Rollers, they may all look the same but it’s the little details that matter the most.
Rollers are the round wheels, that grab hold and push your wire down the liner to your handpiece. They are usually made out of hardened steel. You will find the rollers in your drive mechanism just before the the wire disappears down the liner. At first glance they all might look the same but there is some small differences that can make all the difference to how your welder performs.
Rollers are a part of the welder that should be checked every time you change wire size or wire type.
There are 3 basic types:
- V groove
- U groove
- Knurled or serrated
V groove rollers are commonly used with solid wires, they are the standard welding wires that you would use with shielding gas.They are called v groove because of their shape.
U groove rollers are used for softer wires like aluminium where it is important for the rollers not to distort the wire as it is gripped and pushed through the rollers
Knurled rollers are used for hollow or gasless wires, using knurled rollers can decrease the life of your liners. When the wire is driven through the roller it will leave a small serration on the wire and parts of this may dislodge when it is travelling up the liner to the handpiece.
Roller size:
Wire comes in all sizes so it makes sense for the rollers to come in all sizes too. The wire size is usually stamped on the rollers side. Most rollers have 2 different sizes on them per side.(WHY?) Eg, 0.6mm and 0.8mm. You can usually just take them off, turn them over and put them back on to use the other size wire. (insert image)
It is possible to use the same driver rollers for everything, however you will find you will not achieve best performance and will more than likely suffer birdnesting liner problems. (insert link). You may have to increase the pressure on your drive rollers to a point where you can cause damage to the top roller and become a bigger issue than it need to be.
The above rollers are only recommendations for general use. You may need a completely different set if you start to specialty wires like hardfacing wires etc.