Wire Feeder

[Doddy]

I'll be genuinely interested to follow your experience with this.

My attempts at TIG glueing is generally (a bit like my attempts at Thai cookery), a blind panic of trying to control 4 contradictory things at a time due to lack of preparedness and an absence of my skill (also, having a 140A arc 6 inches from my face....). Throwing an autofeed into that feels like adding a 5th random element into the mix, but if you claim it helps then I might thinking about having a pop at this myself. The cynic in me still questions whether this would have not already been invented if the need is there, but I'm sufficiently ambiguous with metal-glueing to sit on the fence with this one.

I'll break out the popcorn on this thread. Good luck :)

[cropwell]

Ackcherly Doddy,

My motivation was to avoid buying filler rods, when I have all the MIG wire I need.

These feeders are available commercially, but they are silly money and I had the time to make one whilst I am bored out of my brain being not able to do much more than lie in bed or sit in a chair, dosed to the tits with painkillers.

If the thing works, then I will be revising the design of the case to incorporate the drill and file mods I made to this one, then I might publish it as an 'Instructable'. There is plenty of rubbish published there already.

I am just keen to get back into the workshop.

[mekanik]

not to sure about this one, so never made a comment earlier. I cant see how its going to be better than manualy feeding the rod. In a MIG set the current is comming down the wire and flashes off to droplets of material. also i do believe the power supply is different(could be wrong here).
Doddy its easy enough on my setup and i am no expert but first off every thing has to be spotlestly clean, once you have the Amps dialed in you get your pool and dip the rod into your Argon shield to heat the wire and then as you move nearer to the arc touch it on your work piece
Ther are some goods videos on youtube .
Regards
Mike

[Muzzer]

.....i do believe the power supply is different(could be wrong here).

Yes, TIG and stick sources are generally constant current (CC), whereas MIG / MAG is constant voltage (CV). Your plan may work to some extent but I expect you may struggle to maintain a stable arc. MIG / MAG welders are pretty cheap, so you may be better just buying a pukka machine for that. A logical next step for your TIG equipment might be an AC source so that you can weld aluminium.