US Patent 7645960 Coded welding consumable

A welder for performing a welding process which includes a wire feeder and a code reader. The code reader is designed to obtain information from the welding wire based on a plurality of different cross-sectional sizes and/or different cross-sectional shapes on the outer surface of the welding wire. The information from the code reader is used to monitor at least one welding parameter of an electric arc welding process and/or to control at least one welding parameter of an electric arc welding process.