mig tip wear

[c66miller87]

hi guys new to the forum but have been welding for about 8 years now. I have gotten a job as a production welder at a factory. The factory really has a crappy maintenance program and never puts any money into their welding machines. We do a lot of Mig welding and i mean a lot, there is 7 of us and we weld all day everyday. They have mostly Miller machines and tweco mig guns running .045 wire. The problem i am having is wearing out contact tips to quickly. I wore out 3 tips in two days like i said we do a lot of welding but i know there is something wrong with that. When i say wearing them out i mean to the point where they weld like ****. Today i addressed my concerns with the maintenance man and the boss about the tip wear. The boss asked him about it and he blamed it on the tweco tips. I brought it up that if it was the tips then all of us would be having the same problem and not just mine. I told the boss that in my experience bad drive wheels will put a bur on the wire and wear out the tip or a worn or damaged liner will wear them also. The maintenance man looked at me like I was stupid. Only he knows the last time the liners were changed out, he removes them and wipes them off and blows them out and puts them back together. Any ideas on how to fix this problem? Until then I will be wearing out their tips. Thanks in advance.

 

[Jzytaruk]

I'd say the drive roller tension is too high and its putting ridges in your wire.. I used to have this problem with my lincoln ln25 wirefeed.. Could also be **** wire...

We're running fluxcore and its pretty finicky when it comes to drive roller tension. Its easily crushed. I can usually get a week out of a tip, but we're using Bernard whips... Is the wear hole in the contact tip ovular?

JZ

 

[wishihadatalon]

Do a drive roll feed test to set your drive roll tension. Pretty much just take your gun, put it an inch from the a non grounded item and pull the trigger. You will want to fight the wire pushing you up. If the tension is set right it will fold the wire over, then roll it in a circle. If it doesn't do this, try tightening up the rolls. Also check the rolls to verify that they aren't touching.

To check the liner, I would pull it out, bend it over where it goes through the torch neck a little bit and peak inside to look for wear grooves. The neck will be the highest wear point because it has the constant bend on it.

What kind of wire do you run? Also how far are you keeping your torch from the work piece? The amount of heat the contact tip sees, can have a significant impact on the wear it can handle.

 

[Ben Iv]

how close do you keep the tip to the base metal? if its too close you could get excessive spatter on the tip causing problems. Also some anti spatter spray or nozzel dip on the tip will help keep the tip clean. but a tip costs like 35 cents so just replace them as needed, I hate seeing my guys trying to clean their tips its cheaper to just give them a new one.