Mate it makes no difference to me at all. I’m not bothered if you do or don’t want some tuition.It’s not my machine, it’s my bosses
I haven’t had that many weekends off due to being at race circuits every weekend. I worked 17 weekends on the trot at one point and my social life and own projects needed tending to first!
I will take you up on the offer but it won’t be until th end of January as I’m booked up solidly
Mate it makes no difference to me at all. I’m not bothered if you do or don’t want some tuition.
My point is your in a tight spot now which with a job that needs finishing and a process not working. With a bit of pre anticipated planning to ensure both the set up and welder are up to the job we could be looking at stacked dimes now.
Oh well. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
@Richard. one of the problems I’ve noticed with the machine is sometimes there’s black spot around the weld and sometimes there’s not
It’s the same piece of Ali but it also doesn’t consistently sound the same when you start to form a puddle
I’m not a service engineer so there are better qualified people on here to confirm but in my opinion it’s extremely unlikely for a machine fault to cause contamination. Your not making this particularly easy with the lack of decent photos to actually see clearly the problem but from the one you have put up that is 100% a shielding problem. If you’ve got a fresh bottle of gas and plenty of flow then I’d assume you’ve got a leak somewhere or moisture in the lines perhaps. It’s something like that.@Richard. one of the problems I’ve noticed with the machine is sometimes there’s black spot around the weld and sometimes there’s not
It’s the same piece of Ali but it also doesn’t consistently sound the same when you start to form a puddle
Ok I stand corrected
Better photos now. I still believe it’s shield related. What happens before you add filler. Still crapppy?
Two questions. how are the sheets cut?It’s struggling to even create a pool
When Jon welded the wing it welded around 100mm fine, then a further 100mm fine.
then decided to turn to salt and pepper, and like a mig when you weld rust and it oxygenates and grows then doesn’t penetrate but the filler rod just falls off the surface
Two questions. how are the sheets cut?
does it happen when NOT using filler?
It’s lacking power? Well that’s a different problem.These are x2 brand new front wings and a front shroud(bonnet, lower valance in one piece) made less than a month ago in Birmingham by hand
Yep even when not using filler it struggles like hell to produce a pool
It doesn’t have enough guts to even blow through 1mm Ali when testing
It’s lacking power? Well that’s a different problem.
Any way I’m 30 mins from Bedford it’s not a difficult or time consuming trip. If you wanted me to look at something and get you going I can. However if the welder is lacking power then yes you do want to be sending that back.
This is frighteningly like what I was getting with mine. I even threw the torch cross the workshop in frustration.
Anyway, it was too less amps. I fitted a pedal, cranked it up, pool formed, simple. Why? I don't know...
Crank it up is my advice, if it oxidises, turns ali black, turns your filler into balls - crank it up to make a pool.
One proviso - I'm no expert, just giving you the benefit of my experiences.
You’ve got a shielding issue.
Whether it’s a bad bottle.
- Have you tried a different brand bottle?
We swapped bottles after an hour for a brand new one
A bad regulator.
- Have you tried another regulator
- Have you checked for leaks
Its been leak tested
A bad argon line.
- have you checked for leaks
- tried another argon line
No
The argon line inside the welder.
- Have you tried another welder with everything else the same?
When we swooped the internal check valve from r tech we tested the internal system
The argon line in the torch.
- have you tried another torch.
Not tested yet
Your setup on the end of the torch.
- have you tried another torch?
Not yet
- have you checked for leaks?
Yes
- have you checked your back cap or collet for leaks?
Yes and Jon thinks there’s an O ring missing on the back of the torch
So I've been welding Alu for a good few years and like to think I know a fair amount about it.
However I went to help out @stuvy yesterday on a classic car resto. Body panels are aluminium.
I prepped everywhere I needed to weld by grinding back the surface to bare aluminium, acetone, brush over and acetone again twice. This is my normal prep route for older alu. However when welding on both the old and brand new aluminium it would go through patches where it simply would not melt, remove the oxide layer or fuse in any combination of the three.
There were some parts where it wouldn't even strike the arc and would just flutter about as the starting current never coming to full power and striking the full arc.
Weirdly it did weld 100% perfect in some areas, but 1" into the weld would go to the above state and then 3" later go fine again for a few inches.
The other chap beating the panels also commented on how the material would randomly be soft in some areas and then immediately next to it be hard.
The poor weldability areas looked terrible and I genuinely felt bad taking money for them, but it was as good as I could get it, which I will say did have both sides of the joint fused eventually. There was just a continuous amount of black coming to the surface through the metal and I even tried to change the balance to 80% for a few passes and then back down and no change at all other than eating the tungsten.
I went through every trick I know of to try to get this to weld like it should and simply could not find any solution. Does anyone have any idea of what was going on, other than the material was poor quality or full of contaminants from years of sitting/paint or a release agent where the new parts were stamped?
The prep is certainly not the issue here.if im butt welding aluminium i scrape the edges before fit up and clean the wire with steel wool , the back of the join has to be cleaned too and not resting on any thing that can cause gassing ie wooden bench or cold back up fixtures ( condensation then steam ) abrasives should be avoided when possible , try ceaning an area with a new carbide burr or scraping it with a clean scraper and a fresh stainless brush, why not tack it and give it a good brushing ahead of the tacks when its still hot this might help remove contamination
also consider the shape of the joint eg sharp outside corners can need some experimenting with nozzle bores and pressures due to turbulence
have you checked your torch for gas leaks at the torch connections
or possibly your machine is losing the hf tracking to earth inside intermittently !
my moneys on the prep ,check the back of the weld area first
It's rather like using a computer......you actually know something's wrong even if you don't know why you know it....it's. a feel you get.The prep is certainly not the issue here.
While yes there may be some issues with using abrasives to clean the material; I prep like this regularly and have done for many years with no issues.
The HF or gas is being looked at by RTech themselves at present