MIG settings

by Steve
(Indiana)

I'm somewhat new to MIG welding and I'm concerned about my settings. Most of what I weld is 1/4" mild steel but involves flat, overhead, vertical down, pipe, and multi pass. Its a production shop so speed is critical and my welds have to be water tight. My question is how should I set up my welder for the different welds. This may sound like a stupid question to some but my problem isn't making good looking welds and having them be water tight, its whether or not they're good enough to certify. I understand that with MIG a weld can look good and be horribly weak which is what I'm trying to avoid. A lot of guys I work with leave their settings the same for everything and that just doesn't seem right to me. So any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

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Steve,

You may be able to use the same settings as long as they are good.
I assume its short circuit mig with 75/25 ar/co2 and .035 wire.
if so , you should be in the 19-20 volt range with 230-300 ipm wire as a ball park place to start and then tweak from there.

The main thing is to keep the arc at the leading edge of the puddle .

Are you rolling the pipe? and what is the bevel and typical fit?

thanks,
Jody