Alright weld quality?

[Tatey]

Back in October i bought a power craft ARC welder 40-160A from Aldi for £40, i tried using it a few times but couldnt get the hang of it, i was trying to weld on a 0.5mm pipe, which i have recently found out is really hard to do especially when using the crap power craft rods.

Last week i did 2 hour of arc welding at univeristy and found it much easier than uing my welder, i then decided to go out and buy myself some new rods and some new mild steel bar. I bought 5kg of Weldabilty 2.5mm 6013 rods for £16 and 3m of 30x6mm mild steel flat bar.

Compared to the Powercraft rods the Weldability rods are 100% better, i've attached a few pictures of some recent welds i've done, would you be able to give me a few pointers on them:

 

[shenion]

The welds look good. With practice they will be even more conistent. looks like you varied you speed a bit on the fillet weld.

I have some Weldability rods, they are decent. I do like the Lincoln better, but they are more expensive.

 

[simon718]

looks good mate. agreed rods make all the difference

 

[bawjaws]

is it the weldability superweld rods (the cheaper ones in red containers) or the ones in the white boxes, ive got the superwelds and their not too bad but i wouldent say they were astonishing, ill need to get my back side into gear and get different brands of rods

 

[Tatey]

It doesnt say anything about superweld on the box, but yes they are in the red box.

 

[Welderpaul]

You've got it!
Relax a bit and steady your hand to get more consistent results.
But, yeah, good.

 

[irondarren]

Tatey, im not a lover of weldability rods, ok as a general purpose rod, but dont match up to Esab or the likes (neither does the price though), but certainly much better than the cheap ones.
You can always do a destruction test, ie weld something together, then beat the life out of it until it breaks.

 

[Tatey]

I was originally planning on buying some better branded rods but i rang up my local steel stockholder and these are all they had, and because i was buying my steel flat bar there anyway i thought i might as well just to see what they are like.

I'll definatly try a destruction test sometime.

 

[madkayaker]

the metal should brake before the weld time for big hammer