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Min requirements for a dualshield setup

Cole2534

Diamond
Joined
Sep 10, 2010
Location
Oklahoma City, OK
Duelshield has always intrigued me. It's smooth, has great pen and is pretty flexible. I'm now in the market for a new Lincoln wirefeed, and am wondering what machines I should be looking at.

Any ideas?

Thanks, Cole

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That wire isn't going to be specific to a certain machine. Any MIG will run it..I run .035 in my Hobart Beta-mit 250. If you run gas with your dual-shield it will look and perform even better.

That's my two cents worth.

Stuart
 
GMAW Flux core with gas shielding, (totally different than the fluxcore sold in 2 lb spools for hobby machines) is a fantastic wire, it can really lay down some metal, but to take full advantage, you do need to be able to run in spray transfer.
Transition to real spray transfer will happen at lower current with a FC wire than a solid wire, but figure 250 A output is good as a minimum machine to run that wire.

Also note most structural “dual shield” wires are not even available in less than a 30lb spools, and .035 dia. Hobart was selling one for the home/hobby market for a bit (think they called it 10 gauge or something confusing like that, which since they were aiming for auto body work didn’t help).

These wires are often formulated for a high volume industrial application and can be a little finicky in their parameters, but really shine for welding thicker material that has some surface contaminants (over 1/4, with mill scale -light rust).

Dot even consider using this class of wire without the recommended gas.

I don’t have a good general purpose mild steel fab wire recommendation, can anyone chime in with that?
 
IMHO you want a 400 amp plus power source and a water cooled Burnard torch (Binzels catch fire and have stupid tiny fast wearing contact tips IME). Water cooled is the only way to lay serious qty's of metal a hour every hour all day long. You also want good extraction on the bench - welding bay area.
 
IMHO you want a 400 amp plus power source and a water cooled Burnard torch (Binzels catch fire and have stupid tiny fast wearing contact tips IME). Water cooled is the only way to lay serious qty's of metal a hour every hour all day long. You also want good extraction on the bench - welding bay area.

You don't have to turn it up to eleven, all the time now eh ?...:nutter:

I frequent a shop that has it's welders laying down qty (3) 50 lb spools in
an 8 hour shift, and they don't run watercooled guns.
 
GMAW Flux core with gas shielding, (totally different than the fluxcore sold in 2 lb spools for hobby machines) is a fantastic wire, it can really lay down some metal, but to take full advantage, you do need to be able to run in spray transfer.
Transition to real spray transfer will happen at lower current with a FC wire than a solid wire, but figure 250 A output is good as a minimum machine to run that wire.

Also note most structural “dual shield” wires are not even available in less than a 30lb spools, and .035 dia. Hobart was selling one for the home/hobby market for a bit (think they called it 10 gauge or something confusing like that, which since they were aiming for auto body work didn’t help).

These wires are often formulated for a high volume industrial application and can be a little finicky in their parameters, but really shine for welding thicker material that has some surface contaminants (over 1/4, with mill scale -light rust).

Dot even consider using this class of wire without the recommended gas.

I don’t have a good general purpose mild steel fab wire recommendation, can anyone chime in with that?

That is exactly what I needed to hear, thank you. My only experience with this process was in a fab shop and they had 350ampmachines as a baseline.

I was hoping I could get by with a something like a PowerMig 256 but maybe not. And quite frankly, this is overkill. 90% of my fab work is <1/4" thk but the advantages when dealing with less than ideal surfaces is very nice.
 
^ If you want to be productive, you want the power and you want water cooled, If your running gas cooled, your running more gas than you need and that costs. All depends on what your doing, but me, given the equipment - choice, i always go for big fat hot welds and one pass not several little ones if the application allows. I like to burn it in there nice and hot when conditions allow. Im talking 1.2mm wires and on up. I like depositing hard facing with 1.6mm wire and your not doing that with a 250 amp machine.

Sure, if your only placing welds 2" long then air cooled torches are ok, but you want to start running feet or more of weld, sorry water cooled is just so much better, you need to try it, it will make you a believer.

Im not a fan of dual cored wires unless the specific task - materials demands it, have heard a lot of arguments for them over the years, but my personal experience, the higher deposition rates can be just achieved with a bigger machine and fatter wire a lot lot more cheaply. Sure sometimes you need there properties, when you do there great, but IMHO its not ideal for everyday job shop use simply do to cost.

Machine wise i would look at second hand, MIG machines over here, especially larger three phase are generally readily available and for a hell of a lot less cost than new too.
 
200 amp machine would be minimum required for .045 dualshield. I have a millermatic 200 that does a good job with it. I dont use it for dualshield anymore, XMT304 with suitcase works a little better, and can put out more heat.
 
So what would you choose for an all-around wire/gas/machine setup?

the standard setup in my world for general fab would be a Millermatic 250/251/252, ER70S-6 solid wire (.030-.035 depending on the thickness of the majority of your work, if you never go below 11 ga, .035 is fine), AR/75, Co2/25. run in short circuit mode.

add groved feed rolls and you can run the FC dual shield in a .035 at the top end of the welder's output. clearly not suited to max production as in trying to maximize your LBS/Hr, but you can run it. (don't have a specific wire to suggest here)

add a lower Co2 gas, and you can get it to go spray with a thin solid wire too, again not optimum, but it will work for heavier welds in the flat position.

start spending a few thousand more and you can get to a multi-process setup with higher output, like a XMT.
 
