Anyone tried helium with aluminium tig

[hotponyshoes]

I have got a boc balloon gas and it's only 80%.
Although balloon gas is a lot more than 20% cheaper than pure helium.
I wonder how many times you would need to run it through a scrubber to get it clean enough for welding?

Another option, most dive centers supply helium which would be one way of getting your own bottle filled if you didn't want to pay rental on one. You could also choose how much you wanted to buy then as well rather than fork out for a full bottle.

Or if you want a full bottle I expect one of the rent free suppliers would sort you out if you ask nicely.

Another thing to consider about the cost is that even though it's expensive if you get some advantages to using it then adding all those up could save you a lot of money anyway.
Ie. If it's 20% better and faster then that's saving you 20% on electricity, 20% wear & tear on the machine, 20% labour costs for welding time and so on.

If you don't have 3-phase power but helium let's you do jobs on a 200a machine that would need a 250a machine normally then it's making a good payback that was as well.

 

[Munkul]

Cheese, has your work not got 3 phase? You could get a cheap older square wave machine with 300 amps just for the heavy stuff and save your 220 for thinner stuff?
Even a cheap machine like a stealth or jasic 300 amp would be grand for that sort of thing.

 

[Brad93]

Balloon gas and diving gas is usually recycled helium from industrial or medical use. It does not weld. You can breath in all sorts of crap, you won't notice. Your tungsten will throw a fit if there's 2ppm oxygen or nitrogen in there.

As I said, it needs to be Technical grade. 99.998%

 

[Cheesie]

Cheese, has your work not got 3 phase? You could get a cheap older square wave machine with 300 amps just for the heavy stuff and save your 220 for thinner stuff?
Even a cheap machine like a stealth or jasic 300 amp would be grand for that sort of thing.

This is work I do from the house bud if my own place ever gers off the ground I'll be looking for a place with 3 phase and I'll probably buy a cheap 3 phase tig, I'm down to 4 days per week in my day job told him 3 weeks ago it was that or I'd have to go

 

[Cheesie]

my codes are a little out of date but I'll be delivering a few of these around this week and take things from there

 

[Johnnybravo]

Spoke to the BOC man on the estate. He goes through stupid amounts of helium as he supplies disposable helium canisters for blowing up balloons. He reckons balloon gas is between 75-80% helium. It’s got a myriad of other trace gases in it ,so no use for welding what so ever.

 

[zeppelin builder]

no one mention DC + with helium yet for thick stuff
never tried it as i almost fell over at the price of pure helium

 

[Jan-DIY]

Here we got balloon gas with 95%+ Helium on most suppliers.
Linde is going to 99,5He +0,5% N2.

 

[Brad93]

no one mention DC + with helium yet for thick stuff
never tried it as i almost fell over at the price of pure helium

You mean DC- / DCEN.



Positive just blows your tungsten away and you get no penetration.

 

[Brad93]

Here we got balloon gas with 95%+ Helium on most suppliers.
Linde is going to 99,5He +0,5% N2.

Nitrogen no good. Have you ever welded with a nitrogen backpurge? Plays havoc with the arc.

 

[JoeyD0287]

Isn't 100% helium used when DC is required on ally?

 

[Jan-DIY]

Never touched Helium in case of welding.
But i will do so if i got some time for it.