Am I hurting my TIG welder?

Date 12-23-2007 22:04

Hello all,
I have a Lincoln Percision TIG 185 and im wondering if its a bad idea to hook up the stick stinger in place of the TIG torch so I can use the foot pedal to control the heat of the rod?
Ive tried it before once or twice just to see what happenes and it was rather intresting, but not knowing what it was doing to the machine I havent really tried it much scence.
The other day me and my friend found aluminum stick rods and we gave it a try and we found that the olny way we could produce a proper weld was to use the foot pedal to control the heat.

Is this method causing dammage to the machine? The olny thing I can think to worry about is the gas selenoid that I hear clicking around when the current starts... but I admit my knowledge of welding machine electronics is limited.

Im going to Vermont to visit family so im not going to be around till wensday,
So Merry Christmas and have a happy new year to all of you.
-Clif

By fbrieden (***)

Date 12-24-2007 01:55

Works for me.... try a pulsing attachment for 6010....NICE!

By ssbn727 (*****)

Date 12-24-2007 15:01

I would check with the technical support people from Lincoln first before making it a habit because, there may be a possibility that feedback into the internals can cause problems long term such as the machine's gas solenoid circuit giving some misleading feedback to the motherboard or the "Micro start circuit failing or both!
I may be incorrect as I have'nt worked on this specific power source but, it's better to be safe than sorry!!!

Merry Christmas to both Plasma-Brain & fbrieden, and their respective families :) :) :)

Respectfully,
Henry