Setting up a Pulse mig.

[Hood]

The ones from the big boys like EWM, Fronius, Lorch etc will last a long time. The warranty for my EWM is 3 years and they say that is covered even if using 24hrs a day, 7 days a week so they must have confidence in them. The transformer and rectifiers are 5year.

You are paying top money but you are getting a top machine.

 

[henry Kadzielski]

I don't do mush thin stuff but have tried Francis on 2mm using 1.2 Safra wire without drama. Most of my alli 5083 is 6mm (fuel and water tanks) but have done 20mm and used double pulse with good results, have fiddled the double pulse default settings to suit myself. If I get to do more alli will fiddle some more to get better results. One thing I have found that once the machine is set to what you like, all I do to change for material thickness is the change the thickness setting on the machine and the machine looks after the rest.

 

[Hood]

I am starting to find my way with the new Phoenix, some of the recent welds have been quite pleasing to they eye but it is amazing how subtle differences in settings and tecnique can make a difference to the weld.
Here are two outside corners and almost the same settings but different feeding techniques by me made the difference in the look of the welds.

 

[henry Kadzielski]

^^^ the top one looks like a slower advance rate in time with the pulse setting. Your advance set and time must be accurate to get that nice repetitive flow

 

[Hood]

Tell me how I can donate to the forum

To answer this I had to look as it has been a while

If you click on your name at the top right, see pic of mine.

That will take you to your profile page.
Down the left you will see account upgrades, if you click that you can donate and be a forum supporter.

 

[Hood]

I was messing around with things again today and found that I quite like having a main programme time of around .5/.6 seconds and a reduced programme time of 0.2 seconds, it fairly speeds up the travel speed in SuperPulse, double pulse, twin pulse or whatever else it gets called

I am going to save a few different jobs as sometimes it is nice to have it where the pulses are more equal in length as it slows down the advance rate and is better for doing things such as going round tubes on handrails as it allows you more time to concentrate on keeping the torch angle correct, or at least that is my thinking

 

[Hood]

^^^ the top one looks like a slower advance rate in time with the pulse setting. Your advance set and time must be accurate to get that nice repetitive flow

The top one, if I recall, was a steady but continuous feed where the bottom one was more a pause, move, pause, move motion.

 

[Richard.]

As hood has rightly pointed out the value you are referring to is wire speed.
This makes sense at 3m/min giving you 60 amps.
If you want plate thickness settings then press the arrow key till the middle led is illuminated and that gives you a rough plate thickness setting. It’s always going to need a fine tune because the machine doesn’t know how fast you like to travel or what joint/position you are taking on so on your 3mm plate you might need 4 on the machine but then someone else doing a butt joint may want 2 set on the machine if that makes sense.
Your machine is essentially a de tuned lorch S5.
It’s an excellent machine that has proved its worth in all manner of industry for many many years. It’s not exactly the same as a lorch s5 that you can buy today as the actual s5 can be activated with the full cart Blanche speed processes.
Speed pulse XT and twin pulse XT are probably the finest pulse processes available on the market today.

 

[Hood]

If you look at pages 15 and 16 you will see that it is indeed that button I arrowed that changes the display between current, material thickness or wire feed speed.

It probably also will show inductance and voltage trim values when you adjust them.

 

[Richard.]

That sure is a grotti piece of plate
I do not worry brush I seem to have really deep Fusion so why bother

okey doke
https://www.spwgroup.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/transmig_320sp.pdf

Item 56
Taken from your manual.

 

[Hood]

yes been doing that Merci, got a 4ft butt to do vertical, so plenny room there to get it right, do you ever sleep?

Ha ha it is only 11pm here

 

[matt1978]

Please take a closer picture of the wire feed rollers. It looks to me that the liner is not carried out through the back of the torch and through the Euro connection. The soft plastic liner should begin straight after where the rollers end, so the wire is completely supported. What about the rollers, do they have an “A” stamped on them to denote that they have a u shaped groove and are designed for soft wires like Aluminium.

