Last on Hobart Stickmate

[Whiteyweld]

Since I have made things confusing to others I am sorry. I will make this my last post on this welder. Yes I bought it already damaged at a reduced price. I just bought the Hobart Stickmate 205 as you that follow my post already know. I fired it up last night and started a bead just to see and it worked perfectly.
Today I get in from the shop and I get the Hobart back out and going to run some beads to test it. I ran into a problem. Here it is: Along the line as I run the bead the arc would just die on me. I would restrike and move along until it happened again. It had a good buzzing sound, then the sound got loose and sloppy throwing a liittle slag and the arc would go out again. I was using 6011 rods and had the heat set on 75.
I then switched over to the 7018 rod with heat set on 105 and had the same problem using this rod also. Can anyone tell me what to do to eliminate this? By the way, my ground clamp was not completely tightened down. I just finger tightened it to get it on out there and weld. I had the clamp hooked directly to the piece I was welding Could that clamp being loose although the screws are touching that attaches it cause the weld to behave this way? Im open for advice please.
Whiteyweld

[tigster]

tighten the ground clamp. any time there is a CHANCE of a bad electrical connection, it can only cause problems, and only takes less than a minute to tighten and try again.

[Blacksmith]

I've said before, you're welding with essentially a high resistance arc and you need a complete circuit. Any secondary resistance, like a loose work clamp will steal power from the arc. Also, a loose connection may heat up and change resistance while welding, causing the problem you're seeing.