buying new welding plant, need some advice and experience with LORCH

[Jack]

hello,

Been looking at investing in some new welding equipment, currently running a kemppi PS3500 which has been a great machine, very high duty cycle, but no matter how much i tweek the settings, use different wires etc its a very spattery machine but still ideal for heavier fabrications.

so basically looking for a machine for doing the lighter work, gates, railings etc, not really interested in its ability to weld alu or stainless as steel makes up about 95% of my work. ive been reading up about Lorch and just wondered if this 'virtually no spatter' welding that they market, actually does what it says? The bloke in wellington welding has got a M 252 control pro in at the moment for about £1300, if anyone has used one, is it going to be man enough for welding railings all day or should i be looking toward the S 320 and above? or possibly a different brand all together?

Also ive been reading a lot about this automatic programming on new welders where you select the thickness and the machine does the rest. Which sounds great but how does it work when say welding a 16mm sq bar to a 4mm box section? do you select a happy medium?

And one last thing, been looking at an Xcalibur 200 AC/DC HF Tig, which apparently is a re-branded cebora, the local BOC have one in for about £900, which seems like a very good price to me. anyone ever used one? would rather pay more for a second hand maxistar (as there ability to run off all power sources is a right bonus) if they are s****.

bit of a long post but i hope some of you can help

Many thanks

Jack the welder

 

[Delgado]

Also ive been reading a lot about this automatic programming on new welders where you select the thickness and the machine does the rest. Which sounds great but how does it work when say welding a 16mm sq bar to a 4mm box section? do you select a happy medium?

You mean the synergic sets, on the ones I've used you enter a program number (eg. 86 = flux core), then you set the wire speed, and the machine sets the volts. You can then tweak the volts a bit to suit your own style of welding, the tranfer mode you want, or what you're trying to do. I can't comment personally on the lorch machines as I've not used them (although I've heard they're good), but all the synergic machines I've used when set right give very little spatter when welding.

 

[wyn]

I think with the different thicknesses pick something in between and direct it more toward the thicker bit.
The pic below is a bit of 3 or 4mm thick rhs stuck to a 12mm plate using an M-pro 252. I can't remember what thickness i had it set on but it looked ok with no spatter.
With the 252 in automatic you can still make lots of adjustments to fine tune things or just run it in manual.

 

[cazl1994]

we've got a lorch m-pro 252 in school and i find its the worst machine for spatter its everywhere but a very nice machine to use and the synergic is great if your welding 3mm you just put 3mm in and weld away its very handy if your always welding different thickness steel.

 

[Jack]

hey wyn,

yeah looks like a tidy weld with no spatter. how does it fair when say welding railings where there are lots of welds in close proximity?

 

[wyn]

I haven't really done much in the way of railings but have used it to weld up a lot of tubular frames where the welds are close together and it's been ok.
Most of the spatter i get with it seems to be when i have the torch angled too much but that's not down to the machine.

 

[matt1978]

Hello Jack,

The virtually no spatter thing relates to the Saprom/Pulse migs. There are lots of threads on this site about Pulse welding, but basically its a man made Spray arc, that can be used on very thin section to very thick section without hardly any spatter.

Its not possible to say virtually spatter free with a conventional mig because of the different arcing phases used (Dip/Mixed/Spray). You can get virtually no spatter with Spray arc, but you need to be able to get the voltage/wirespeed high enough to get into the Spray arc phase.

The reason why the M-Pro range could reduce spatter levels, is purley because the machine sets its own voltage/wirespeed/inductance relationship. These 3 things are crucial to be set up corrrectly to get optimum results, but if your welding 4-6mm plate with a 1.0mm wire for example, I would say that you would be in mixed arc range and you would get lots of spatter what ever machine you used. The only way around it would be to drop to 0.8mm wire and get into Spray or go up to 1.2mm and drop down to dip. (or use Pulse welding machine)

Caz1994.

How is the relationship from the wirespeed adjustment to the voltage? Spatter will be caused from having a too short arc length, in other words, there is either too little voltage for the wirespeed or too much wire for the voltage. With the M-Pro range, you are supposed to set correct welding program on the 12 pos switch inside the wire feeder and then set the machine up on a low setting, (eg 2mm) then turn the knob on the right which is the wire feed fine adjustment, turn it so that you have a nice crisp dip transfer condition. After you have done this at the low end, when you increase the voltage steps (higher material thickness) the wire should then be perfectly suited to the voltage.

The reason that you have to change it slightly is because of the differing Co2 values in the sheilding gas. This higher/lower percentages of Co2 effect the arc voltage and in turn effect the arc length. You can always drop me a PM with your number if you want any help with the setting/fine tune

 

[knoba]

You're a class fellah, Matt!

 

[cazl1994]

thanks matt for the explanation but its not my machine to play with the lecturer dosent like us fiddling with the setting so i'll leave it as it is but a great set to weld with very smooth
thanks