Feed rollers / drive rollers
Feed rollers or drive rollers are used to feed the wire mechanically along the length of the welding gun. So when you pull the trigger on the mig welding gun and feed rollers become energized and start rolling forward. These are what control your welding wire feed speed. If they spin faster the wire will feed faster if they spin slower wire will feed slower. There will be an adjustment knob on the front of the welding machines for this control.
Feed rollers are designed to be used for certain types of welding wire. Your normal mild steel solid wire needs to be used with a V groove roller. Aluminium wire needs to be used with U-shaped rollers. This is because the U-shaped roller offers more surface area grip and traction to help feed the softer wire. Flux cored welding wires also should use a U-shaped feed roller. But most people seem to use a knurled feed roller for your gasless and flux cored wires. If you use a knurled wire feed roller on flux cored wire it will slowly over time bit by bit eat away at the surface of the welding wire, and these small pieces will eventually go down into the liner. This will cause added friction and could lead to welding wire feed problems.
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