Here's a welding tip that I learned last night. After struggling and struggling getting the flow/arc correct and having to redo everything twice, I smacked the tip of the gun on the ground in frustration. (OK, I'm not real mature) This bent the copper tip and I had to replace it. No biggie, I have a box of tips.
When I put the new tip in place, I noticed how much longer it was. And in much better shape. How long have I been using the old tip anyway? Welding immediately went back to the way it should be and all my settings made sense again and my irregular feed issues went away. DOH!
So the tip is, replace your tip!
?
http://www.bernardwelds.com/articles/article14.htm
http://www.weldingtipsandtricks.com/mig-welding-tips-articles.html
Hmmm..
A wear item that is often overlooked...
Yes it is overlooked quite often. People usually clean the spatter off, but the tip over time wears down. The contact tip is usually a good thing to replace as well.
My old boss has a cheap Chicago Electric welder, he made many poor welds until I came in and replaced all the wear items. Then it welded like any other major brand welder. 
How many of us are guilty of doing all of the maintenance we ought to do on our cars while neglecting the maintenance we should do on our tools?
I've been guilty of this myself.
they don't call 'em consumables fur nuttin.
Hey great links BTW. Mine looks like this, so there I think the protrusion is supposed to be there. As it wears near the plastic collar, performance degrades markedly.
cwh
PowerDork
10/4/12 9:36 a.m.
I don't think I have ever seen a tip that looks like that.
cwh wrote:
I don't think I have ever seen a tip that looks like that.
+1. You should have a copper cone/tip, and your tip shouldn't be protruding anywhere near as far as it is.
This looks similar, Lincoln PowerMIG 180. The setup should look like this:
I guess it would work fine without the copper cone if he's welding with flux core. The copper cone is to keep the welding gas near the weld pool when welding with gas.
With fluxcore the cone only really serves as an anti short shield for really cheap hot tip machines. I take it off all the time for really tight spots, works great.
