surfdabbler
New Member
- Messages
- 16
- Location
- Brisbane, Australia
I bought my first TIG welder yesterday and played last night, and I'm having some troubles. Would love some advice...
I ended up spending about 1.5 to 2 hours, managed to weld about 40cm of weld, and went through a full size C bottle of argon! The weld looks terrible. I was a struggle to get a pool going.
I have TIG welded once before, but that was on someone else's machine, and they controlled all the settings for me, and that went really well, so it's probably related to my machine and setup (and lack of skill when nobody is telling me exactly what to do). I've also done MIG welding on several projects.
- I'm welding a 2mm thick flange onto a 1mm wall round tube.
- 316 stainless
- 316L filler rods, 1.6mm
- 1.6mm red tungsten, sharpened to a pencil point, and about 5mm stick-out past the cup.
- #5 cup
- Argon set to 8 lpm (16 cfh)
- DC non-pulsed
- 140A max current, with pedal, mostly pedal to the max to get a pool.
- Arc power I'm not really sure what setting to use. I put it at 50% to start, and turned it up later to 75%.
- Pre-flow 0.5s, and post-flow 5 seconds.
My thought at this stage is just not enough power, although I would have thought 140A was plenty for this thickness of stainless steel. The arc looked good most of the time - I was trying to keep it down to about 3mm arc length. I had a little bit of trouble starting the arc in a few spots, but a quick clean of the surface with either a wire brush or a file normally sorted it out. I just couldn't get and maintain a decent pool. Without a decent pool to dip into, the filler rod was sometimes getting stuck, and sometimes melting in the arc.
I really didn't like using the pedal, particularly as I was only getting a half decent pool when it was at full power, so there didn't seem to be any point having the ramp control.
As for the gas, I will certainly have to upgrade the bottle size, as I'm sure I will have future projects where I want to weld for more than a couple of hours without having to run to the shop for a refill! I felt like I had enough gas flow, and the tungsten stayed nice and shiny, but the weld is not shiny. There's a photo below of my crappy results.
Any advice?
I ended up spending about 1.5 to 2 hours, managed to weld about 40cm of weld, and went through a full size C bottle of argon! The weld looks terrible. I was a struggle to get a pool going.
I have TIG welded once before, but that was on someone else's machine, and they controlled all the settings for me, and that went really well, so it's probably related to my machine and setup (and lack of skill when nobody is telling me exactly what to do). I've also done MIG welding on several projects.
- I'm welding a 2mm thick flange onto a 1mm wall round tube.
- 316 stainless
- 316L filler rods, 1.6mm
- 1.6mm red tungsten, sharpened to a pencil point, and about 5mm stick-out past the cup.
- #5 cup
- Argon set to 8 lpm (16 cfh)
- DC non-pulsed
- 140A max current, with pedal, mostly pedal to the max to get a pool.
- Arc power I'm not really sure what setting to use. I put it at 50% to start, and turned it up later to 75%.
- Pre-flow 0.5s, and post-flow 5 seconds.
My thought at this stage is just not enough power, although I would have thought 140A was plenty for this thickness of stainless steel. The arc looked good most of the time - I was trying to keep it down to about 3mm arc length. I had a little bit of trouble starting the arc in a few spots, but a quick clean of the surface with either a wire brush or a file normally sorted it out. I just couldn't get and maintain a decent pool. Without a decent pool to dip into, the filler rod was sometimes getting stuck, and sometimes melting in the arc.
I really didn't like using the pedal, particularly as I was only getting a half decent pool when it was at full power, so there didn't seem to be any point having the ramp control.
As for the gas, I will certainly have to upgrade the bottle size, as I'm sure I will have future projects where I want to weld for more than a couple of hours without having to run to the shop for a refill! I felt like I had enough gas flow, and the tungsten stayed nice and shiny, but the weld is not shiny. There's a photo below of my crappy results.
Any advice?