Inductor value for a mig welder

You are REALLY wrong about what's happening. It isn't the transformer or the arc characteristic that's giving you crummy-looking welds, it's the fluxcore wire, which is the nature of the beast. Live with it until you can afford a real MIG welder which will let you run a gas shield, then you can easily run gorg-ass beads all day long.

And by the way when you go to sell your HF "MIG" welder, *please* don't ask more than $45 or so, that's all they go for used. They are essentially throwaway units. Think of it like you paid $139 (or whatever) for a lesson in how to not buy a welder, and you got a $45 welder thrown in with the deal.

GWE

I wonder why they call it MIG. MIG stands for Metal Inert Gas. But there is no gas capability in that "MIG".

Good question, ive noticed the cheap migs that also have gas hookup are called Dual Mig mine just says mig & should say AC flux wire welder, without a inductor it acts like AC anyway.

You're right, Igor, but MIG has long since lost its narrow meaning, and now is often generalized to mean anything that includes a wirefeed. If you want narrow meanings then use FCAW (like the HF machine) or SMAW (what you think of as MIG).

GWE

Depending on who "they" are, they don't. It's MAGS unless you're using argon, and only in that case is it MIG.

The others have told you about the real problem but if you want to see if it helps put the inductor into the ouput lead. I assume it will handle the current. Try the welder and see if it is any better. If you want more inductance, try putting a mild steel core into the center of the coil and see it that helps any. If you want more try making a loop of mild steel, however, you will have to leave an air gap or the core will staturate rendering it useless. As for value, don't know, all you have to do is shift the voltage/current phase a few degrees such that the arc and voltage don't go to zero together. If you have long secondary leads there supposedly is enough inductance in them to do the job. You can add the inductor outside the box so it will be easy to fool with. If it really helps then you can worry about putting it inside. billh

thats ALL thats in there?

No caps either and no choke?

Ya know, aren't MIG welders supposed to be CV welders? That means a bank of capacirors, NOT a big inductor. A big inductor makes a CC welder ..

GWE

Robert Ball wrote:

Yep thats all, its a ( Chicigo Easy Mig 100 ) sold by harbor freight and assembled in Italy. It does have two small caps & a resistor feeding the unregulated wire feed motor.

several large electrolytic caps rates at at least 200v should help smooth that out just keep hooking them in parralell

as for those who pointed out that a choke is for CC and caps are for CV essentially half waves leave you welding with AC and even a kick in the nuts would work better than that

BTW instead of getting a Big massive iron cored toroidal inductor the caps are way lighter.

I would however like to say that i agree with whoever said this was an example of what not to buy in a welder. its not a product of appropriate quality and the caps probably saved them 1 or 2 dollars in expense to witre it up

Don't want to get into a semantics argument but welding with half-waves is not welding with AC. The current/voltage may go to zero which isn't ideal but the opposite polarity does not exist. A half or full-wave rectified waveform with the peaks in the positive direction has a positive DC component to it. If it is reversed, then it has a negative component, but not AC. billh

Tend to agree. billh

I have a schematic for a wire feed welder. Unfortunately the copy I have is on A size paper and the original must have been something like a D size. I am pretty sure it is a Hobart drawing. For what it is worth, it shows a capacitor, 50,000 mfd 30 volts and an inductor L1 which is just described as " reactor filter ". So I am no help on the size, but can say that there is an inductor.

Dan

Point taken it is still DC but it is not the Constand Voltage power supply that the mig family (GMAW and FCAW) are supposed to use.

You agree with the overall message though?

Yes, I agree and am somewhat amazed that a box with so little in it functions as a CV supply at all. I don't really know all that much about MIG but I was under the impression that the wire feed rate determined the voltage across the arc. It is hard to see how this could be reasonable well maintained with a supply that is so crude although the rather rapid 60hz (or is it 120hz) pulses from the supply probably wouldn't be seen given the relatively slow burning of the wire. The box is operating on the unregulated average dc voltage. Capacitors certainly would be a good place to start and I imagine they are quite large in value. Whether or not they have a large beneficial effect might be questionable given the crudeness of the rest of the system. billh

i'd like to see what the bead would look like compared to a less cheap machine for the same setings angle and travel speed

I bet the bead produced wouldnt be considered acceptable to many