Newbie now with TIG.

[choco]

What about gently scapping the tungsten of clean alloy before you light up.

 

[Richard.]

What about gently scapping the tungsten of clean alloy before you light up.

What do you mean Choco?
Scratching the work piece with the tungsten ?

 

[Richard.]

No idea how it works tbh.

All it does mate on his machine is give the tungsten a split second of DCEP on strike up.
He can control how much DCEP it gives by turning it up and down.
This is concentrated heat into electrode and as you know a hot electrode strikes better than a cold one.
Your lorch is different. Yours has something that sounds very similar to what my rehm had.
A HF intensity setting. My rehm was factory 50% and your right if you turned it down to 10% you barely got a spark at all. This is more aimed at both AC and DC and it's simply for use if there is a risk of HF interference with sensitive equip but you still want a HF non contact ignition. Mine at 100% was too intense and the HF spark would hit the work piece with force. I left it at 50%.

 

[choco]

Ya Richard, I always scrape the tungsten before I light up it helps with the stahlwerk anyway.

 

[HughF]

I always do too, force of habit from my syncrowave days. Same as bumping the pedal to get pre flow.

 

[dazza]

So i had a play with the ignition half wave

Starting at 5 (50% on dial)

And this happened.

Worked it all the way down to 1 and it works but i need to do a bit more testing as i think it may contaminate the start of the weld.

I did a couple of nice runs on some other test pieces so i thought i would start a new test piece and dazzle you guys with some nice beads.

But it all went to ****.

I lose the arc length it starts popping and tungsten balls badly. Would a gas lens help?

My latest runs

The bottom one was a 150 amps no stopping with the torch hand.

With the other two i was pausing then adding the filler 120 amps. At the end i lost the arc length and tungsten burnt back.

Edit: Plan for next time, Just practice starting the puddle two dabs then ending it.

 

[Richard.]

Yes your tungsten is too small

 

[gt6s]

Ya Richard, I always scrape the tungsten before I light up it helps with the stahlwerk anyway.

You do not need to do that with my Stahlwerk so it is not a Stahlwerk thing.

 

[Richard.]

I always do too, force of habit from my syncrowave days. Same as bumping the pedal to get pre flow.

Strange. I've never done that. Scratch the tungsten on the job. What does it do then?
In my mind particularly if the tungsten is sharpened up like a dart there is the possibility a small piece can break off?? Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't that defeat the object slightly with using contactless ignition??

 

[dazza]

Thanks guys i'm surprised no one noticed that before i did think they were disintegrating a bit quickly. They exploded nicely with ignition half wave at 5.

Ceriated TIG 2.4mm?

Any other bits i should pick up?

Think i need some more collets, if the collet is like this will the body be ok to reuse?

I also need the dinse adapter for the torch is this the one? I may see if i can get one locally to save on postage usually it still works out cheaper to get bits from the uk.

 

[dazza]

Hi dazza,

Yes that will be the adaptor you need for an air cooled torch with ⅜ fitting on the end.

Try and get hold of some 2% Lanthanated. Blue is the usual colour.
That collet looks pretty twisted up. Get onto Jim Davey he will be able to sort out everything you need. If you're new torch is a 9/20 style, he can do you the brass wedge collets. If it's 17/26 try and get decent consumables like binzel or ck. parweld aren't too bad but there is a difference.

I need an adaptor for a water cooled torch.

 

[dazza]

I'm inpatient so i may try and pic up the tungstens locally. They may not have 2% Lanthanated what other flavours could i get?

 

[Richard.]

Make your cooler suitable to take rectus 21 fittings and buy the adaptor with that fitting on it.

 

[dazza]

While we are talking about the rectus 21 fittings i put one of the back of the welder for the gas, but its leaking on the thread. PTFE tape?

 

[Richard.]

I'm inpatient so i may try and pic up the tungstens locally. They may not have 2% Lanthanated what other flavours could i get?

Take your pick.
Personally some are better than others. I wouldn't bother with green (pure) for your machine as they are very soft comparing to the others and obviously some as you can see are DC only electrodes.