calculate wire consumption

Normally wire-feed-speed is something you MEASURE, not calculate.

Expensive MIG (GMAW) sets have a "soft-start" where the wire feeds forward slowly until the arc strikes - which makes measurement difficult. If you have these cost scales though, you could have a tachometer, which runs a small wheel on the wire for the sole purpose of measuring how fast the wire is moving past it (the tachometer).

For all normal MIG/GMAW sets where the wire-feed motor spins at a constant rate from the moment you squeeze the trigger:

Eject a short length of wire from the torch by squeezing the trigger for a short time Sweep your hand in front of the torch and put a right-angle bend in the wire. Looking at a clock with a seconds-hand, hold the torch-trigger on for a chosen time like 6seconds. Put another right-angle kink in the wire at the nozzle. Eject the wire a bit more by squeezing the trigger again. Measure the distance between the two right-angle kinks. Then do your maths. You've got wire fed in time taken. You can quickly get WFS in wire fed per unit time.

Looked at your question again. Answered the wrong question.

You don't use software to calculate what you want. It's easy to do on-paper.

wire-cross-sectional-area x wire-feed-speed = weld-bead-length x weld-bead-cross-sectional-area

So that's volume of wire fed = volume of fillet / weld-bead produced.

OK, there's some metal loss to spatter. Knowing how much that is is useful information you need to discover.

For a wire, CSA_wire = Pi dia^2 / 4 (or Pi r^2 if you want)

In the easier case of a fillet which is triangular to a good approximation

CSA_fillet = leg-length^2 / 2

(you've got LL in one direction, LL in right-angle direction, but the area you sweep between the two axes is only half that because the triangular shape of tthe fillet fills only half that area swept)

For a given fillet size, there is a constant ratio between WFS and weld travel speed. If you increase the WFS by x%, you increase the travel speed by x%.

Richard S

replying to Richard Smith, bjr1985 wrote: wwwmigmeter.com can measure wire as you consume it.

I looked up migmeter.com

That is good for costing the work done. It's the "grand sum".

The instantaneous rate of wire feed dictates the current which will be drawn from the welding machine. It's an almost linear relationship. Form I = k * v_w I = current v_w (velocity subscript w - w signifies "the wire") k is that constant number

Both devices have a wheel which touches the wire being fed and identically spin in relation to the wire feed.

The mechanism is different. "Yours" tallies the grand sum. The one I want says how fast that wheel is going round - converted to an inches-per-minute / metres-per-second of wire fed.

Best wishes Rich S