Tech Tips: Self-Shielded Flux Cored Arc Welding (FCAW-S) Troubleshooting 

+Sideslip Very good info, thanks for the input.

I see the light but can't see the puddle. It's like welding looking at a flash light. How do you get past the light to see the puddle?

Barry Wind darken your mask 😉

That was my problem... the mask was too dark. It was so dark I couldn't see the puddle or the metal edge I was trying to weld. I did lighten it and there it was... my first view of a molten puddle. I was afraid to lighten it thinking it would hurt my eyes... but I took a chance. I had it set at 10 which everyone says is the magic number, but not for my helmet.

Barry Wind I stick and mig with my hood set on 9 (Lincoln hood)

+killerbanjo Good idea. Thank you. We have added your suggestion to the video title.

+lincolnelectrictv Good stuff, thanks again.

Check your polarity. If not, test drive a Lincoln and see if your problem is just the welder itself.

Your 211 will make a very nice bead using FCMA but polarity needs to be changed on the machine from electrode positive to electrode negative, you will notice the difference in s lot nicer weld with less splatter

Join the club... I'm in the same category!

Barry Wind not saying I'm any better but stay with it! Somewhere around 300$ in gas and about 25 or 30 # of flux core in it seemed like something clicked, just started " feeling" it, and suddenly l sucked a lot less!

for me it was a cheap helmet not letting me see what I was doing. I had the mask on a stick helmet that came with the welder. Once I got a decent view of what I was doing and was able to weld with 2 hands I have really come to enjoy welding and found it a very useful skill.

I tried turning the shade down to 10 like one on youtube suggested and it seemed to help. I'm better but not great. I don't know what I would do without the welder now. It has really opened up ways to fix problems that I couldn't have without it. : )

The words from my mouth. :)

Make sure your workpieces are clean... Grinded..free of oil etc....

Barry Wind I usually dip my feed wire 😏

..self-shielding, wire negative...... gas-shielded flux core,wire positive......

What is innershield NR 211 MP ?

No crap man! All these how to videos show a pro welding in optimal conditions. Anybody with half a brain can pull that off.

Paul M indeed, gravity is not your friend... since you mention it I don't think that I've seen a single vertical or inverted (upside down) weld in any of these videos. I hate overhead welding, the hot stuff always finds a way inside of your leathers...

@@aadoublea - you need to learn how to weld properly under ideal conditions before you can get good results when you're out of position. Must master the basics first.

I googled for a manual for the MightyMIG 100, but there are perhaps multiple models. The manual I saw for the "No Gas" model said to use flux-core wire (no surprise) and that the torch was connected to positive, which would be wrong, and puzzling since this machine can't handle gas. So could be a mistake in the manual, or actually an incorrect design. At any rate, it's simple to check -- just connect a voltmeter (set to say 200V) with meter negative lead to the ground clamp and the meter positive to the welding wire coming out of the torch. If the meter shows a positive voltage -- the torch is positive, and incorrect for flux-core. Most welders have a way to reverse the polarity, as shown in this video. However the MightyMIG doesn't show a way to do that, and would not need to if it was already wired correctly for flux-core. I suppose there's an outside chance that the Sealey flux-core wire TG100/1 is actually supposed to run on electrode positive. The product page is unhelpful: www.sealey.co.uk/PLPageBuilder.asp?id=20&method=mViewProduct&productid=8473

Thanks for your interest. As of now, we don't have a c300 video on the horizon but we will add it to the list.

+Tallon Conwell Tallon, we will do our best to get something for you.

It's probably common to have two or three things wrong at once! Might make for a long video if you tried to work all the changes! (say, wire speed LOW, and travel HIGH, then wire speed HIGH and travel LOW). That's a great suggestion, but it might take a series of videos to implement. Ah, sometimes people who weld for a living are not good at diagnosing things and changing the setup, I think in factories there's someone who sets everything up for everyone? I have got paid a few times to just look over something and see why it isn't working, or maybe even talk about it on the phone! You wouldn't believe it, but people do things like getting the wrong gas bottle, and everything goes to hell and they just can't imagine WHY. I know people right now who "welded" for years with the wrong polarity, and it was nothing BUT spatter and slag! You could pull welded steel stuff apart with your hands! SO, common scenario: Wrong polarity, way high travel speed, AND many starts and stops, so that a lot of "weld" is trying to deposit on to SLAG! (Engineering students are doing this) I sometimes pull off an allegedly welded thing with my hand, and yell "Either I'm SUPERMAN, or something is WRONG HERE!". I'm not actually any good at welding, but I can watch RU-vid videos, read old books and yell. It's something!

