Welding 1/4 aluminium advice

[Hood]

To me Alu Mig is one of the hardest things out, or certainly for me it is/was. Tig not a problem and Mig on other materials is also much easier.
It probably all boils down to Alu Mig really needs to be in spray transfer and spray is not the best for positional welding as it is so hot, pulse Mig however changes everything.

 

[yorkie_chris]

What's your pulse machine? How much would we be looking at for one that will do 6 and 8mm material.

I want to build an aluminium tender at some point so might be worth investigating.

 

[Hood]

My main one is an EWM Phoenix 330 but new you are looking at probably £5-6K
I am at the moment trialing a Cebora Pocket pulse and it breezes 6mm but I reckon it may do 8mm although I have not had a chance yet to test it.
Downside of the Cebora is it can not be used with a Push-Pull so you are limited in length by the torch, whether a 6m Weld Snake would work I don't know but realistically probably 3m normal torch is what you would be looking at. Also it is just 185Amps so for 6mm up you are using it flat out, fine for small lots of welding but lots of long welds may cause issues with the duty cycle.
The Cebora is probably coming in about £1300 or so.

 

[Brad93]

My main one is an EWM Phoenix 330 but new you are looking at probably £5-6K
I am at the moment trialing a Cebora Pocket pulse and it breezes 6mm but I reckon it may do 8mm although I have not had a chance yet to test it.
Downside of the Cebora is it can not be used with a Push-Pull so you are limited in length by the torch, whether a 6m Weld Snake would work I don't know but realistically probably 3m normal torch is what you would be looking at. Also it is just 185Amps so for 6mm up you are using it flat out, fine for small lots of welding but lots of long welds may cause issues with the duty cycle.
The Cebora is probably coming in about £1300 or so.

Why on earth would you got to a £1300 Cebora. That will just end in tears mate imho.

 

[Hood]

Why on earth would you got to a £1300 Cebora. That will just end in tears mate imho.

It is just a standby welder just in case I have an issue with the EWM and a replacement for the R-Tech I sold last week.
It is actually impressing me quite a bit but obviously it is not going to do what I do with the EWM and wouldn't even look at the welding I have been doing over the last few days but for general work in small doses it should suffice.
I am still in the hope that by the end of the year I can afford to splash out on a new 350ish Amp pulse mig.

 

[Hood]

Oh and BTW I haven't bought it yet, I am just trialling it to see if I think it would suit the smaller jobs I do.

 

[yorkie_chris]

Having fun fabricating some bits of boat. Some of the welds even look alright.
View media item 9962
When doing vertical do you have any advice? Up/down? Angle?

Still having some trouble with burn backs sticking to the tip (welder has no burnback adjustment) but mostly avoiding those by a small trigger press after stopping welding to shove the hot end of wire out before it freezes to the tip.

 

[Hood]

Before I got the pulse mig I used two methods for vertical up depending on the joint type. For a fillet I would do a weave from side to side, for a butt I would whip up then back down for a second or so then repeat.

 

[yorkie_chris]

I'm finding it gobbing up and dripping down the joint rather than leaving a bead. Have I just got too much wire?

(using the same settings as seem to work ok on flat welds, about 70% on both voltage and wire on the rtech 250)

 

[Hood]

Just takes practice but you will have to lower voltage and wire feed a bit.

 

[henry Kadzielski]

My two cents again. I'm not so good at alli or most other materials so I got Francis (Fronius TPS320i) to make me look good or better. If you are good you can get most any machine to give you a good result, familiarity with the machine also helps. Vertical up with practice and some fiddling with settings Francis goes quite well

 

[Brad93]

A lot of people say you can’t vertical up an alli wire in spray but you can you’ve just got to have your parameters and travel speed right. You’re not going to do it on a little small part but a bit of ¼” to ¼” about 8” long will be enough of a heat sink.

I tend to use a step and pause technique which works quite nicely.

 

[Richard.]

Just go down and cheat

 

[Hood]

Just go down and cheat

Can be done, often looks good once you de-soot but weak as heck and will crack the first stormy day you are out

 

[Richard.]

crack the first stormy day you are out

Go down both sides, sail in nice calm weather only and don’t lean on it

 

[Hood]

Go down both sides, sail in nice calm weather only and don’t lean on it

Or do some practising and do it right

 

[Richard.]

Or do some practising and do it right

I know mate. Just throwing a tiny touch of humour in

 

[Hood]

I know mate. Just throwing a tiny touch of humour in

Yes I realised that

 

[yorkie_chris]

Ok thanks for the answer, I've asked some crane companys how much to shift a 63 foot trawler to the local duck pond. Do you think it will be calm enough in there?

 

[henry Kadzielski]

^^^^ Still not calm enough for me anymore, Thought have spent the day completing a genset install, wiring, exhaust, and fuel.