kidharris
Senior Member
Got my welder up and running yesterday. Picked up this Hobart Handler 140 on Craigslist a year ago and haven't touched it since.
Rookie mistake....
I took out the old spool of flux core. Replaced the tip and nozzle shield. Put in a new 10 lb spool of .023 solid wire. Attached the regulator to a new bottle of 25/75 gas.
My welding 'training' goes back 30-ish years to stick classes, and back then I could run an acceptable, but hardly certifiable, bead. With this machine, I struggled to do anything that looked good. Crappy beads, no penetration. Played around with all the settings, nothing really worked well. Very frustrating.
As I was hanging up the gun and calling it a night I remembered something from a YouTube video I watched....
In changing the wire from flux core to solid, I totally forgot to change the polarity. Duh.
I spent two hours and a lot of gas creating crappy welds. After swapping leads, I spent 5 minutes with the correct polarity making welds that at least are starting to look like welds. Another hour of practice and I'll be feeling ready....
lol, I can relate