| Use a 0.030" wire. Definately go with real MIG, not fluxcore. 25/75 CO2/Ar gas. The power setting is rather easily determined by the thickness of the material you are welding. You can find this information very easily, and in a lot of cases, the welder's manual will usually tell you what power setting to use for a particular material thickness. Go with these recommended settings to start with until you get the technique nailed down. Wire speed is not a straight-forward "look it up" parameter. Too fast and the gun will propel backwards as the wire bottoms out in the weld pool. Too slow and your wire will melt back into a ball and not deposit into the bead in a fluid manner. You want the speed in between these two extremes and there is a good bit of fudge room. The last and most important is your motion. There are a few different patterns you can use. You can simply feed at a continuous speed, you can use a 2-step forward, one step back, 2 step forward, and so on. You can also use a horse-shoe pattern where you lay the weld down like writing a bunch of letter "U"s in a vertical cursive, if you will. You can also do loops in sequence. Each motion produces a different appearance and penetrates in different ways. The main key to the motion is correct pattern speed and consistency. Trying to learn how to weld for just one specific application is likely going to result in quality you wont want to show and tell. It will take time and practice to learn the machine, learn the material, and refine your motion. I am sure you can find many helpful websites that have videos and text on MIG welding. They will show you what the effects are of incorrect power, speed, or motion as well as show you what the whole process looks like. It will vastly help you compared to what this forum can offer. Back in December I purchased a Miller Syncrowave 250 TIG setup. I've been MIG welding since around 2003. Point and shoot is one thing, TIG welding is a completely different animal. When I got it, I set it up and started trying to lay those little dimes - it didn't go very well at all. :) I spent that evening googling for info on the TIG process and found many helpful websites specifically put up to cater to what I was looking for. I spent about 6 hours that evening immersed in the web and the next day came in, setup the machine properly, and within a few days I was laying those dimes - built 10 sets of intercoolers for SpecialtyZ the following week - all welded in-house. But those videos and text I found on those websites were a tremendous help - I am sure you will find them the same as well. But, start with thicker material - the thickest your welder can do. Then you can work down to thinner material. Starting thin is going to be a big challenge for a beginner. You'll blow through the metal very easily and it will make things difficult for you to get your technique down. Good luck!
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