RUN THE WIRE AGAINST YOUR HAND!!!
 
#6 ·
oldred said:
Now the roller tension, AFTER you get the tip/gun liner/wire situation taken care of you need to adjust those rollers. Ideally the rollers should be tight enough to feed the wire smoothly but still be loose enough to slip if the wire sticks in the tip/gun, this will prevent the "birdnesting" if the wire momentarily hangs up. As has already been described back off the rollers until they will be too loose to feed the wire and then tighten them down until they are just tight enough to bend the wire as it is fed against a solid object, NEVER USE YOUR HAND!!! :nono: Never try to stop the wire with your hand, not even while wearing a welding glove! The reason is that although most of the time the wire will be either cut or burned blunt this is not always the case and sometimes the end can be sharper than a needle! It can be clipped at an angle leaving a razor sharp pointed edge or even worse it can be left needle sharp from the last weld. Most of the time stopping a weld will leave a ball on the end of the wire but if this ball falls off before it has solidified it will leave an unbelievably sharp point that will go right through a leather welding glove with almost no effort at all! I have seen this happen at least three times and once the wire went through a welding glove then into the guy's hand and bent! :pain: NEVER RUN THE WIRE AGAINST YOUR HAND!!!
Oldred thank you once again for pointing out something I never even thought of, I always did it wearing gloves but I guess I've just been lucky. Believe it or not it was a teacher that told me to do it that way :eek:
 
#7 ·
Teachers are not always 100%.

A couple of small things you always want to make sure your wire is clean. sometimes the wire will rust if not used frequently.

There is a thing.{sorry} that goes on the wire before it goes into the whip. it lubes the wire so it goes thru easy& removes any dirt & stuffs.

Make sure you have the right tip size.

Goos stuff Old Red!! thanks


Rob :thumbup:
 
#9 ·
Timothale, Since the WD40 would be a contaminate I would not recommend spraying the wire with it but I have done this myself when making long non-critical welds with wire in poor condition, it does work BUT! I am not sure just how much damage (if any) WD40 would do to a weld but I would not recommend doing it because even though WD40 is technically a solvent that evaporates it obviously does leave an oily film, oil+weld=not good!

Rob, Those felt wipes with the metal clip are what you are talking about I am sure (different brands have different names but get them at any welding supply) and they also have a companion weld-safe lubricating/solvent spray that the wipes are to be saturated with. These work well for slightly dirty or dusty wire and I use them all the time but they will not help for rusty or grinder/torch spattered wire. If the wire has only a few rust spots on it on the first few loops then someone may get by with cleaning it with steel wool but if it been exposed to damp air and is rusty deep into the roll or if it is grinder/torch spattered it should be scrapped.
 
#10 ·
oldschoolrods said:
Oldred Believe it or not it was a teacher that told me to do it that way :eek:

Lots of people do this but some do get hurt doing it, most times the injury is fairly minor and you will not hear about it. If the tiny ball that usually forms at the end of the wire when a weld is stopped falls off before it solidifies it can leave a point on the wire so sharp it has to be seen to be believed! Clipping it is usually not as bad but but even that too can leave a point that will penetrate a welding glove, neither of these situations occur often but once is all it takes! That incident I mentioned before where the wire bent in the fellows hand is the worse case I know of but I have heard about one (did not see this one) where the wire went through the glove, the guy's hand and then out the other side! I would think the injury where the wire went in and bent would be worse but the one where the wire penetrated all the way through shows just how sharp this wire can get.
 
#11 ·
Wd 40

The shop built the horn and light bracket for harley springer front ends. they had a robot that welded the cast ends to the steel tubing. parts were sent to york or milwaukee factories and they had a lot of porosity in the welds that showed up in the chrome process, Mufflers never had any problems with wd 40 spray. I think the wd 40 got into the tubes and the vapor formed when welding caused the problems when trying to have an air tight piece ...
 
#12 ·
Makes sense about the pressure build up in the tight space. I have no idea if the WD40 would do any real harm but IMO I don't think it would be worth taking a chance on for something critical such as frames, spring hangers or worse-steering parts! I doubt it would cause much problem with body panels but when we did this (non-critical wear components and using up old slightly deteriorated wire) there was a noticeable increase in smoke from the weld so the oil was contaminating the weld to some extent, in this case it did not matter anyway. If the wire and/or equipment is so bad that the wire needs to be oiled in order to feed properly then it is time to make some serious equipment and consumables corrections! Also for sure this should never be done with any kind of flux core wire since there is a seam in the wire that the oil would penetrate and saturate the flux. Maybe OK for mufflers and such but once contaminated the remaining wire would need to be cleaned thoroughly before doing any high quality welding and this may not be so easy to do.
 
#14 ·
I think anti-spatter spray tends to make the liner "gummy" inside and causes it to hold dirt and debris making it more likely to cause sticking. Those clip on felt wipers and the spray made for this purpose are the only things I would trust on the wire however that spray is more a cleaning agent than a lubricant. If the tip is still good, the liner is kept clean and the wire is in good condition there really is no need for a lubricant and if the wire is sticking it is better to fix the problem. I can't see where a quick shot of WD40 into the liner at the roller end would hurt anything as long as it is not done too often because any oily residue the wire would pickup from that would be insignificant (unless doing a really critical weld such as steering parts). When making most welds such a tiny amount of contamination would really not mean much but on high quality critical welds nothing should be left to chance!



Another note on that anti-spatter spray, when you buy the stuff read the label to see what's in it because the cheaper concoctions are Methylene Chloride based and are dangerous to use. Methylene Chloride is a potent carcinogen and it takes little exposure to cause harm. I can not understand how they get away with selling that stuff for consumer use in any form never mind one that will be heated to a vapor and breathed by the user! Some of the better brands plainly print "No Methylene Chloride" on the front of the label so look for one of these. The fact that the better brands make an issue of the fact they do not contain this dangerous chemical makes it obvious the other companies must be aware of what they are doing but simply don't care!

WELD SAFE! :)
 
#15 ·
What about Liquid Wrench (the yellow can, not the crappy "improved" green ones) instead of WD-40? It's graphite-based instead of oil-based -- the reason I use it to clean the rails on a radial arm saw is because it leaves behind dry graphite when it evaporates and therefore doesn't cause sawdust to stick to it.

Maybe this could be used to clean the liner without leaving behind much of a contaminate? (Or maybe that's a solution in search of a problem).
 
#18 ·
I think that unless the wire is just hosed down with either of these lubricants then we are talking about a very small amount of contamination that for most welding probably would not hurt much, if any. As long as the equipment and wire is kept clean and in good condition lubricant really is not needed but I doubt a squirt of WD40 or the Liquid Wrench into the liner at the roller end would hurt anything, I would not want to wet the wire down with it however.


An old MIG welders' trick is to take a soft rubber ball (from the toy isle) and thread the wire through it before starting it (the wire) through the first guide. The ball will then be suspended on the wire and resting against the first guide so that the wire will have to be pulled through it before entering the guides/rollers. The ball makes an excellent wiper that will collect an amazing amount of crude that would otherwise wind up in the liner and/or the weld however it will not remove rust or grinder and welding spatter, either of which is good reason to scrap the wire.
 
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