Small things like this will make a huge difference to how succesful your welding will be.

Put the green light that is currently on the left LED which shows wirefeed speed in meters/min until it’s on the middle LED which shows material thickness in mm.

The parameter for mm is only a guide. It doesn’t mean that if you set it to 3mm you can weld every job in the world that is constructed from 3mm purely for the reason that Aluminium is a very good conductor of heat and the job that your welding on your photo is a quite a large fabrication and as such will require a much higher setting.

If your really adamant that you can get better results with a normal Mig you also have the option to use the 400 SP in manual mode. Press the mode button until you see manual, then the knob on the right is your wirefeed speed and the knob on the left is voltage. Totally independent of each other.

But I have a feeling until the liner is correctly fitted in your torch your always going to struggle

 

[Hood]

@matt1978
What are your thoughts on the Weld Snake and pulse/Double Pulse?
Have you ever tried one as I am wondering if the 6m of the Weld Snake could be an issue?

 

[Hood]

.... as I said before I have a gun from Technika technical arc in England but it is 10 m long and I'm reluctant to use it because if a wire breaks inside it.....

Is it a push-pull or a spool gun?
Either way I don't think it will work with your welder unless you are in manual mode, ie no pulse/double pulse/ synergic mode.

 

[matt1978]

The Weld Snake is just a long torch with a special liner fitted, the issue I could see is that the machine will struggle to regulate the arc length over a 6 meter distance for smart processes like Pulse or TwinPulse, on anything over 5m (4 on Ali) you ideally need a pull motor to help with arc length regulation. Otherwise if your trying to do it all from the push motor (in the feeder) the 6m worth of slack in the torch means the machine is too slow to react and will cause an erratic arc.

As Hood says try it in manual.

However I still think that you need to refit the liner properly by running it all the way back to the feed rolls

 

[Hood]

Thanks Matt, I was wondering if the 6m of the weld snake could be an issue, I think the liners are wire size specific so that may help stop any slackness during pulsing, wouldn't mind trying one out but don't fancy dropping that kind of money just to find it is no use.

Regarding the manual mode, it was with the other gun that @Lazeyjack has. It is a TecArc, not sure if it is a spool gun or a push-pull but it is the type with the in line control box. I did use mine (spool gun type) on the wee Cebora in synergic pulse mode as a test but it was a pain to set up as you were basically tricking the machine into thinking it was controlling the wire speed. Double pulse definitely wouldn't work as the welder itself is not controlling the guns motor.

 

[Richard.]

i cannot try manuel it will not (hold)

manual will not display

it will not display manual,

Have you tried it manual mode yet

 

[Hood]

They look reasonable, personally I would stick with the pulse or double pulse and get some practice in and adjusting timings, trims etc to see what suits the way you weld.

I also use what the EWM calls Special Latched trigger and I would be surprised if the Lorch/CIG doesn't have something similar. The beauty of that mode is you pull the trigger, the gas preflow starts and then once preflow time has elapsed the wire starts and ignites and goes to the Start Current, usually I have that set at about 120% and thus you get a hot start to the weld and avoid the cold start that normally occur with Alu welds. Once you reckon the weld is hot enough you release the trigger and it drops down to the normal welding current and you keep welding. When you get to the end of the weld you again pull the trigger and it will drop to crater fill current, once the crater is filled you let the trigger go and the arc goes out.

 

[Hood]

It could be but on the EWM there are two latched options. The standard latched uses the timings you set up in the welder for Start currents, end currents etc. The Special latched you can control the timings yourself by the trigger.

 

[auswelder]

Yeah I would forget about twin pulse, I never did have much luck with it. I believe it is suited for tin materials. I would just stick with the conventional pulse setting.

I also had mine set up to use amps, not material thickness or wire speed. They are good machines, especially if you have the mig gun with the display and controls on it. So good in a production environment.