Ok 90% sub 1/4, are we to assume no aluminum? How long a weld? Sounds daft, but for a lot of assy work with lots of short welds a good 2 stage regulator can really save a fortune in gas too. That puff every time you pull the trigger adds up if your doing thousands of short welds a day.

Im really in the camp that i would spend on a burnard 4 meter water cooled torch, a nice regulator with flow meter, decent 600amp screw clamp style earth lead and then and only then would i get picky about the plant. Sub 1/4 yeah you could probably ditch the water cooled torch, especially if only short welds but dang im spoilt.

If your other 10% is all sub 3/8" then a 300 amp plant is probably plenty, if your only doing smaller welds again you can get away with less if your not stretching that duty cycle.

If i had the electric here i would with out shadow of a doubt have a late 1980's large copper cored transformer based mig. Probably a CEA given the choice, with a Burnard torch, they have always proven very reliable and for me i can really notice the difference - weld better with the Burnard torches, big contact tips just feed wire smoother. Smoother wire feed, the better! If what your doing is over what you can readily get with a 4 meter torch then i like a plant with a separate wire feed. If your at a bench all the time, again i would spend on a better fume extractor and such than go OTT on the plant. I kinda feel strongly the plant is only about 40% of the true setup when it comes to mild steel mig, the bits connected to it are to me what really makes the difference, most mig supplies output much the same and its just dialing them in to your materials, settings and preferences.

That said, i have never got to use a good synergic mig yet, its spouse to be good, but im not sold on the added complexities of it.
 
Gas wise some one in the past mentioned you can get on the plant mixers, so you have a bottle of argon and a bottle of CO2 and dial in your own mix, that could be great if your planning on going really thin to thick being able to change the mix at the drop of a hat too.
 
start spending a few thousand more and you can get to a multi-process setup with higher output, like a XMT.

IMHO thats a really bad idea, that machine breaks and your not welding any more, sure if your tight on space and need to take the one and only machine to site they have there place, but its far nicer having a few separate plants than just the one. In the second hand world over here most multi process machines generally sell for less, people are put of by the complexity and cost of repairing them.

Much prefer having a totally separate Mig then a nice inverter based TIG with a Arc rod lead too just comes in useful at times. The Arc force on most Tigs makes stick really easy to strike and your not really adding anything extra to a TIG plant to arc weld that can go wrong. A multi process MIG has a lot more complexity to it.
 
All of the above info + Look at Duty Cycle for what ever machine you are looking at.
Duty Cycle tells you more about what that machine is "supposed" to do VS what it "can" do then anything else in the sales flyer. I have run a few spools of fluxcore through a millermattic 252, 350p, and some version of a deltaweld(cant remember, its a big beast). I have made every machine except the big beast cry for help and shut down. In fairness to the 350p, I was running 1/16 solid wire through it in a heavy spray... It was doing it very well, but it couldn't keep up with the duty cycle and had a bunch of issues.

From the sounds of it, I'd recommend either a lincoln or miller 350, with my personal preference for the lincoln...
Either/or will run .045/.052 flux core all day with an air cooled torch just fine. Welding on say 3"X3" square tube frames (or similar) you will never come anywhere near the duty cycle. Filling 60" long V grooves in 3" thick plate might cause some issues...

The wire we run at work is a .052 ESAB 7100 ultra with 75/25 Ar/Co2. It is mainly set up on the Beast but on occasion it gets run through the smaller critters. If you pull up the spec sheet from ESAB they tell you what to run it at. From (faulty) memory I believe it was between 22 and 27 volts and 200-500 WFS...
 
You definitely don't need a water cooled gun for anywhere near what you are doing. We run thousands of pounds of wire a year here (mostly 1/16 dualshield) and we don't own a water cooled gun. A 250 amp budget machine from one of the big guys welds 0.045" dualshield surprisingly well. Gas is key and it likes cleanish metal. Don't waste your money on a giant machine as you can only run the 1/16 stuff at 340 amps.
 
.035 is more expensive than .045 in cored wires. It is more hassle to make the smaller wire so more $$. For years I used to use the 7100 ultra with straight co2 and it ran great. The local weld store now stocks the esab 710X so I use it and it seems the same. Bummer about the new 710X wire is it more specific on gas, different part# for mix or co2, with 7100 ultra, the same wire could do either gas.
My old millermatic 200 with 60% duty cycle did just fine with the .045 7100 ultra, maxed out the heat and it those structural jobs no problem. 1/2" thick wide flange beams to 3/4" baseplates. Got the XMT's after that job, way more portable to do field work, as well as more precise on the settings. Bought that machine new in 1987, now it lives with esab coreshield 15 in it.
 
IMHO thats a really bad idea, that machine breaks and your not welding any more, sure if your tight on space and need to take the one and only machine to site they have there place, but its far nicer having a few separate plants than just the one

yup, try throwing that Deltaweld 452 on the truck, then carry it up some stairs.. XMT, not such a bad idea!:)
 








 
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