New Welds - HELP

[gavuk]

I would read it that when you change the voltage the machine will put you roughly ok for wirespeed for every voltage selected....best to experiment ...hopefully one of the members here who owns a 160 might add something .....and setup the same joint you will weld ,ie not a piece of cold steel which will act as a heatsink ....were your tests yesterday mid sheet or a joint ,you may have to drop a voltage or 2 if set mid sheet,to weld a joint without blowing holes

 

[JonnyAlpha]

Here is a picture of my second welds.

I am welding 1mm steel clamped on top of a larger piece of 4mm Ali.

Looking pic of the upper side welds started top row left to right. Power set to Min 2 wire speed 6 for the first 6 spot welds then increased to wire speed up to 8 for the last 5 spots top right, probably held the torch a bit closer as well.

Looking at the underside for the same top row this time look right to left and the penetration at the end (left hand side was better, is this OK?

I then increased the power to Min 3 and seemed to get a lower weld with better penetration in some areas probably due to different torch positions and time held in place (tried to keep to 2 seconds for each). Min 3 is higher than it should be but I see that's probably because I'm using CO2.

The seam runs on the bottom row still didn't get a lot of penetration apart from the vertical one on the end which blew through (went too slow with this one).

Anyway I'm going to give the CO2 another blast this time with the practice piece in free air, then I'll switch to Argon/CO2 and do the same however with all of my next tries I'm going to concentrate on the wire speed settings as shown in the video from V8TV.

Keep watching!!

 

[gavuk]

Take away the backing plate,try and keep dist and angle constant so the only change is wire/volts...the 5 top right would prob be ok on a joint ,if you intend to weld on cars ,remember you can't weld long beads because of distortion etc ...try the thin metal technique, a series of overlapping tacks, easy to master quickly...check here 106 thread and thanks everyone thread for inspiration

 

[JonnyAlpha]

Ok whilst trying to follow the V8TV wire speed check I found out that I still have a wire feed problem, its intermittent. After stripping everything down (Did not replace the liner) it looks like either the feed roller is slightly off centre or the drive motor shaft is bent (hard to tell with the naked eye).

With no wire fitted and the top roller fitted loosley you can see the top roller only spins for 2/3 rotation hence I'm getting 1 second wire feed and 1/2 second pause which as you can imagine makes listening out for bacon real hard!!!

I've started another thread in the Mig Welder Clarke Section HERE

Anyway I tightened up the feed roller tensioner a tweak and managed to get constant ish wire feed and had another go this time with a piece of 1mm scrap Mini Panel.

The first weld top right was done using a setting of MIN 1 but straight away realized that this was under powered changed it to MIN 2 and with a wire speed of 6.2 ish made the remaining spot welds, the penetration could be a bit better and I'm still getting a lot of popping but that's probably because Im using CO2. I suppose they'd be OK for a patch repair?

I'll try with ARGON / CO2 tomorrow.

 

[gavuk]

If you are intending welding on cars?????....the tests your doing mean very little,you need to weld 2 pieces together either butted together or lapped or as a fillet (at 90deg to each other)....as the penetration will be different........glad to hear you have improved the wire feed

 

[JonnyAlpha]

OK;

Here are some more pictures of some actual welding, using 1mm steel plate.

Bear with me, looking at some of the other "First Welds" on this forum I clearly lack natural ability!!!

The first two pics are the top and under side of some wire speed and power tests, the three spots in a row were done at Min 1 Wire Speed 7 and the two larger spots were done at Min 2 / Wire Speed 6.5.

The second two pics are the top and underside of a lap weld? where I tried to a piece of 1mm onto the same. I spot welded the corners ok then seam welded the long edges. The bottom seam in the picture was done using a power setting of Min 1 Wire Speed 7 with CO2, the weld pool is to high CO2 and penetration is not good. The top seam was done with a power setting of Min 2 (To take account of the double layer) with a wire speed of 6.5 using Argon/CO2. The penetration is much better and the weld is lower and neater. both done using a stop start method.

Next I tried a fillet, which can be seen in the last two pictures. For these I switched the power back down to Min 1 and the first pic the wire speed was set to 7 which was slightly too high and forced me to rush? The second of the last two pics I turned the wire speed down and took a little more time. Both sides were done using the stop start method. The third picture shows the reverse side of the fillet and both appear to have OK penetration.

I think I'm ready to tackle my Mini, what do you reckon - it wont know what hit it poor thing!!!

 

[JonnyAlpha]

P.S. After I finished welding my eyes were blurry and then I realized I did not have my glasses on DOH!!!

I also think a worklamp is in order and I may turn down the darkness on my visor as visibility is not that good.

 

[M-Ster]

If it was me i would practice a little more making sure i was getting good penetration each time i welded.

The last thing you want is to weld all the car up take it for an mot and the guy say the weld isnt sufficiant.

What angle are you holding the gun at??
Are you wearing Gaunlet gloves??
How are you setting your distance from your torch to the metal?

All small things that make a huge difference

When i first started i wasnt wearing gloves and everytime a got spattered i jumped and this then made me move the torch and create a pants weld,

Now i have the gloves i use one hand on the trigger and the other to hold near the shroud and set my distance.

Best results i have had is holding the torch at a 45% angle and i always try to work backwards away from where i am welding i will post up some pictures of my first welding attempts should raise a few laughs!!

 

[JonnyAlpha]

Finally Some Decent Welds (I think).

1mm Steel, CO2/Argon Mix, Set at Min 2 Wire Speed 6.2. Set at Min 2 due to the double thickness of metal.

Held the torch a lot closer and made sure I could see what I was doing and had a lot more control.

First up a Lap Weld on the left hand side of the first pic, the torch was pointed at 45 Degrees to the join as I learnt from the guides on this site.

This seems to be a a nice weld with good penetration.

Couple of questions - on the underside of the weld what are the pin holes in the centre of each blob? And I'm still getting a lot of brown soot, why is this?

 

[JonnyAlpha]

Next up a But Weld 1mm Steel, CO2/Argon Mix, Set at Min 1 Wire Speed 6.2.
I think was my first attempt at a butt weld and I was really pleased.

Again held the torch real close which appears to be one of my main problems in my earlier welds (too far away) and used the thin metal technique of stop start before the weld pool cooled and pushed the torch with a semi circle arc motion.

Don't worry about the blow hole in the pic this is just where I was tuning in the torch but had it set to Min 2.

First off I joined the pieces together with some spot welds then filled in then gaps. Seem to have good penetration and there ain't no way this join is coming apart.

Again what are the pin holes on the underside.

 

[JonnyAlpha]

What no responses? I finally do some decent welds and no-body cares

All I want to know is will these pass and what's the pin holes on the underside?