Struggling With Aluminium/ R-Tech 201 TIG

[HughF]

You don't need 1.6mm tungstens, just grind a long needle onto a 2.4 and ball it up a tiny bit.

 

[HughF]

And the face plate is correct on the 201, the balance is % Electrode positive, not % neg like some machines. Also, the manual contradicts itself in a number of places.

Poor manual, poor foot pedal (had to fix mine), but apart from that these are good machines

 

[Brad93]

Ah right that would explain it Hugh. What's wrong with the foot pedal, mine is quite good I think (never tried any others though).

Tried pulse the other night in DC but can't really get the hang of it, more practise required.

 

[HughF]

The slot where the micro switch pops up through is too tight, the microswitch gets stuck down, then you end up being unable to start the arc up. I cut the back out of my slot. Fixed now

 

[Brad93]

Right can now weld lovely beads on aluminium using both just the foot pedal and pulse, was using thoriated 1.6mm electrodes.

Tried lap joints again but wasn't having much luck again. Was either burning back the top piece too much and not getting heat into the bottom piece or the aluminium rod was balling up in front of the puddle and contaminating the weld usually ending up with me dipping the tungsten in the great bloody ball of aluminium in front of the puddle.

You can see on this fillet joint there is hardly any penetration into the bottom piece of Ali.

 

[langy]

I would ditch the 1.6 tungstens and use 2.4's, I just changed to the gold tungstens and must say they are good.

 

[HughF]

I'll 2nd what I said earlier, 1.6's are only for <40 ish amps in my book. I rarely use them for anything these days. 2.4mm zirc. ground to a small land, then ball it up.

 

[Bingy]

Hi Brad, I have just got myself the Rtech acdc201 and im in the same position haha
Im using a 2.4 tungsten with a gas lense and 2.4 rods. Using the foot pedal on 2t no upslope 10lpm gas
Cant really give you a pic of the settings as ive packed it all away for the night, but i ll be back at again later in the week
Heres my welds not qiute as good as yours but im getting there.

I also tried a lap joint and got exactly the same as you
(bottom pic)
Having watched jody, mr tig etc on youtube, one thing that springs to mind is that the heat whilst tring to start up on the bottom peice is warping the top peice?? creating a gap? hmm

Anyhow, sorry for the hijack and good luck i love it!

 

[wheresmejumper]

some nice shiney beads there!

a common cause of poor fillet/lap welds with ally is too long an arc length.
if the arc is favouring one edge direct it towards the other
dont move forward till the pool penetrates the very corner of fillet/lap

 

[Brad93]

Finally nailed a couple of fillet welds on aluminium yesterday. Changed to the 2.4mm rods as said.

Not the prettiest in the world, but were relatively shiny, some contaminiation (black specks in the weld) but very nice fish scales look. Looking forward to perfecting it now. Once im happy with the fillet welds i will probably move onto the outside corner and then the lap joint.

Thanks for your help guys, will update some point in the week. Almost out of gas now, only got 75 bar left, two weeks! Planning to swap this bottle (bout 4 foot high? whatever size that is) for one of the big bottles.

 

[Georgie]

it seams as tho inverters make shinnyer welds than transformer welding machines..

is it correct to assume that or its just a matter of practice/settings ?

 

[Brad93]

Prep of the aluminium, cleanliness and the ability to adjust AC balance on the machine.