@Ironman, yes there are different sizes of liners for different sizes of wire, there are also different types of liners for different types of wire material. A worn liner can cause problems, a good test of the whole “hot whip” assembly is if you can push the weld wire through it by hand, if you can’t, likely the drive will not do it either, resulting in “bird nests”. The other test is the opposite, remove tip, release drive roll tension completely from the wire, if you can’t pull the wire through the whip, you very likely have problems too, birds nests. The length of the liner is also very important, some? whips/liners need a bit of preload as the rest of the components are assembled on the gun end.
I used to have spares of everything that went onto the gun end of the whip, and spare liners, except for the goose neck, , but we were also running different types of wire for different jobs. Regular steel wire, a Stoody wire, a Ni-rod wire and aluminum wire. ( I was not welding aluminum, that was others). I always remove the tip when starting a new/different type of weld wire through the whip.
We also kept wire not being used in original packaging and kept unfinished rolls in clean plastic bags away from dirt, dust and grinding debris. Higher end wire sometimes is much cleaner. Vacuum out the wire roll/reel compartment, I would not use a”blast” of air, very likely to push dust etc. where it’s not wanted!
We did not use any cleaners, often not even the felt wipers on the wire, remember to change wipers also, if used, as sometimes they have compounds on them that will contaminate some welds. Some grinding discs will also cause weld contaminants on higher tech welding.
Tips and the holder/adaptor for them can cause problems also.
I am not a ticketed welder, just some experience, many hours of mig welding a few special wires on limited materials. Take it for a nickel’s worth.
