Coding instructor wont let us use our welder.

[dannyp]

trying to work out how to drive some welders is a right pita and setting them up can be a right pita as well.

one welder i use at a mates place push pull torch on ali mig, springs to mind none of his guys use it if they can avoid it, it is a hell of a machene once you've worked out how to drive it but working out how to drive it meanyt downloadign the destructions and been left allone with it for a few hours, nothelped by the fact that the rep that showed them how to use it and set it up evidently got it all wrong. next to it is an old cluncker turn it on twiddel volts and wire speed and off you go. it gets used so much more just as for littel jobs its actualy the better machene even tho technicaly its far inferior

 

[Jim Davey]

I've lost count of the amount of times I've been asked by good, qualified welders to take away sets with all the bells and whistles that run rings around their old gear just because they struggle to get their heads around the control interface. Doesn't matter if it was Fronius, EWM, Lincoln, they just wanted wire feed and volts. It's also won me a fair bit of business, my local rental competitor is big on Fronius, but often not too hot on training operators how to use the kit before they leave them to it. I've had a lot of calls and won jobs because "this Fronius isn't working right". Now I know 100% before I even get in the van to go, the machine will be fine, it always is. I'll get to site with my machine, set it up, ask the guys what they are doing and what weld/s they want to achieve and gauge their experience, I'll then show them how I set the machine up and make sure they are happy with how to adjust it themselves (if I don't I'll be getting a phone all before I'm a mile away) and if they are giving me the impression they just don't get it, I'll suggest they take a picture of the front of the set now, and make sure all the lights/settings stay in the same place as they are now, or I can save a few settings for them in the job memory settings menu. Say a setting for a Dow hand fillet as job 1, a vert as job 2 etc.
Before I leave, I'll take a look at the Fronius, Kemppi or whatever it was that was delivered and assumed welders would figure it out and invariably the settings are wrong (been told the wrong wire size, wrong filler wire type, in pulse when it should be in standard, voltage trim -30, you get the picture) you can see the poor blokes have tried everything they can to get a relatively complicated system to work that they have been tweaking and trying everything, so much so that even if the set was set up right before delivery, it's a million miles from a sensible arc condition now.
Now, I know how to set up a mig, basic or synergic. Would I choose a basic, no, not personally, and I was probably a bit quick to dismiss the poster's opinion as just wrong if he prefers the Jasic, but in my experience it's easy to see why people shy away from the supposedly "better" gear. If your first experience of it is an embarrassing struggle, or melting right through a job because the machine should be in standard MIG instead of pulse then I can see why people would vote with their feet and plump for a more straightforward machine.

 

[HughF]

If I couldn't operate a new machine because it was 'too complicated' or 'too confusing' then I would consider myself to have failed to upkeep my own education. I would be embarrassed by that and make steps to rectify my own shortcomings. The manuals for all these things are only a quick Google away.

 

[dannyp]

can understand that on a hire machene id be like that wire and volts, if fadango machenes were on offer and id used them before id have them of course. but rocking up, for a random welder to rock up i want to know i can just make it go and not look a tit.

some machenes iv met dont have the best interface ether. if what you want is 1 of the programs your fine, dialing in the weld material thickness ect is doabe but its a lot of repetadly proding buttons to set it, if you want amps and volts it dose that but good luck finding the option once youve used it for a bit and got over looking like a tit they have been bang on but if say just welding a bracket cleat ect id allways go for the old cluncker ican set the things as walking past bearly breacking stride

 

[Dimitri De Spiegeleer]

At work we are looking at geting coded and the guy coming to instruct us has told us we cant use our tec-arc 363HD. We are doing upto 10mm but they have said the welder needs to show or be able to adjust ampage.

If you are doing tests that are following an approved procedure you will need to be able use the same amps and volts as on the procedure document. If they are welder approval tests that are not following a procedure, such as BS4872, you do not need to have voltage/amp meters

If its structural steelwork and the coding is to certify you to your companies WPS and BS EN 1090, to conform the welder has to be calibrated and have a digital readout of amps.

Maybe a bit late to the party, but it says nowhere that a welder needs a digital read-out.
It's perfectly possible to calibrate an old-school tranformer type MIG welder without dials, and using those machines for PED, EN1090, ... works.

 

[matt1978]

If I couldn't operate a new machine because it was 'too complicated' or 'too confusing' then I would consider myself to have failed to upkeep my own education. I would be embarrassed by that and make steps to rectify my own shortcomings. The manuals for all these things are only a quick Google away.

Couldn't agree more. Unfortunately most of the time it's down to lack of understanding or worse still the "want" to understand. A lot of the shop floor still can't grasp the fundermentals of Mig welding, asking for "more wire" but to keep the current where it is, when in reality what they are asking is to reduce the voltage.

How can having to control 3 settings (inductance-wire feed speed and Voltage) where by they are all independent of each other but massively effect the welding results andperformance be "easier" to set up than a machine where after the initial set up it's pretty much one wire diameter and one power control knob for all material thicknesses.

I agree with more complex processes such as double Pulse and the like there are additional variables to get your head around but for straight synergic or Pulse I can't see how it can be perceived as more difficult although I know 100% this is the common reality across most shop floors.