Magnum''s MPB16 Power Buggy is powered by an air-cooled Honda engine rated 13 hp. The engine drives an Eaton Char-Lynn hydraulic pump, which in turn powers two Eaton motors at the front wheels."When we designed this, we did a couple things on purpose," Roberts said. "We said we wanted a more stable unit than any that were available in the market. We decided that we needed a big rider platform for stability as well as four points of ground contact rather than the industry norm of only three points. A square shape is more stable than a triangular shape. We designed our units so that the handlebars do not intrude into the driver platform at full turn."

For special applications, manufacturers offer metal-cored wires for GMAW. These are composite electrodes comprised of a metal sheath with a powder-metal core. They are often confused with flux-cored wires, which form a slag that completely covers the weld bead face; metal-cored wires produce very little slag. A major advantage of metal-cored wires is the ability to manufacture specialized alloy compositions not easily available or producible in solid wire fore1. Modifying the composition of the powder-alloy core allows the wire manufacturer to customize wire formulations to metallurgical, compositional, or physical properties per customer demand. Horizontal-fillet welds made with metal-cored GMAW can deposit weld metal at rates up to 20 percent higher than with solid wire. Alloying elements, such as silicon, in the powder-metal core improve sidewall wetting and reduce weld-bead convexity by reducing surface tension of the molten weld pool. For this reason, flat and horizontal welds deposited with metal-cored wires have better appearance than weld metal deposited with flux cored and solid wires. Compared to solid wires, metal-cored wires also result in higher current density, for increased penetration; a wider operating window with respect to welding-process variables: better sidewall melting; and less lack of fusion.

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