Hi all,
I've not posted here for years, but am a long time lurker.
I'm a design engineer by trade, but have been TIG welding for the last 6/7 years for the odd job required every month or so for my employer. Parts have all been stainless, much of it textured around the 1.2-1.5mm thickness mark.
Below is a typical example - 6mm flange welded to 1.5mm 7GM stainless hopper. Not perfect, but gives some indication to my standard. This and all my experience in TIG so far has been performed on a 10yr~ old CEA Rainbow 160A~ DC TIG unit.
Having left this employer, I'm keen to keep up with TIG so this week purchased a Jasic PRO TIG 200P AC/DC - Steve at Weldequip was very helpful, pricing was really competitive and he got this sent out asap!
I set this up yesterday for DC welding with the following:
With up to 14l/min gas and a No8 cup, everything cleaned with acetone (far cleaner than I'd admit to usually being!) I seem to be getting contamination pretty much instantly. With the tungsten 1mm~ away from the material (stickout is from welding an inside corner), with no dipping, within around 20mm the tungsten looks like the image below:
Below is the outcome, TIG setup to around 65/70A, much colder than this adding filler is problematic. Travel speed and filler add rate is comparable to previous work on the CEA. Outcome has no bead definition and an odd bubbled texture to it. This is similar working on mild steel with mild filler also. Thinking this could be due to the 2.4mm tungsten, I did dig out and grind the only 1.5mm I have - sadly made no difference.
Below is the outcome from pulsing (bear with me, im new to this!) at 5hz 50% on time, max 95A, min 40A, no filler. As before, poor bead definition, same odd texture to weld.
To be honest I'm pretty stumped, having done a fair few hours on TIG prior, I thought it would be fairly straightforward to configure the JASIC and get cracking.
I've played about using very clean materials, the max volume of gas my flow meter will allow and have welded at a wide range of amplitudes, from far to cold, to excessively hot with different travel speeds. The only way I can seem to avoid the finish shown above is to run the torch close to 130A for 2mm thick material and move around 40mm/sec, which is a little quick for me to add filler!
if anyone has any bright ideas, it would be much appreciated.
Cheers
Ollie
I've not posted here for years, but am a long time lurker.
I'm a design engineer by trade, but have been TIG welding for the last 6/7 years for the odd job required every month or so for my employer. Parts have all been stainless, much of it textured around the 1.2-1.5mm thickness mark.
Below is a typical example - 6mm flange welded to 1.5mm 7GM stainless hopper. Not perfect, but gives some indication to my standard. This and all my experience in TIG so far has been performed on a 10yr~ old CEA Rainbow 160A~ DC TIG unit.
Having left this employer, I'm keen to keep up with TIG so this week purchased a Jasic PRO TIG 200P AC/DC - Steve at Weldequip was very helpful, pricing was really competitive and he got this sent out asap!
I set this up yesterday for DC welding with the following:
- Supplied WP26 torch, electrode negative (This is large, so will likely move to a smaller CK torch in due course, I did order it with the foot pedal, but keen to dial in with the torch first)
- New pack of tungstens (I've always used 2.4mm, although a little large - kept with that for this setup, as that is my experience so far) ground correctly on a clean wheel, tungstens cleaned with acetone afterwards
- CO2/Argon mix bottle from my MIG - purchased from SGS
- New 1.6mm 316 stainless filler rods, cleaned with acetone
- Several strips of 2mm thick 304 stainless sheet - grinder cut, deburred with a flap disc and cleaned with acetone
- As a ball park, setup the welder based on the forum guides
With up to 14l/min gas and a No8 cup, everything cleaned with acetone (far cleaner than I'd admit to usually being!) I seem to be getting contamination pretty much instantly. With the tungsten 1mm~ away from the material (stickout is from welding an inside corner), with no dipping, within around 20mm the tungsten looks like the image below:
Below is the outcome, TIG setup to around 65/70A, much colder than this adding filler is problematic. Travel speed and filler add rate is comparable to previous work on the CEA. Outcome has no bead definition and an odd bubbled texture to it. This is similar working on mild steel with mild filler also. Thinking this could be due to the 2.4mm tungsten, I did dig out and grind the only 1.5mm I have - sadly made no difference.
Below is the outcome from pulsing (bear with me, im new to this!) at 5hz 50% on time, max 95A, min 40A, no filler. As before, poor bead definition, same odd texture to weld.
To be honest I'm pretty stumped, having done a fair few hours on TIG prior, I thought it would be fairly straightforward to configure the JASIC and get cracking.
I've played about using very clean materials, the max volume of gas my flow meter will allow and have welded at a wide range of amplitudes, from far to cold, to excessively hot with different travel speeds. The only way I can seem to avoid the finish shown above is to run the torch close to 130A for 2mm thick material and move around 40mm/sec, which is a little quick for me to add filler!
if anyone has any bright ideas, it would be much appreciated.
Cheers
Ollie