1/8 stick vs .30 wire

[metalbender]

I just bought a mig welder and I am happy to try something different after many years as a stick welder. Question is, 1 rod, 1/8 will weld about 10" of mild steel with a bead 3/8 th wide, at 120 amps. How much wire will it take to make the same width bead, 10" long. My uneducated guess would be about 5'. I know this probably does not matter. Just guess I was wondering how much I can weld with a 10# roll of flux wire in a spool gun.
Kind of off the wall question

[Rocky D]

What you're asking for is a comparison of deposition rates, 1/8" rod to (not.30) .030" wire. You need to know things lie, wire feed speed and IPM of the wire. I think there are calculators online that do this...dunno where to find them, tho.

[hankj]

I just bought a mig welder and I am happy to try something different after many years as a stick welder. Question is, 1 rod, 1/8 will weld about 10" of mild steel with a bead 3/8 th wide, at 120 amps. How much wire will it take to make the same width bead, 10" long. My uneducated guess would be about 5'. I know this probably does not matter. Just guess I was wondering how much I can weld with a 10# roll of flux wire in a spool gun.
Kind of off the wall question

I've never seen a spoolgun that held anything larger than a 2# spool, and I know for sure that I never want to use one with a 10# spool in it!

There's really no way to compare the number of feet of flux-core wire to the number of 1/8" stick rods you'd need for any specific bead profile.

There's no stub waste with wire feed, so the last 2" of the stick that you have to pitch, as well as the time it takes to clamp a new stick in ther stinger, needs to be considered. In any case, 2# of FCAW wire will run a lot of bead. You'll se the correlation as you burn some wire. Deposition rates are higher with wire feed.

Hank

[littleton_mike]

I'm guessing that the answer to your question is that 10# wire lasts about as long as 10# of sticks. But that's just a guess...

[DaveK]

I'm guessing that the answer to your question is that 10# wire lasts about as long as 10# of sticks. But that's just a guess...

I would guess that it's more like 10# of wire to 15# of rod, but that's just a guess, too.

[Rocky D]

I would guess that it's more like 10# of wire to 15# of rod, but that's just a guess, too.

Prolly even more, when you add the ones that stick ,and the flux breaks off, and the ones that land in the mud, and so on. :eek: :D

[DrIQ]

To do an accurate comparison you need to look at deposition efficiency.

Stick welding is at best 50% so if you burn each electrode down to a 2" stub you would get 5 lbs. of deposited weld metal out of 10 lbs. of electrodes.

Flux cored wires are around 80% so you could expect 8 lbs of deposited weld metal out of a 10 lb spool of wire

[J Hall]

Stick welding is at best 50% so if you burn each electrode down to a 2" stub you would get 5 lbs. of deposited weld metal out of 10 lbs. of electrodes.



50% ? Where did you come up with this?

FWIW, ESAB says for 1/8 7018 at 120 amps gives a deposition rate of 2.6 lbs/hr 71.6% efficiency. This seems high to me, but 50% is pretty low.

You will also find that 80% is high for fluxcore wire.


Have a great day!

[usmcpop]

In terms of sheer metal, the 1/8" is about 17 times the area of .030 wire. So burning 10 inches of a 1/8" rod should be close to 15 feet of .030 wire.

[whateg0]

In terms of sheer metal, the 1/8" is about 17 times the area of .030 wire. So burning 10 inches of a 1/8" rod should be close to 15 feet of .030 wire.

Okay, you lost me there.:confused:

Dave

[usmcpop]

I simply computed the volume of a 1/8" diameter x 10 inch long cylinder and compared that to a .030" diameter cylinder. The larger cylinder contains 17.36 times the cross-sectional area of the smaller, so the smaller wire needs to be 17.36 times as long to be the same volume, or about 14 1/2 feet.

Quicker way is to figure that .125" is about 4 times .030" and since the area varies with the square, it puts the ratio somewhere above 16:1.

[TEK]

pops, that may work for rod and solid wire but how would it hold for the cursing crow?;)

[whateg0]

Okay, Pop, I misread your earlier post. I read 10 inches as 10 feet. It's close, right?:o

Dave

[J Hall]

One needs to remember when comparing cross sections, that the wire has flux in it.

now to make a comparison,
1/8 7018 @120amps deposition rate 2.6lbs per hour
.035 fluxcore wire @ 120 amps deposition rate 1.2 lbs per hour
But, at 200 amps .035 wire will dep 4.5 lbs/ hr

[usmcpop]

Sorry, overlooked the fluxcore bit. So perhaps 20 feet of wire.

[DrIQ]

J - sorry, I missed it by 4% instead of 50 it is 54% should have checked instead of going from memory

I was comparing the self shielded wire to the cellulose based coatings
of the 6010/6011 electrodes. The 7018 which is an iron powder based coating would be best compaired to the gas shielded flux cored wires.

The efficiency you gave for the Esab 7018 and those listed for the other
brands out there are in the 73% range, however I find it interesting that
the 3/32 and 5/32 diameters are 10+ percentage points lower. In all the
filler metal evaluations I did in my past the larger electrodes usually gave a slight increase in deposition efficiency. You will also note that they list the data as Typical data at OPTIMUM. The fact is the uncontrollable loss for spatter, coating loss, and 2" rod stub loss is 30% with a 14" 3/16" 7018 electrode. The average shop runs between 40 - 50 % efficiency due to the long stubs, bent, or chipped flux rods that you typically see in the stub bucket.

The following data is from Hobart filler metal spec sheets

1/8" E6010, DCEP, 110 Amps, 26-27 Volts, 1.60 lbs/hr, 54% Efficiency

.035" E70T-11, DCEN, 120 Amps, 20 Volts, WFS 160 IPM, 2.54 lbs/hr, 75% Eff.
.030" E70T-GS, DCEN, 125 Amps, 16 Volts, WFS 225 IPM, 3.80 lbs/hr, 80% Eff.

* I have used the 80% number for many years and since the data was
not listed I gave them a call and was told that it runs between 75-80% depending on the AWS filler metal classification. I should have the actual data for the wires listed above tomorrow.
(updated 4/1)

1/8" 6010 or 6011 = 17 electrodes per pound
1/8" 7018 = 14 electrodes per pound

.035 self shielding wire = 4,350 inches or 362.5 feet per pound
.030 self shielding wire = ??

[J Hall]

the cursing crow?;)
So it really did take this long for me to get it:o

Dr IQ,
Thanks for the clarification!

[DrIQ]

I posted the updated efficiency data I got this morning in my original data post.
The gentleman I talked to said the 80% was conservative on the GS wire.