Thrashsmith
Member
- Messages
- 682
Hi folks, can anyone tell me if what I'm experiencing sounds like par for the course or am I being stupid?
I'm a self taught stick welder that up till now has only used 6013 rods (and the odd dissimilar 312) but I bought a load of 7018s yesterday after hearing from several sources that they are great.
I have a Thermal Arc 175SE DC little inverter. I'm embarrassingly ignorant about electricals, all I know is I normally buy 6013 rods from BOC and I run them with the stinger in the + side and they burn fine. The BOC site says the 6013 rods are DC(-) AC rods and that the 7018 rods I got are DC(+). Don't laugh, are the 7018 rods compatible with my welder?
The 7018s are a real pain to start but seem to light up and run best with the stinger in the - side. When they do eventually light up they just don't feel or sound right. The sound like they're stuttering and it feels like the rod isn't being deposited at an even rate. It looks that way too, the 7018 rods seem to go down very thin but then build up into a very wide bead much further back with slag taking ages to form. (6013s produce an even buzz sound and the rod feels like it's going down at a constant rate) Whatever I'm welding seems to get overly hot and I've noticed that the stinger (rated 200amps) gets hot very quickly compared to the 6013s.
To show this I ran some small beads yesterday with a 3.2mm 6013 and a 3.2mm 7018, both at 120 amps. This is on some scrap 4mm plate which I dusted off with a flap disc. The first bead is the 6013, you can see that the plate get's up to red hot at the end of the bead. The second bead is the 7018, you can see it gets up to white hot at the end. This 7018 bead doesn't actually look half as bad as what I was experiencing earlier in the day, at first you'd have thought I've never run a bead in my life - rod sticking, beads wandering off where ever they felt like, thin beads, wide beads...
I'm aware that 7018s are hard to get used to but is what I'm describing par for the course or am I doing some obviously wrong? I'd greatly appreciate any advice, cheers.
6013 temperature and slag.
6013 bead:
7018 temperature:
7018 slag:
7018 bead:
I'm a self taught stick welder that up till now has only used 6013 rods (and the odd dissimilar 312) but I bought a load of 7018s yesterday after hearing from several sources that they are great.
I have a Thermal Arc 175SE DC little inverter. I'm embarrassingly ignorant about electricals, all I know is I normally buy 6013 rods from BOC and I run them with the stinger in the + side and they burn fine. The BOC site says the 6013 rods are DC(-) AC rods and that the 7018 rods I got are DC(+). Don't laugh, are the 7018 rods compatible with my welder?
The 7018s are a real pain to start but seem to light up and run best with the stinger in the - side. When they do eventually light up they just don't feel or sound right. The sound like they're stuttering and it feels like the rod isn't being deposited at an even rate. It looks that way too, the 7018 rods seem to go down very thin but then build up into a very wide bead much further back with slag taking ages to form. (6013s produce an even buzz sound and the rod feels like it's going down at a constant rate) Whatever I'm welding seems to get overly hot and I've noticed that the stinger (rated 200amps) gets hot very quickly compared to the 6013s.
To show this I ran some small beads yesterday with a 3.2mm 6013 and a 3.2mm 7018, both at 120 amps. This is on some scrap 4mm plate which I dusted off with a flap disc. The first bead is the 6013, you can see that the plate get's up to red hot at the end of the bead. The second bead is the 7018, you can see it gets up to white hot at the end. This 7018 bead doesn't actually look half as bad as what I was experiencing earlier in the day, at first you'd have thought I've never run a bead in my life - rod sticking, beads wandering off where ever they felt like, thin beads, wide beads...
I'm aware that 7018s are hard to get used to but is what I'm describing par for the course or am I doing some obviously wrong? I'd greatly appreciate any advice, cheers.
6013 temperature and slag.
6013 bead:
7018 temperature:
7018 slag:
7018 bead: