Mig Gas vs. Gasless wire speed

I own a lincoln weld pak 155 and have been using it moslty with flux
core wire and no gas. I have become pretty good at making nice looking
welds, and selecting the proper current and wire speeds for different
thickness of materials.

I also have a CO2/Argon bottle and occasionally will weld with the gas.
My welds don't come out as nice when I use the gas but I think it is
because of lack of experience.

One question I had was when welding lets say 1/8" material, when I am
using gasless, I set the current setting to C, (range of A-E) and the
wire speed to 2.5 (range 1 - 10). This make perfect welds and I can
really controlt he weld puddle.

When I use gas for the 1/8" material it recommends using E at a speed
of 10. Not sure why it needs the wire to feed so fast. I find that at
these settings, my welds are pretty fat, and have a lot of material on
the metal I am welding. I can not seem to control the puddle very
well, and I have to move very fast. I tried lowering the wire speed,
but it didn't sound right when welding. It really needs that fast wire
speed.

Also, I noticed with the gas welding at those settings, I produce a lot
more splatter, and really large splatter balls that are very difficult
to remove. I pretty much have to grind them off. With the gasless
welding, the splatter is less, and easier to remove. I think it is
because I am using a wire speed of 2.5 with gasless and 10 with the
gas.

I have read a bunch of threads talking about gas vs. gasless, and
everyone seems to think that gas welding is cheaper. Well if I am
welding 1/16 to 1/8" material, I am using up my solid wire 4 times
faster than my flux core wire. And I know solid wire is not 4 times
less expensive.

Is their anything different I can try to get a little more control, and
less material desposited onto my welds using gas? And is their
anything I can do to minimize the splatter?

Thansk.

.

Relevant Pages

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