The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Tool Chest Problem with new welder

My Miller 175 mig welder was stolen recently and I replaced it with a Miller 185 which is almost exactly the same. I used the new welder for the first time today and it didn't work well at all. It splattered and smoked so bad that I could't see the bead. The weld looked like there was no shielding gas at all and there was brown soot about 1" or so around the weld. I'm not an expert welder but I've been using a wire welder for several years and have never had this type of problem. The tank is labeled 75/25 but I'm wondering if it could have the wrong gas in it. If anyone has seen something like this and can give me a clue what the problem is I would appreciate the help. With my job, it will be several days before I'll have a chance to go by the welding supply store where I bought the welder. Thanks.

Jeff

Can you hear the gas shussing out of the nozzle when you pull the trigger on the MIG gun? Sounds like it isn't getting any gas on the weld at all.

Other thing, when you are welding with gas, it is different polarity than with flux core. Lots of welders come from the factory wired for flux core, not gas (because they ship them with a roll of flux core so the buyer can run them if they haven't bought a tank of gas yet). So double check the owner's manual on the polarity for gas. You should have had to flip the cover up and loosen bolts and move two wires to two different lugs.

You're not using flux wire are you? What is the regulator set at? When you squeeze the trigger, does shielding gas come out? In my Miller 135, under the side cover there is a terminal with two links- they can be turned one way or another. If I remember right, that's how you set it for flux wire, or for gas. But I can't remember for sure, and I don't have the welder here to look at it.

R-Bo, we put our reply in at the same time, and it looks like we are thinking the same way- check the polarity. yes.

Use DCEN (Direct current electrode negative) for flux core....this means that the wire is negative. You will have to reverse the two welding cable connections under the wire feeder conver. DCEP is for solid wire (probably have to look it up on the miller site. Make sure you have FLOW out the nozzle. If you have junk in the gas line it might whoosh, then flow at a really low flow rate and burn welds. Some flux core wire is shielded with gas AND flux.
Hope this helps

I found the problem. I should have mentioned in my original post that I'm using solid wire and I had already checked the polarity to the manual. I was not able to verify that gas was flowing because I'm running off a generator and I couldn't hear well enough. After thinking about it last night I decided that I could put the end of the nozzle in a cup of water and look for bubbles. I did that this afternoon and there were no bubbles. I started checking for problems and eventually found that the cable was not plugged completely into the front of the welder. It looked and felt like it was all the way in but looking inside the cover I could see that there was room for it to go in about another 1/16". Apparently the holes were not lining up correctly for gas to get into the cable. I pushed a little harder to get it completely in and checked it again and had gas flowing. It now works just like my old welder. Thanks for all the suggestions.