Synergic welders and overhead welds.

[Brad93]

I find migatronics to be like fronius machines.

Always fiddling in the background and not telling you what it's actually doing/or allowing you to change that setting.

There's a fronius at work, TransSteel 3500 i think it is. Single pulse.

If you put it in synergic it will give you a setting and usually it welds pretty poorly without trimming the voltage a fair bit and adjusting the induction.

If you put it in manual and select the same parameters the synergic has recommended and you've found a decent condition with, it's nothing alike.

So the machine must be doing something in the background you cannot see/chnage.

I've always found migatronic to be over complicated and prone to failure.

 

[tom2207]

will it weld nice on a bench top , same wire etc etc ,,,, if so the switch to overhead issues points at the nut on the torch needing adjusting some.

 

[Munkul]

20A.

If you're trying to run your mig at 20 amps, that might be most of the problem...

0.8 wire is only supposed to be used down to 40 amps, 0.6 down to 30 amps. Below that, you'll get instability.

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

If you're trying to run your mig at 20 amps, that might be most of the problem...

0.8 wire is only supposed to be used down to 40 amps, 0.6 down to 30 amps. Below that, you'll get instability.

I was talking about the lowest amperage to illustrate a point about the voltage trim adjustment (specifically that it's another dimensionless parameter, which indirectly adjusts the voltage via the control logic).

The only way a straight ±9.9V adjustment would make sense was if every program defaulted to something like 23V."

I'm just saying what presented parameters are. Of course, if I tried to use all +-9,9V adjustment range, then at the opposite ends it would likely weld like sh*t, but tweaking potential is still there, if you need it.

I have used all 19.98 somethings of that range, trying to dial in settings that would fix my problems, and It's not creating anything like that level of voltage swing (nor should it).

And if you press that right side button to tweak voltage, then machine shows actual voltage during welding. No need to guess, just look at it in the screen

I am familiar enough with my own welder to know where the buttons are.

The voltage being displayed during welding is absolutely **Language**ing useless, because it rapidly switches back to the dimensionless "trim" number when you're not welding.

Like most people, I am not looking at my welder whilst welding, and so if the display doesn't hold, then I can't read it.

Lower button is for burnback or something like that, but I rarely touch that. (maybe this is your "trim" you adjust all the time?)

Burnback and Arc-Choke (i.e. inductance) settings.

I have left them well alone for the time being...

If you put it in synergic it will give you a setting and usually it welds pretty poorly without trimming the voltage a fair bit and adjusting the induction

It might be worth me actually looking at the inductance adjustment...

I would generally leave it at minimum for thin metal though, which is what I would assume is the factory default setting.

So the machine must be doing something in the background you cannot see/change.

This is basically my entire frustration, with what is otherwise in many ways one of the best MIG welders I've had.

When it works, it just works and you can forget you even have a welder, like you're just shooting molten metal out of your hand...

When it won't do what I want, it's extremely opaque why it won't, making it much more difficult to work out what the issue is and correct for it.

will it weld nice on a bench top , same wire etc etc ,,,, if so the switch to overhead issues points at the nut on the torch needing adjusting some.

The issue is less pronounced in horizontal and flat position, but it doesn't go away.

It's certainly worth adding the torch nut and other wire feed system parts to the list of things to inspect and check.

 

[tom2207]

I was talking about the lowest amperage to illustrate a point about the voltage trim adjustment (specifically that it's another dimensionless parameter, which indirectly adjusts the voltage via the control logic).


I have used all 19.98 somethings of that range, trying to dial in settings that would fix my problems, and It's not creating anything like that level of voltage swing (nor should it).


I am familiar enough with my own welder to know where the buttons are.

The voltage being displayed during welding is absolutely **Language**ing useless, because it rapidly switches back to the dimensionless "trim" number when you're not welding.

Like most people, I am not looking at my welder whilst welding, and so if the display doesn't hold, then I can't read it.



Burnback and Arc-Choke (i.e. inductance) settings.

I have left them well alone for the time being...


It might be worth me actually looking at the inductance adjustment...

I would generally leave it at minimum for thin metal though, which is what I would assume is the factory default setting.


This is basically my entire frustration, with what is otherwise in many ways one of the best MIG welders I've had.

When it works, it just works and you can forget you even have a welder, like you're just shooting molten metal out of your hand...

When it won't do what I want, it's extremely opaque why it won't, making it much more difficult to work out what the issue is and correct for it.


The issue is less pronounced in horizontal and flat position, but it doesn't go away.

It's certainly worth adding the torch nut and other wire feed system parts to the list of things to inspect and check.

thats not the nut that needs adjusting ,,,,,

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

thats not the nut that needs adjusting ,,,,,

Rude!

But yeah, it's not something that goes away in other positions, it's just easier to deal with in those scenarios.

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

So I had a crack at tracking down my issue on some scraps this evening...

First, Tip condition could be better so I fitted a fresh one, liner fitment and wire tension is good.
No dice.

