This Christmas a guy I work with ( and have somewhat infected with the metal disease ) recieved a 220 V, Pit Bull brand Mig welder. His parents bought it for him, and since it has been sitting in the showroom long enough for the operators manual to disapear, they got a "good deal" on it. He went to WalMart and bought a spool of flux core wire,(about .03 size he thinks ) and brought it over to my house to play one Saturday. I do my welding with an old AC stick machine, but had played with a mig some in a couple welding classes, and was remembering how easy they were to use and get a very smooth bead. I couldn't get a decent bead to save my life ! I tried every wire speed and amp setting but kept getting little puddles, not the continuous arc I remembered. It looked like the wire was hitting the metal, starting the arc, then a short section of the wire would get red and melt off, breaking the arc until the wire fed out to start the arc again. Are we using too small a wire, too slow a wire speed, too high an amperage setting, all the above, or are we just too stupid to use a mig ?
( I actually got out my stick machine to prove I really could stick two pieces of metal together neatly ) I looked on the web for an operators manual, and while I found another welder for sale I couldn't find any information on this particular mig. Any thoughts, opinions, or solutions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Ray