Chris Busch's MIG wire question

[cbusch]

I stopped by a store and bought some more mig wire. Its weldit wire from Hobart Welders. On the .024 inch wire (as well as others) I noticed that there was a 5 digit Heat number. The spool I had before had 70411 on it. Other numbers I remember seeing were something like 77000, 22000 and 80000 (I don't remember the 000 digits). What do those Heat numbers mean? I can't find literature on it.

On the most recent spool of .024 wire, it seemed to weld better than the previous .024 wire. But I don't know if it was the metal I was welding and I don't have the previous plastic spool to see if it has a different Heat#.

Any ideas?

 

[sblunier]

Chris,

More than likely your old spool was getting some ozidation on the wire and messing up your welder's performance...then new/bright/shiny wire probably restored the "correct" performance.

Heat number is just the lot of steel it was drawn from and is a means of tracking steel quality for QC purposes.