Up-grading welder to cure voltage drop

[fidget]

Ive borrowed the welder from a friend and its not a keeper if its at fault. Its a 90 amp welder which is quite old and hasnt been used for a while. My friend is a good welder who restored many cars and he said he struggled with it to .The first welds I did had zero penetration and couldnt even blow through 1.2 mm steel on maximum power(this was with the lead still wound and at full length) . I replaced the wire , liners , nozzle and shroud and gave it a good clean up . The above pictures are the results obviously front and back (now using the shortened lead) . These are on maximum and low switch settings .The problem Im having is when I tried spot welding, again I had little to no penetration. I havent welded for years and am open to any Help and criticism as if I can avoid buying a new welder the money can be spent elsewhere on my project.

thanks

James

 

[malcolm]

The welds look OK. Maybe go down a notch and weld a bit slower but tidy enough and there's no obvious fault to shout about with current.

By spot welding are you talking about the myth where you put two bits of metal roughly together, weld on one and hope it penetrates to the other? Can be done, but your amps need to suit way more than double the thickness (too much for a 90) and you need a perfect tight contact between the two. It's not a reliable method for car work in any case as you can never get a perfect fit.

Try plug welding instead. That should have it sorted.

 

[fidget]

Hi Malcolm thanks for the comments

Im getting mixed up in my terminology sorry.

I was trying to tack weld a piece of metel in to replace a rusty section. the welder was at the same settings that I used to do the run in the pictures . But I got no penetration at all. I can only put the welder onto max and high setting as thats all thats left .

I would have thought on max settings I should be burning through 1.2mm steel, thats why I think the welder isnt up to the job or Im back to the origional voltage drop question.

The section I tacked in was only small and was a excellent fit with no gaps, ( Im a prescision engineer in aerospace by day and have a compulsive disorder to perfection and fit , which if im honest isnt helping in my resto project)

thanks for the help guys. If this is going a bit off topic please move to the relevent section


James