+Bettina Stepek maybe the machine fan

+Richard Burdyn Thanks for the question. Sorry for the delay. On heavier material when you are needing a slightly larger weld than you can get with a straight line drag, a weave is fine to do. Some codes do have requirements on weaving and weld sizes made in a single pass so be carefull. Whether you use a C or zig-zag pattern is up to you just be sure you are never pushing the puddle. You risk trapping slag if you do that. Always use a drag technique.

Good luck, that thing uses AC so all the welds look terrible.

depending what you're welding, I would set the welder up in the lowest setting. you don't want to burn through your material. if the weld is cold, either make another pass, on low setting, or go to the high setting.

+Kilian John My thought exactly!!! I took welders training over 30 years ago, and THEY HAD VIDEO WITH A FILTER THAT ALLOWED YOU TO SEE THE WELDING PROCESS!!! Without it, this is far less useful, and A WASTE OF TIME to watch the actual welding - you might have well just cut immediately to the result, since watching a bright arc for any time at all serves no purpose!!! Pretty sad for a company like Lincoln, you'd think they'd know better.

+Russell Russell Thanks for your feedback. Other than the lack of puddle video, what other suggestions do you have for an informative video? Most other comments suggest that this video was quite helpful but we'd like to get better. Your suggestions will be welcomed and appreciated.

I concur with what he said. I took training with the military and their videos SHOW exactly what is happening in the puddle, after all THAT is what is important from a visual aid. I don't care how much others find this helpful, if you aren't going to be able to actually see what's happening then you might as well leave out simply watching a bright light, it's just not useful. That you don't know this is rather strange in my opinion.

@@lincolnelectrictv I think this was good, and covered a lot of ground. I've watched it several times when I need a review. I would have liked better "Arc Shots", but realize this is not easy. I was glad to find you're using the popular wire I just bought, more or less guessing. It was very good to have one at the end that put everything together.

@@russellrussell3190 I don't think that's entirely true, because we're talking about gross faults, where the sound and light changes in a big way. Sometimes you can hear someone making a mess of this from across the room. So this is good information too. I would sure like to see "helmet cam" footage with it too.

Move your hand in small oscilation. Back and forth. See ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-FEJDqJrZyOQ.html

...yeah, that's the kind of stuff you find on off-shore oil rigs....

I was an offshore welder and never heard of that.

@Frank deluca true.

Animal Rammer usually its on .045. but it just depends on your job honestly

We will do our best. Its hard getting the camera that close to flux cored because of the spatter.

Nathaniel Stone I agree....

because putting the "glass" from a welding hood in front of a camera is real hard

Well, I'm a pro videographer. Most of us use a zoom lens on our cameras. . We're about 4 to 6 feet away. Plenty away from the action. After the wide shot we stop the camera and cut to the CU (Close Up) of the weld. We have several neutral density filters and can stop down to F16 to see the bead without blowing out the whites. Easy, really.

Thanks for your input. I agree, very easy. Unfortunately we are using DSLR lenses. I have a 100mm Macro, but again, we need to be fairly close to get the shot we want. I would love to have a chat about how you produce welding videos. I looked on your channel and didn't see anything. If you want to reach out and exchange ideas please email me ay videos@lincolnelectric.com

I think brazing is what you need here.

My first suggestion would be to try the Welding Parameters App we have in the AppStore & Google/Android Store. If that doesn't help We can get you in touch with the right people.

I can only find the app from ESAB. There's a Lincoln one as well?

Ah, apparently the Lincoln Electric app isn't available in the Canadian store.