A HH180 will spray! (sorta, and don't get your hopes up)

[BillDaCatt]

I hadn't welded for a while so I decided to play around some. Tried out my new TA185 with stick. Very nice arc! The smoke and slag reminded me why I don't care for SMAW or FCAW, but it was great fun!

After running through about ten sticks with the TA just playing around, it occurred to me. I had never run my HH180 on tap 4 - ever. Just never needed to. So I got to thinking, this thing has a pretty strong arc on low settings, I wonder....if it would.....nawww that wouldn't work...... After all, I had always heard that it could not be done. What the heck, there was .025 solid wire already in it - only one way to find out for sure!

"Let's see if we can spray".

I cranked it up to tap 4 and set the wire speed to 50. It did not take long before I found the sweet spot where it was - different to say the least. Holding the tip at about 45 degrees and the nozzle almost touching the work - it happened. The arc quieted right down and started to resemble plasma. This was too cool! And I was grinning ear to ear.

But, of course, there were signs that something was not right. Every time I got it to work I could feel the gun vibrate a little from the sound of the arc and it sounded just like a "Jacob's Ladder" (think mad scientist lab with an arc rising between two wires). Then there were the little wisps of smoke coming from the gun when I pulled the trigger to feed out a little bit of wire to cut off before the next bead. Then it went straight on to - "So that's why they say it can't be done on a HH180!"

OOPS!
It was fun while it lasted. Melted the tip and the gun was hotter than it had ever been before. New tip installed, still works fine. Now I know what I can and can't (shouldn't) do with a HH180. (savings account started for MM210)





No picks of the welds at the moment, but they look pretty similar to what you might expect for spray transfer.

May not be news to some of you, but it was for me. Plus it was fun!
Dave

[MAC702]

C-25 shielding gas?

[Mike W]

Bill, what gas were you using? I got my Beta-Mig 200 to spray with .035 wire using 95% argon, 5% CO-2. The current was close to 200 amps.

[BillDaCatt]

Yep C-25 gas @ 15psi. It was all I had.
It welded just like normal with a normal stickout, then I moved the nozzle in close to almost touching the piece I was welding. If it wasn't spraying, it was as close as I've ever been to doing it.
Dave

[BillDaCatt]

Here is a pic of some of the test beads I was making. the middle three were just to get the feel of it. The 3rd bead, 2nd from the bottom, was when I found the spot where the arc would change if you got real close. The top and bottom ones were both with the nozzle as close as I could get without touching. They are noticably smother and flatter than the others. I'm sure in a more skilled hand they would have looked even better.

But this was just a test anyway, to "push the envelope" so to speak. I wasn't going for looks at the time.
Dave

[cluna]

That tip is what you see when the WFS is too low. I learned that when trying to learn to Al Mig on a minimig. Once it is dialed in properly, it will work better. IIRC, The first 3 attempts to do Al with a MM135 ended up like that. I then learned I could scratch start it and the tip would melt enough to allow for the wire to move again