Hi all,
As a proud new owner of an R-tech 200A AC/DC unit, I started to teach myself to TIG weld today and after a few hours at it, I managed to progress from "how the hell can I ever get the hang of this?" to "oh, this isn't too bad". So I'm quite pleased with myself so far.
The issue I have is that in just one afternoon of practice, I seem to have depleted about half of my Argon bottle. After some reading around I have learned that TIG gas usage is considerably more than that of MIG. Indeed, in my approximately five years of having a MIG welder, I've only just run down my very first CO2 bottle.
The bottle I have is about 60cm in height and has 15.7kg marked on it. I expect someone will be able to tell me what this bottle is in litres, or whatever the usual measurement is. The guy at the gas place said it should be fine for several hours' of welding, so I got this smaller bottle thinking it'd last me well.
The starting pressure was 135 bar. It's now down to about 75 bar.
The regulator I'm using is the bog-standard twin gauge sort that was supplied by R-tech. Connected to the regulator I have a 14LPM flowmeter like this one.
I notice that the second gauge on the regulator is calibrated in terms of flow rate. However, I only needed to set the regulator knob so that about '2' registers on the regulator LPM gauge (so 2 litres per minute presumably); this was sufficient to register about 10LPM on the eBay flowmeter when I operated the TIG.
When I first set it all up I spent absolutely ages making sure it was all gas tight, and used washing-up liquid around the joints to ensure they were all tight enough and not leaking.
Anyway, after spending a few hours creating lots of fancy fillets on both sides of something like a 5" square piece of mild steel, I realised the pressure of my argon had now halved.
I was using a post-flow of about 8 seconds.
I did at one time notice that the torch gas was very loud and I needed to re-adjust the regulator again to back it off; perhaps I lost quite a bit in that period.
So does this sound kind of normal? Just get a much larger bottle next time round?
Any hints please regarding why the regulator LPM gauge and the additional LPM flowmeter don't agree? (regulator indicates 2LPM; vertical glass flowmeter says around 10LPM).
Is condensation on the regulator normal?
Thanks
Trev
As a proud new owner of an R-tech 200A AC/DC unit, I started to teach myself to TIG weld today and after a few hours at it, I managed to progress from "how the hell can I ever get the hang of this?" to "oh, this isn't too bad". So I'm quite pleased with myself so far.
The issue I have is that in just one afternoon of practice, I seem to have depleted about half of my Argon bottle. After some reading around I have learned that TIG gas usage is considerably more than that of MIG. Indeed, in my approximately five years of having a MIG welder, I've only just run down my very first CO2 bottle.
The bottle I have is about 60cm in height and has 15.7kg marked on it. I expect someone will be able to tell me what this bottle is in litres, or whatever the usual measurement is. The guy at the gas place said it should be fine for several hours' of welding, so I got this smaller bottle thinking it'd last me well.
The starting pressure was 135 bar. It's now down to about 75 bar.
The regulator I'm using is the bog-standard twin gauge sort that was supplied by R-tech. Connected to the regulator I have a 14LPM flowmeter like this one.
I notice that the second gauge on the regulator is calibrated in terms of flow rate. However, I only needed to set the regulator knob so that about '2' registers on the regulator LPM gauge (so 2 litres per minute presumably); this was sufficient to register about 10LPM on the eBay flowmeter when I operated the TIG.
When I first set it all up I spent absolutely ages making sure it was all gas tight, and used washing-up liquid around the joints to ensure they were all tight enough and not leaking.
Anyway, after spending a few hours creating lots of fancy fillets on both sides of something like a 5" square piece of mild steel, I realised the pressure of my argon had now halved.
I was using a post-flow of about 8 seconds.
I did at one time notice that the torch gas was very loud and I needed to re-adjust the regulator again to back it off; perhaps I lost quite a bit in that period.
So does this sound kind of normal? Just get a much larger bottle next time round?
Any hints please regarding why the regulator LPM gauge and the additional LPM flowmeter don't agree? (regulator indicates 2LPM; vertical glass flowmeter says around 10LPM).
Is condensation on the regulator normal?
Thanks
Trev