Good morning, I have been a voyeur on RME for some time but this thread has prompted me to sign on and ask a few questions. We purchased a 110 mig welder a couple of years ago purely for hobby use (two Samurai,s) and because I had always wanted one. We have used it occasionally and the biggest problem(other than the fact that I had never welded before) seemed to be splatter (my welds looked like little beads piled on more beads). I had thought I needed to get the gas to make things better, but the responses by Supergper, Jeremy, Shoesmith and others on flux core wire may be the answer(I believe my rig came with solid core wire). I also appreciate the insights on good and bad brands of wire. A mention was made that wire will oxidize and go bad. Is this noticable or do you not know until you are working with it?
Does the wire have a "born on" date? If we don't weld much, would it be safer to stay with the smaller rolls?
Supergper talked about the amp's going to the welder. My garage circuit is 20 amp (40 years old). Is it possible to slip in a 30 or 40 amp breaker in the box? Would this help? would this be a problem for anything else pluged into this circuit (lights, garage door opener, etc)? Also, Supergper touched on power settings in relation to the amps available, a little more info on this might be helpful.
Again, I think this thread has excellent info and appreciate those that have the knowlege sharing with those of us who are still learning.
