Maybe try turning up the heat a little more, sounds like you're running a little cold. Your Excaliber rods will look like that, dry going to an Atom arc 7018. It's all the rod you'll need.
Hello KGabbert, obviously if you run the larger leads you will see less line loss of amperage as well as voltage over the longer runs. My personal feelings in this regard go as such: you have the ability on the machine to up the amperage to allow for loss, voltage loss on the other hand can not generally be adjusted for. There is a distinct ratio between a given amperage setting and the voltage that is present at this setting, arc length will change the voltage that is seen at the puddle as well. Some machines have an inductance or arc force control, if so equipped, I would argue that you can tune in the arc with this feature to allow for losses in cable run lengths.
The situation that you have described in your post doesn't seem to me to be related to your cables. I believe that you have a possible moisture problem with your electrodes, or possibly the condition of the material that you are welding on has something to do with it.
In the lab that I teach I will have the students do some experimentation to see the effects of different conditions with regard to the issues that I have mentioned above. The first thing that I might do is have them cut a piece of metal into two pieces, one of the pieces I will have them leave in the condition that they found it(rusted, mill scaled, painted, whatever), on the other piece I have them use a grinder and grind it down to bright metal. I then have them take some rod out of the rod oven and also find some rod that has been laying around the shop for awhile. Once they've collected all this stuff up, I have them set their machine to an amperage that they would generally run to make stringer beads. Without changing this setting they run beads on the uncleaned metal with the new rod out of the oven and the rod that has been laying around in the shop, most of the time the slag will be hard to remove from the welds, there will be a lot of spatter and popping going on, and the slag will be darker in color than usual. The weld after the slag has been beaten off will have a rather dark color to it and the edges will usually look rolled over into the base metal. At this time they may not actually notice a great difference between these two rod conditions on this uncleaned metal. Then I have them use the two different rods on the bright metal. In this case the welds will generally progress with less spatter, popping, and the slag will generally be of a much lighter color, they might also notice that the slag peels up after the weld. The unbaked rod in this instance may have a slight additional amount of spatter, popping, and possibly a slightly darker color to it. The edges of the weld will tie in much better at the toes and also will be almost shiny bright even after just knocking the slag off of it. The real difference that can be seen between the welds that were made with rods that have been in the oven and those that have not will come to light if you cut a cross section, polish it, and then look at it with a good magnifying glass or a microscope. The weld from the unbaked electrodes will in most cases contain small pores from the hydrogen that has been trapped due to solidification of the weld metal before the gases have escaped, this is a direct cause of excess moisture in the rod's flux coating. Please forgive me for the long speech, especially if you already knew this. Good luck and Regards, aevald
aevald, Thanks for the info. I clean my material pretty thoroughly, but I may not have dried the rods out good enough, I will take you and kajun1's advice and try some different rod.
Airco or Esab are the way to go for low hydrogen electrodes. The excaliburs are ok on structural but really dissapointing on pipe. Ive had alot of luck with airco and thats all I carry. If you are using #2 over 50 foot you might think about going with larger leads but all in all it really sounds like the problem is in the base metal or more than likely the electrodes. I run 200 foot of 2/0 off the truck with 50 foot extensions available if needed. When I run my wirefeeder off the truck I plug the 50 foot runs in directly to the machine because its hard for the voltage to travel those long runs. Also if you are running A/C keep in mind that its going to significantly cut down your amperage as well. I wont run over 50 foot through the highfrequency unit off the truck when tig welding aluminum otherwise Ill never get a puddle to form in A/C ( thats off of a Trailblazer 350 too). Try playing with some different electrodes first and see if you get the same results. I think you will be suprised in the difference though. Good luck.
You mentioned that You might not have dried the rods enough, I read someplace that the temprature to dry rods that have picked up moisture is pretty much hotter than the temp to keep dry rods dry. Perhaps the more experienced guys will comment?
aevald,
I am wondering about your explination of arc force adjustment. It has been my understanding that the arc force is used so that no matter how close an arc you keep you will not have a drop in amperage hence the penetration is greater. But this in turn does not allow you to control the heat in the puddle by shortening or lengthning the arc if the arc force is turned up to 100%. ???????
Hello makeithot, most arc welding power sources are of the Constant Current design. This being the case they are designed to operate to the set amperage on the machine, this amperage will indeed theoretically remain constant regardless of arc length. When the arc length is varied the voltage at the arc will vary also. Increase the arc length and the voltage will increase, decrease the arc length and the arc voltage will decrease. Back to the arc force adjustment comment, with most machines that I have experienced that have been equipped with arc force adjustment, arc inductance, whatever the particular manufacturer wants to call it. Turn this adjustment up and you will see less turbulence or harshness in the arc and it will tend to run more smoothly, turn this adjustment down and you will see more harshness, digging, violence in the arc. The way that I have been led to understand this goes something like this: set the machine to 110 amps and the arc force knob set to the center position, strike an arc at an arc length of say 1/8", the amperage and voltage delivered at this setting and arc length might actually be 110 amps, 20 volts. Without changing any of the amperage or arc length settings make changes on the arc force knob, turn the arc force to it's maximum setting and start welding again, if you checked the amperage and voltage this time you might have 110 amps and 22 volts, this change would have a definite effect on the bead that will result from this change. Now similarly, leave the machine set at the 110 amp setting and the same arc length, now reduce the arc force knob setting to it's lowest position, it is possible that you might end up having 110 amps and 18 volts possibly, also in this case the bead that would result would turn out differently than the others. If you are trying to compare this voltage varience capability on the machine to simply changing the physical arc length of the rod, the comparison is different. When I long arc the rod there is a tendency of the weld metal to be spattered all over the place and not directed to where I want it to go, yes the voltage increases and the heat that is present in the puddle increases, but not in the same manner as I can accomplish by having an adjustment control on the machine to vary this. I hope that I have brought this point across correctly, if not, we are on the forum and I'm sure that I will be corrected by those more knowledgeable than myself and at that point I will learn. Regards, aevald
aevald, what you are saying makes sence but ,I have also note'd that when you have the arc force set at let say 30 strike the arc and push the rod to the plate you will see that the amps will fall compared to your setting of lets say 100 amps . If you set the arc force to 100 and push the rod to the plate the amps will stay the same which in turn allows for deeper penetration. Is that the same thing are not , Iam asking because I have heard this feature explained a noumber of ways no two seem to be the same.
Hi Sourdough!
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