Well, my grandpa bought me a welder for the past few repairs I've done on his vehicle to complete an exhaust setup he needs to to do. I picked up a $110.00 Flux Core 110 Mig welder, helmet, etc.

I'm fairly skilled with the Millermatic Gas wire feed welders we have at my school and can lay a very very good bead down. I understand the flux core is basically a glorified ARC welding, just with a metal cable coming out of the gun rather than a rod. But what are some good forms to use with this specific welder? I feel like my welds aren't looking to sharp, but at the same time I don't know what sort of welds this machine can produce under perfect circumstances.

Any input on Flux Core stuff? All of the welds shown were half-moons with the wire speed at 6 and the machine on the "low" setting powered with a 20amp wall socket. I feel like an idiot welding with this machine because the welds turn out like absolute junk. Maybe its just something that comes with the whole Flux Core thing, or perhaps its just the quality of the welder I bought.

Here was four welds I tried on a piece of thin wall 2.5" piping. I labelled where I was pushing and dragging.



And here is where I welded said pipe onto a scrap piece of metal attempting to do a radius.

 

with flux core the farther stick out you have from the tip the (colder the weld is) lower amps being used, like wise closer is "hotter"/ more amps. get "close" to what will run for you amd play with how far your stick out is from the tip. the pipe "looks" close but has alot of under cut leading me to think bad angle, but also has heat and wire speed issues within. set back up and play with stick out. lastly flux core likes to be "pushed" when you drag or have puddle behind tip it blows slag and other **** back into weld makin a nasty weld

 

Have you tried to revers the polarity (+/- to -/+) on the welder?
here I Norway we have to types of flux wire. Grey/metal color outside and Copper color outside of the wire. they use different polarity.

When you find out that works, the welds will look a lot nicer

 

Inner shield flux core runs on dcen with no shielding gas and handles like 6010. Outer shield and dual shield runs dcep, using 75/25 argon/co2 gas, and handles like 7018.