Aluminium Tig Welding - 1st steps

[Richard.]

It’s just about what your already doing mate. Practice and finding out what is and isn’t working. Without been able to see in the flesh what your doing it’s difficult to know where to point. Keep at it, try different approaches see what works for you. It’s going well, you’ll have good and bad days keep it up.

 

[Hood]

You wouldn’t melt 4mm with 125A.
125 is barely enough for 3mm......

I don't know what the hell I do different then as 120amps more than ample for 4mm 5083 for me.

 

[Brad93]

I don't know what the hell I do different then as 120amps more than ample for 4mm 5083 for me.

On tig? You’ll have to cut and etch some mate that will be very short on penetration in my experience

 

[Hood]

On tig? You’ll have to cut and etch some mate that will be very short on penetration in my experience

Ok,
etch here, not the best pic but should see it clear enough.

Pic of tickeness.

Vid of me doing it showing 120Amp on welder, afraid the arc is almost off the screen, must have had the specs, with the camera glued to them, on a bit squint

 

[Hood]

Slightly better pic of etch.

 

[Richard.]

For 3mm I’d be around those settings hood but at 4 I’d be in the 150-160 mark. I did some 3 today to see where I’m at and 122 got me going on a torch switch. Each to there own I guess.

 

[Richard.]

Just done 2 more butt joints. 4043 and 5356 both at 122. It’s where I’m happy on 3mm. Don’t have any 4 to try.

 

[Hood]

I don't know why I always seem to weld at a lower current than you and Brad and probably most others but it must have something to do with technique.
Maybe I just travel a lot slower but as you can see, well sort of, in the vid the pool formed right away.

 

[Richard.]

Not sure mate. You didn’t seem to be going that slowly and penetration appears to be there. Perhaps it’s a hot machine. My recent fronius mw2200 was a hot machine. Always turning that down after I set it where I thought it should be. Some machines are hot and some cold. Yours might be a hot one. Tell you what would be worth a look. Put a clamp on amp meter round the work return and see what your actually putting out.

 

[Hood]

My last Tig was the same (TecArc 251) one before though seemed low to me, Parweld analogue.
I think I have a clamp meter somewhere, will try if I find it.

 

[Richard.]

My last Tig was the same (TecArc 251) one before though seemed low to me, Parweld analogue.
I think I have a clamp meter somewhere, will try if I find it.

Some of em are. Dunno why. I find the old analogue rtechs to be a really cold machine and needing loads of amps putting in to get things going. As you already know balance and frequency play a big part too so it might be the case you have these set differently to me and your puddle comes through at lower current. If your at 80% dcen your gonna get things flowing quicker than me sat at 70% dcen so it’s all pretty trivial really. Same with the size of the part and what it’s sat on too. That joint above was sitting on an inch of cast iron. This will suck out the heat so I need power to get things to pool up quickly.

 

[brockenhammer]

Hi,
I´m not good in electronics.
But could it be, that there is a voltage difference between the machines at the same current?
So overall power output is different then, too.
Maybe also a little difference in balance setting and also waveform might lead to different needed current for a given material thickness.

 

[backpurge]

It's not unusual to find quite significant differences in the arc between the same make machines set up identically. Quite often when we are running training courses customers will send their own machines, with some of the digital machines such as Fronius, Lorch etc we will see no difference between 4 machines but with some other makes of set the difference in arc condition really is very noticeable to the extent that working to procedures with tight parameter tolerances can be quite difficult

 

[Aesgarth]

Can you post a picture of your tungsten?

Don’t worry about the pulse. Absolutely pointless on AC.

Like having balance and frequency adjustment. They sent man to the moon and built countless planes using transformer dialarcs and synchrowaves with no balance or frequency adjustment.

Photo of tungsten, before welding... after photo to follow once I've used it.

And what my practice sheet currently looks like.. .

 

[addjunkie]

I would certainly say your heading in the right direction....far quicker than I did with ali

 

[Aesgarth]

Tungsten after a little use...

And my most recent bead...

 

[Richard.]

Coming on beautifullly mate. Get that sheet ground up and cut into coupons. Your ready to take on some joints.

 

[Aesgarth]

Coming on beautifullly mate. Get that sheet ground up and cut into coupons. Your ready to take on some joints.

Possibly not quite..

 

[backpurge]

Nice steady improvements, you're deffo getting there

 

[Richard.]

Possibly not quite.

You are mate. Those are good attempts at a joint.