Hobart's New Wire, Quantum-Arc, 70S-6
 

Hobart is launching its new wire "Quantum-Arc" I have not go tmy hands on any yet. The will be phasing out their old BR-6 wire. I don't think it is spools yet. I think they were replacing the bulk wire first then spools.

Anybody see it in action yet?

Never even heard about it. I have trouble getting HB-28 now. The new Hobart rep here is supposedly a not very liked individual. Most, read that as almost all, stores have yanked all Hobart wire and rods as a result. :( The others don't want to deal with them either, but they will if you force them. I will ask next time I am in. Too bad, I was wanting to give BR-6 a try.

I have run both BR-6 and HB-28 recently, BR-6 in short circuit welding was not impressive, I have since heard out is was meant for spray, this did not come from Hobart but a knowledgeable source. HB-28 is okay but was not my first choice. I am currently running Thermal Arc's 70S-6 wire and will be trialing some of the National Standard wire when it shows up along with the new Hobart Quantum Arc wire. Still looking for a replacement for my old Indura wire.

Don, sorry to hear about your Hobart rep. problems. Our rep. Jason Rausch is great! He is also my Miller Rep. He is very good, just really overworked!

My Esab runs the Br-6 way way better (great in the short-arc) then HB-28 in .035. Every machine runs wire a little different. The Esab 250 runs
both well in the .035 size. It would not even run the Esab
wire they sent with the machine. It was 70S-7 wire.

Good point, all my oberservations above are with my MM 350P.

All that I have run in my 12 RC has been Indura for solid wire and Fabshield 21B. But run fine there.

Sometimes it is such a big deal in how a machine runs wire, it could change how
I think about a machine. Esab had that wire (7 series) on their show/demo
truck running it on a migmaster. You could not even start the arc without
spatter everywhere,and a bead that laid out like crap. I had the rep find some
rusty -6 wire and it worked pretty well. I don't think anybody in their
right mind would of bought one of those machines. It's just not black and
white on wire or machines. I have a hunch the MM-210 would run .035
BR-6 nice.

So what would shade consider a good wire to run in a MM 251, like he had before he sent it packing?

I'm currently running national's NS-6 and it's not bad, but it's not special either. They're against copper coating wires, so the copper is very thin and corrosion in the box was a problem for the first few wraps. It's producing good welds, and arc starts are just as easy as HB-28, it just looks a bit funny because the welds are darker than other wires I've run, and it does feel different to me.

.035 in a 45# spool for 1.10/lb though. Can't complain too much with that.

Not shade, but I would run Lincoln L-56 in mine. :D

I was actually going to get the L-56 when I picked up the NS-6. They wanted nearly $3/lb for the lincoln, and I think they just wanted to move stock on the National Standard. It's supposedly used a lot in big production. It's virtually unheard of by the little guys. I'll be curious to hear what you think of it, Shade.

All I ever ran in my MM185 was L-56, and in the MM 251 L-56 and Indura. Both ran very well.

When I run wire trials I alwas get a spool of L-56 to use as my standard. The Indura wire and L-56 was almost indistinguishable. And the Indura was $0.30 per pound cheaper.

The L-56 is in the $1.50 a pound range at my distributor these days, the Thermal Arc is right around $0.82, now keep in mind this is 0.045 wire and I buy ~500 pounds at a time.

Never gave much thought to wire until BOC was bough out by Airgas and I had to switch to Radnor, that wire did not excite me.

If you are not a larger user of wire I would suggest Lincoln's L-56, it is pricey buy reliable and good. It comes down to what are you headaches worth. Volume users can run trials and see where there money is best spent. Like Scott said, it depends on the machine...

National STD here was 2.85/lb for a 60# box( 2-30# rolls ). I didn't want to spend that much and also have to get 2 rolls of a wire I wasn't sure about. Stuck with my Pinnacle wire and got it for 1.25/lb. Not bad for .030, IMO. Also found out that it may be made by Harris, which puts it up a notch higher in quality maybe.



Ron, our old rep was a great one. He just lost the battle with old age recently. :( The new one is a piece of work from what I hear. He could care less that only 2 of the stores in San Antonio are keeping ties with Hobart. :confused: All the others are burning bridges...their words. One of those stores won't carry Hobart wire...only rods. :confused: That leaves one store for now that I can get Hobart wire from....and they are tough to get to.

Ouch that hurt just reading that...

Yup, that was what I thought when they told me. That was from Airgas in SA. See why I don't use them much? FWIW, and in all fairness, HB-28 was 2.65/# in .030 from Trigas. Not too much better, but I could at least get one roll. L-56 was about 2.70/#, IIRC. This is one reason I stuck with the Pinnacle wire. The next closest wire was Linc's Super Arc, plain old 70S-6 at 1.45/#.

The worst part of this Hobart dropping deal, IMO, is that all the stores almost are replacing Hobart with Inweld. :eek: :rolleyes:

The National Standard, Standard Arc 6 was crap wire. When I opened the box the wire still has the powdered drawing lubricant still on it. When you welded with it you could see the dust coming of in the plasma of the arc! Poor arc quality. And 10-15% more spatter than with the TA wire, Indura or L-56. Also for "comparison" or so you know how bad you are getting screwed on wire, my pricing for the NS wire was to be $0.92/pound. I ran ~100 parts and switched back to my TA wire.

I played with voltage and inductance and saw little improvement. I was at my distributor today and the Lincoln rep is sending me some of their wire, can't remember exactly what one. I'd give him a razzing but he bought lunch so I'll take it easy on him. :rolleyes:

Also the Quantum Arc is on back order maybe a month before I get that to trial.

The sample showed up yesterday, I should be able to get it tested tomorrow.

Pulse Gmaw vertical up ? :)

Okay not tomorrow but 3 days later. Spent the better part of the weekend mobile welding on an emergency job. Stainless Tig with the Dynasty...

Can't discuss the job but it was for prototype parts for a major automotive manufacturer. It was one of those... "Poor planning on your part does constitute a profitable weekend on my part..." or something like that... ;)

Anyway...

My first impressions. It is a great improvement over the BR-6 and HB-28 wires. I am running it on 14ga. deep drawn part so the wall is not 0.075 but thinner. WFS is 330 ipm of 0.045 wire, 19.3 volts and currently 32 on inductance on my 350P. I am running the ragged edge between short circuit and globular transfer. I have not yet tweaked the voltage and inductance in yet, but I expect it to exceed the Thermal Arc in performance and run close to L-56 and Indura. Spatter is already less than the Thermal Arc wire. :D