First time welding, and I'm not getting any spark. What am I doing wrong?

[moneyisflying]

I got a brand new Hobart 140 Mig welder for Christmas and just decided to put it together and use it for the first time tonight.

It came with a spool of .030 flux core wire which I installed per the directions. I am not using gas, just wanted to flux weld for the first go.

I have it plugged it, and it does turn on, I do have the work clamp clamped on to part of the metal I am trying to weld. When I pull the trigger the wire does feed, but there is no spark when it touches the metal.

I tried even reversing the polarity against what it recommends for flux core, but nothing new happened, still no spark (I put it back the way it reccomended afterwards).

I am sure I am doing something obvious wrong, but I don't know what.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[skeletonizer]

Do you have the proper size tip (or any tip) in the gun?

If not the wire will not be part of the circuit.

 

[Jason280]

Clean, bare metal, or are you welding painted or rusty stuff?

 

[malibu101]

Basics-
Is the ground clamp on clean metal?
Is the wire hitting clean metal?
Do you have a voltmeter? If so, connect it (on DCV) to the terminals inside the welder where you change polarity and pull the trigger. What do you get?

 

[crab]

Got it plugged in ?

 

[angrystroker]

Did you clean the surface, shinny metal where the ground clamp is and the parts to be welded


Look over these areas, make sure the gun cable is seated as the picture shows V In the top picture, that block where the wires are reversed to change polarity. See the 4 holes left of the + symbol, it holds/stores the wire guides for the torch tip, shown in the bottom picture

In this picture make sure you have that wire guide, it is brass in color. You will have two sizes .020 or .030 if every thing looks good may need to return it.

Bummer not working hope something shown will be the problem.

 

[Rookie2]

www.hobartwelders.com/om/0900/o925b_hob.pdf

 

[moneyisflying]

Disregard. As any good son would do, I asked my dad for help, and he suggested that the part the work clamp was on may not be clean (it was not).

It was ugly, but I am very happy to have my first weld complete!

 

[454ragtop]

Try a quick tack on the ground clamp itself. Anything happen? If not, there is a problem with the welder itself.
Good luck, Jim

 

[caffeinatedhijinx]

Try a quick tack on the ground clamp itself. Anything happen? If not, there is a problem with the welder itself.
Good luck, Jim

Thank you, this helped to quickly confirm that my problem wasn't being caused by an internal component!

 

[Sumboodie]

Try a quick tack on the ground clamp itself. Anything happen? If not, there is a problem with the welder itself.
Good luck, Jim

I do that all the time to trim the wire.

Someone at work.**** bricks over it, saying it'll ruin the welder.
Ground clamp or steel it's connected to.is all the same, why would it matter?

 

[The Bean]

Been watching Kurtis at Cutting Edge Engineering for a little while. Check out this video (part 1 of 2).
Scroll ahead to 11:20.

 

[N_Jay]

I do that all the time to trim the wire.

Someone at work.**** bricks over it, saying it'll ruin the welder.
Ground clamp or steel it's connected to.is all the same, why would it matter?

I seem to remember my shop teach yelling at me for testing on the ground clamp.

Of course it was 40+ years ago, and he could have been yelling at me for lots of other things.

 

[dr_clyde]

I do that all the time to trim the wire.

Someone at work.**** bricks over it, saying it'll ruin the welder.
Ground clamp or steel it's connected to.is all the same, why would it matter?

Doesn't hurt the welder, but it is poor practice. It causes sharp wires to stick on the ground clamp and it also just makes it difficult or unpleasant to use the ground on other things. I've cut my hand on wires that were hiding on a ground clamp before, as well as snagged and ripped my shirt. Plus it just looks unprofessional. You're welcome to do whatever you like with your own welder, but I would take disciplinary action against any of my employees who tried that on my equipment after asking them not to. It's not a huge deal, but it does show a fair amount of disrespect for the machine. Good ground clamps and cables are expensive and I try to get a lot of life out of them. I provide high quality welding pliers to trim wire; it's just lazy to not use the right tool.

This is for the mig welder mind you, I routinely touch my tungsten to the copper pad of the ground to get argon flowing to purge the line in the field with the tig machine set up for scratch start. This doesn't leave any marks or wire and its on a part of the clamp that is replaceable if it gets messed up.

 

[Sumboodie]

Doesn't hurt the welder, but it is poor practice. It causes sharp wires to stick on the ground clamp and it also just makes it difficult or unpleasant to use the ground on other things. I've cut my hand on wires that were hiding on a ground clamp before, as well as snagged and ripped my shirt. Plus it just looks unprofessional. You're welcome to do whatever you like with your own welder, but I would take disciplinary action against any of my employees who tried that on my equipment after asking them not to. It's not a huge deal, but it does show a fair amount of disrespect for the machine. Good ground clamps and cables are expensive and I try to get a lot of life out of them. I provide high quality welding pliers to trim wire; it's just lazy to not use the right tool.

This is for the mig welder mind you, I routinely touch my tungsten to the copper pad of the ground to get argon flowing to purge the line in the field with the tig machine set up for scratch start. This doesn't leave any marks or wire and its on a part of the clamp that is replaceable if it gets messed up.

Wire doesn't stick to it, it's brass. I guess wouldn't work as well on a steel clamp.

 

[nadogail]

Sometimes we just need to have a 2nd pair of eyes look at the problem.