Tips on setting up a new Syncrowave?

By brande

Date 09-08-2003 04:52

You will find that a balance setting higher than "balanced" will give better performance.
Good Luck

brande

By Ken Dougherty (**)

Date 09-09-2003 03:36

In school and through reading I learned to set up a 250 or equiv. (as a starting point) as follows: polarity for aluminum, AC; amps = 10A for each .001 of material thickness e.g. 1/8"=.125" or 125 amps; hi freq on constantly; preflow a fraction of a second, postflow 1sec for each 10 amp on your amp setting; balance like Brande indicates (depending upon how much cleaning/penetration action you may want/need, i.e. more on the positive side yields more cleaning action); be sure the water pump is on.

Those settings will at least get you started. Run a practice bead to "zero in" on the best settings for your particular application.

By Mike W

Date 09-10-2003 02:16

Thanks, what electrode diameter would you pick for 1/16 aluminum.

By Ken Dougherty (**)

Date 09-10-2003 04:32

For 1/16" Al I would select a 1/16" electrode. Pure tungston or zirconiated tungston are typically recommended. I have been using the newer Trimix and am tending to favor it. The Trimix seems to hold its tip shape (a ball shape) better than the pure tungston for me. Being relatively inexperienced I tend to overheat the pure tungston resulting in a ball that grows and sags. Trimix can also be used for DC work (e.g. steel, stainless steel). I would use 1/16" filler of the appropriate alloy for your base metal. The "book" recommends 3/32 but I find it tough to keep an inventory of all filler material and 1/16 seems to work ok for me. I believe 3/32 may have some advantage in that it can cool the puddle to help manage the heat. I suppose a lot has to do with the type of joint you are welding. I have also discovered that keeping the base metal and the filler metal absolutely clean results in easier and better welds. I use stainless steel brushes, stainless steelwool dedicated for Al only, and acetone. Brush in one direction only to prevent grinding crud into the relatively soft aluminum.

If you are interested in a reference book, I have found Gas Tungsten Arc Welding by William Minnick very helpful. It should be available on line.
Hope this is helpful and if I have led you astray someone will point us both in the right direction.
Ken

By Mike W

Date 09-10-2003 04:35

Thanks Ken, and everyone else.

By mcwelding (**)

Date 09-10-2003 15:42

HEY MIKE
use 2 percent ceriated or lanthanated with a truncated point. you dont need balled up pure. you will have more arc control. use the pure only if code requires it.
rich

By aircraft (**)

Date 09-12-2003 04:24

Ceriated tungsten does'nt work very well using AC and a sycrowave machine. But does work fine with a inverter machine like a Dyanasty, but not recommended.

Hey Lawrence,
We had three new guys that were consistently running aluminum beads that would fail an x-ray NDT. It was always 1/16th aluminum every other thickness they would do just fine. We are talking about very, very small crescent blip on the x-ray so much so its hard for me even to see it( I'm still not sure I even see it at all) but the x-ray tec says it's there.

So told him run me some beads and let me see what your doing.
He set it all up and everything looking great and then he reached and grabbed a 3/32 filler rod I didn’t think much of it, wouldn’t be my choice but you know so what…until the lab results came back and I quote “hydrogen porosities due to sudden chill of weld pool” I thought 3/32 filler rod. The guy swapped to 1/16th problem was gone.

Have you ever seen or heard of this?