Ac waveshapes

BrokenBiker · Nov 17, 2015

this seems as good a place as any to ask, and i do appologise if anyone feels i am hi-jacking the thread but its related at least.

my mates wse200 tig has a switch that shows a squarewave in one position and a flat line in the other position, at first i thought maybe ac dc selector but it has another switch for that. i understand teh squarewave bit but what is the straight line for?

hotrodder · Nov 17, 2015

That switch will be for turning pulse on or off. Flat line = off, squarewave represents peak and background amperage (sometimes pulse and basic amperage or some other weird Chinglish terms)
AC waveform symbols usually at least hint that the polarity is changing by doing something like the symbol on the right to represent sqaurewave AC

Chris Stevens · Nov 17, 2015

bR39Da said:
Miller Synchrowave 250 at work. Has AC balance and that's it no frequency control, no wave patterns. Some things are harder to get nice than on the Aerowave where I have the Hz set to about 100 ish, and the EP amps set at about 60% of EN.
R tech at home only gets used now and again, but on aluminium you really notice that ability to change the frequency.

You can't really beat the stability of the arc and low noise of a transformer such as a Synchrowave in my opinion. Would like to buy one for myself if one comes up second hand at a decent price.

A Synchrowave 250 in nice condition with watercooler sold on Ebay a couple of weeks ago for less than £900! Its not possible for even top end inverters to exactly replicate the smoothness/power of a good transformer set, and while inverters are certainly obviously superior in some areas, I think its very hard to beat an old transformer set for general welding work, if you have the space and suitable power supply, and dont want to spend the type of money for an inverter which performs anywhere near as well.

Richard. · Nov 17, 2015

I think it very much depends on the inverter. My old 2000 MW IMO would easily perform as good as any transformer on AC. The fuzzy logic type wave made it quieter, smoother and more stable than other units I've used. It knocks the spots of the Mls IMHO