A welding or additive manufacturing wire drive system includes a first drive roll having a first annular groove, a second drive roll having a second annular groove, a first welding wire located between the drive rolls in the annular grooves, and a second welding wire located between the drive rolls in the annular grooves. A biasing member biases the first drive roll toward the second drive roll to force the first welding wire to contact the second welding wire. The first welding wire contacts each of a first sidewall portion of the first annular groove, a first sidewall portion of the second annular groove, and the second welding wire. The second welding wire contacts each of a second sidewall portion of the first annular groove, a second sidewall portion of the second annular groove, and the first welding wire. The drive rolls rotate in opposite directions thereby moving the welding wires through the wire drive system.

Disclosed is a system for feeding welding wire for welding-type applications. The system includes a welding wire feeder and a separate wire source including a wire source housing. The wire source is connectable to and disconnectable from the wire feeder.

An arc welding system of a consumable electrode type comprises: a wire feeding device that feeds welding wire from a wire feeding source to a welding torch; and a power supply device that supplies electric power between the welding wire fed to the welding torch and a base material, the system being configured to weld the base material by arc generated by the supplied electric power. The wire feeding device is provided with: an intermediate wire feeding source that is disposed between the wire feeding source and the welding torch and is configured to temporarily accommodate the welding wire fed from the wire feeding source and to feed the accommodated welding wire to the welding torch; a pull-out feeding part that feeds the welding wire at the wire feeding source to the intermediate wire feeding source; and a push-out feeding part that feeds the welding wire accommodated in the intermediate wire feeding source to the welding torch.

A spool gun having a very unique look, due to its arrangement of internal and external features. The spool gun has its wire spool compartment located below the handle and the user's hand, when the user is gripping the spool gun in an operational position, thus providing a wire path through the handle to the body of the spool gear wherein the wire feed mechanism is located. The wire feed mechanism includes a 90-degree drive system, which can include a worm gear. A gas/power cable is connected to the body of the spool gun forward of the handle.

A welding system configured to eliminate effects of arc blow in a welding operation. The welding system comprises welding circuitry, preheat circuitry, a drive roller, and control circuitry configured to perform a reciprocation cycle. The reciprocation cycle may include the steps of: advancing a filler material toward the welding work piece until the filler material is electrically connected to the weld pool; supplying the preheat power to heat the filler material while the filler material is electrically connected to the weld pool; retracting the filler material away from the welding work piece until the filler material is not electrically connected to the weld pool; and terminating supply of the preheat power to the filler material while the filler material is not electrically connected to the weld pool.

A wire feeding system includes a first feeder provided with a first feeding motor that feeds a wire in a wire feeding direction, a second feeder spaced apart from the first feeder in the wire feeding direction and provided with a second feeding motor that feeds the wire in the wire feeding direction, and a controller that controls the rotation speed of the first feeding motor based on a first speed command and controls the rotation speed of the second feeding motor based on a second speed command. The controller gradually changes the second speed command over time when an amount of change of the second speed command is not within a predetermined range.

Disclosed are systems and methods for feeding welding wire for welding-type applications. The wire-feeder system comprises a base platform, a spool hub, a drive roll assembly, and a wire guide assembly. The spool hub can be mounted to the base platform perpendicular to the base platform and configured to support a wire spool. The drive roll assembly can be mounted to the base platform, and having one or more sets of drive rollers configured to feed wire from the wire spool toward a welding torch. The wire guide assembly can be mounted to the base platform separately from both the wire spool and the drive roll assembly.

A welding setup includes an adjustable material feed system for a consumable welding wire. Speed sensors measure the speed of the wire progressing through the material feed system. A control module controls the material feed system to draw the wire into the material feed system and progress the wire to a working end of the welding setup. Speed data is sampled from the speed sensor during diagnostic duration and wire slip may be determined from the speed data and a reference speed.

A method of operating a welding torch using a rotating coupler assembly that operates between 0 and 800 amps. The rotating coupler assembly allows for 360 degrees of rotation while keeping rotational friction at a minimum. The breakaway torque for the rotating coupler assembly is insignificant and the rotating coupler assembly can be rotated with little effort by hand. While the rotating coupler assembly minimizes rotational friction the design allow for rotating coupler assembly to continue to operate after 1-5 mm of wear on the contact surfaces. An embodiment of the rotating coupler assembly can be quickly disconnected from the unicable.

A welding system includes a welding wire feeder, and the welding wire feeder includes a motor and an adjustable drive shaft assembly. The motor is and configured to rotate a feed roll with respect to the wire drive assembly housing. The adjustable drive shaft assembly is coupled to the motor and configured to couple with the feed roll. The adjustable drive shaft assembly includes a drive mechanism configured to urge rotation of the feed roll and to adjust a position of the feed roll relative to the wire drive assembly housing.