Second, wire feed calibration, was slightly out which may have more impact down at the bottom end.
No dice, but maybe faint improvement???

Third, re-flash the programmes with the most updated software.
Not a magic fix, but now we're definitely getting somewhere.

Fourth, try fiddling with the choke/inductance settings.
Ok, it's been left set with a really high inductance value the whole time and I didn't realise... Reducing that to what I assume is the default value improves things a bit more.



I have an actual project to sort tomorrow welding 1mm wall rectangular tube to 3mm wall round tube, which will be an ideal real-world test of the improvements.

 

[tom2207]

Rude!

But yeah, it's not something that goes away in other positions, it's just easier to deal with in those scenarios.

then at least you know where to start looking , your actually now saying the welder isnt welding well in any position then ..... ??

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

your actually now saying the welder isnt welding well in any position then ..... ??

At lower power settings than I am accustomed to working with, it wasn't behaving like I would expect a MIG welder to...

Whilst I could make up for that with skill to a point, when I came to overhead it was a problem.

As it turns out I spent far too long assuming that it's just that mig welding sheet steel is very hard, and making the best of a bad job with the welder well out of whack.

It's now welding significantly better, after updating the software, calibrating the wire feed, and resetting the choke settings.



The whole point of me starting this thread was that it's hard for me to say what "well" for sheet metal should look like...

I have only maybe 30-40 hours of experience at welding sheet steel over the past year, vs well over a thousand hours of welding thicker material over the past 5 years.

All I knew was that at lower power settings than I am really accustomed to, it was behaving in a way that didn't make any sense based on all my experience.

 

[tom2207]

At lower power settings than I am accustomed to working with, it wasn't behaving like I would expect a MIG welder to...

Whilst I could make up for that with skill to a point, when I came to overhead it was a problem.

As it turns out I spent far too long assuming that it's just that mig welding sheet steel is very hard, and making the best of a bad job with the welder well out of whack.

It's now welding significantly better, after updating the software, calibrating the wire feed, and resetting the choke settings.



The whole point of me starting this thread was that it's hard for me to say what "well" for sheet metal should look like...

I have only maybe 30-40 hours of experience at welding sheet steel over the past year, vs well over a thousand hours of welding thicker material over the past 5 years.

All I knew was that at lower power settings than I am really accustomed to, it was behaving in a way that didn't make any sense based on all my experience.

trust me after 40 years at it , some days things just dont always add up either ,,, Im a get in hot and fast sort of welder , overhead I dont turn anything down , short arc and a good torch angle , with a good jacket mask and gloves and keep going , the major issue with mig is that its easy , and its hard . Now that sounds contradictive , but I will explain , its very easy to get results that look great and will keep most folk happy ,,, but , its also hard without experience to actually know whats going on , and whats really good and bad in real life , I worked as a weld inspector for a while both off shore and in the aircraft factorys and sometimes things are not as they look ,,, its good practice to do a quick cut and etch from time to time and actually know whats going on , especially if you move onto thicker things , or things that may be important .... many many many farmers do the whole get it in tight , no gaps , good fit thing , and thats how they make things , if its gates or fences it seldom matters , .... but watch an engineer or a welder at work and its all about gaps and weld prep. After a while you get a feel for your machine how it sounds and feels tells you a lot about whats going on , but that takes time .......... T

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

the major issue with mig is that its easy , and its hard . Now that sounds contradictive , but I will explain , its very easy to get results that look great and will keep most folk happy ,,, but , its also hard without experience to actually know whats going on , and whats really good and bad in real life

That's exactly it, I don't want pretty but I want to be confident that it's functional and that means being confident that I'm really getting metal into the joint.

My welding experience is comparatively narrow, lots of thicker sections with MIG and just enough Arc to know when I'm doing a ****ty job of it, but biased to gas welding on any thinner stuff...

its good practice to do a quick cut and etch from time to time and actually know whats going on , especially if you move onto thicker things , or things that may be important ....

I did this all the way through my C&G diploma (work paid, but welding isn't my actual job)...

But there's not really much point in doing a proper destructive test when I can tell from observing the puddle as it goes in, or a visual inspection of a weld that it's got faults...

many many many farmers do the whole get it in tight , no gaps , good fit thing , and thats how they make things , if its gates or fences it seldom matters , .... but watch an engineer or a welder at work and its all about gaps and weld prep

Haha, you're speaking my language here, joint design matters massively for a good consistent weld.

The reason I learned to weld in the first place was to understand the practical constraints that welders face so I could specify better designs that would be easier (thus faster and cheaper) for the people tasked with building them.

After a while you get a feel for your machine how it sounds and feels tells you a lot about whats going on , but that takes time

I'm still not there with the little Rallymig.

It's very different to it's big brother the KME550, my old ESAB, the ESAB and Oxford units i've used elsewhere, all of which had a lot less abstraction of the various parameters.

Of course now it's actually running properly I might become friends with it a bit faster.