I read the guide on this site about welding aluminium so gave it a try. Wire was the only aluminium 0.8mm stuff Machine mart sells and gas was pure Argon.
I tried all combinations of power and wire speed but mostly what happens is the wire melts before it touches the plate and makes large blobs.
Since I'm a beginner I swapped back to steel to check if I was doing things right and laid down some good beads on some plate. I tried a very slow wire speed with steel and the effect seems similar to the alloy i.e. melts before touching and makes blobs that stick to the wire. I also checked the power settings on the SIP i.e. is min power with the black switch in or out (in).
I tried again with the alloy on minimum power and Max wire speed and same thing again - I think I cannot get a high enough wire speed. I checked minimum power on my welder is 35A according to the rating plate. I checked to see if wire was being fed from the no. 1 speed and it was so the speed control seems to work correctly and to look at the wire on speed 10 it certainly seems to come out at a decent speed. Tension etc all seems fine - wire feeds well and the liners plastic not steel.
Any suggestions? thicker wire would be the next step but my welder should only accept 0.6 and 0.8 but maybe 1.0 would work though ideally I am thinking maybe 1.2 would be needed.
Perhaps I should measure the voltage at the motor on max speed?
At least my steel welding was decent - gives me a bit of hope!
I tried all combinations of power and wire speed but mostly what happens is the wire melts before it touches the plate and makes large blobs.
Since I'm a beginner I swapped back to steel to check if I was doing things right and laid down some good beads on some plate. I tried a very slow wire speed with steel and the effect seems similar to the alloy i.e. melts before touching and makes blobs that stick to the wire. I also checked the power settings on the SIP i.e. is min power with the black switch in or out (in).
I tried again with the alloy on minimum power and Max wire speed and same thing again - I think I cannot get a high enough wire speed. I checked minimum power on my welder is 35A according to the rating plate. I checked to see if wire was being fed from the no. 1 speed and it was so the speed control seems to work correctly and to look at the wire on speed 10 it certainly seems to come out at a decent speed. Tension etc all seems fine - wire feeds well and the liners plastic not steel.
Any suggestions? thicker wire would be the next step but my welder should only accept 0.6 and 0.8 but maybe 1.0 would work though ideally I am thinking maybe 1.2 would be needed.
Perhaps I should measure the voltage at the motor on max speed?
At least my steel welding was decent - gives me a bit of hope!