hey guys a new guy here,i am coming to you guys in hopes you can give me some help,your about my last hope.i am new to welding,own a thermal arc 185tsw tig machine.ive called them and not gotten much help,the problem is i can weld aluminum with no problem at all,in fact looks pretty darned good.with stainless .064 round tubing.i can see my weld pool real well with aluminum,i have a hard time for some reason controlling the filler rod and torch without creating these massive balls that totally defeat the purpose of using a tig,these pipes have to look nice and im stuck.i thought it was amperage,but if i crank it up,i burn a hole in the tubing.i have been using 70 amps and causing the ugly welds.i just cant seem to direct or control the weld puddle with steel,any suggestions?im using straight argon,1/16 red tungsten,1/16 filler rod.if any of you guys can give me suggestions,id really really appreciate it.
Hello turboshelbydak, forgive me but I had a difficult time reading your post to understand your exact question. If I got it correct you were saying that you could get the aluminum to weld ok but not the stainless steel. I can only guess that maybe you're not changing the polarity to the correct position for welding the stainless and possibly you're not preparing the end of the tungsten correctly either. First off be sure that the machine is set to straight polarity, if I remember correctly on the particular machine that you have, there is a selector button that selects the polarity connection, if that is the case be sure that this button has been set for straight polarity. The tungsten should be clean and free of contamination from hitting it with the filler rod or dipping it in the puddle, it should be ground to a point or have the point blunted off just slightly. Also look at the selector that determines the high frequency output of the machine, this should be set so that this is only initiated at the start of the weld. The machine that you have has a number of features that need to be paid close attention to before welding with it, look over the user's manual carefully to be sure that you have selected the correct features for the particular type of welding that you are doing. Good luck and Regards, aevald
hi,thank you very much for the help.i thought that might be the case as well,it sounded like the polarity might be reversed,so i checked and it is set on dc,the one thing i was unclear about is the torch and ground source,where they connect to the welder,i tried to see if the leads could be swapped and they did,so im wondering if maybe i have the leads backwards?the users manual is very basic and not much in the way of details.the one input says "torch ac+" and the other side says "work source-ac,is it possible to switch them?im starting to think ill never be any good with steel,aluminum is a breeze though.i made sure the toungsten was fresh and pointed also.i always hear people say aluminum is much more difficult to weld,but the weld pool is much slower and far easier to control than with the steel.is that normal?
i just went and tested it out to be sure,and no the leads are connected correctly,i switched it around and it melted the electrode.i did however adjust the pulse width to 50 from 60 and the frequency to 25 from 30,it seems to help a little.the pulse width is used to measure the amount of time in between peak and base current is that correct?the frequnecy is not real clear to me,could these settings help control the weld pool?i read the manual and it said for .062 stainless to set peak amps at 80,base at 30,pulse width at 60 and pulse frequency to 30 with a 1/16 tungston and 1/16 ss filler rod.to slow or control the pool more would i increase or decrease the pulse settings?sorry for the 101 questions,im just at the end of my rope and dont want to give up tig welding.thanks for all your help.
Try ditching all of the frequency controls. SS is typicaly welded with DC straight polarity (60Hz in 60Hz out I'm assuming). If the electrode burns up your backwards. Sorry I've forgotten + & - arrangement but my machine has arrows pointing to straight and reverse.
Back to your problem I would try to back purge. You will need to pull off another argon line (Oh yea straight argon preferd) put in one end of the pipe, tape the other end and pop a hole with a rod. The purge needs very little flow and if set to high will blow out the weld as you close it up. Good luck.
I'm not a TIG hand so really I'm asking others if this is not so. Say you set up a situation with a backing bar, or perhaps just a lap weld so as to eliminate the effects of the atmosphere on the back side and are able to successfully weld that. Would that not indicate the likelyhood that back purge would be successful without the rather more involved experiment using actual back purge?
Bill
You shouldn't have the pulse set at all to weld carbon or stainless tig. I would switch that feature off. What Bill said about setting up a lap joint makes sense as you have less worry about contamination on stainless and really you should be working with carbon steel until you start to get good.
From your first post, it sounds like you are simply aiming the tungsten out away from the joint you are welding......this is why you are balling up the filler wire. With aluminum you can get away with that as you stated "weld pool is much slower" but really it is because the welding current(AC) is not as concentrated. That is why you have a ball on the tungsten.
IF you are welding .064 stainless tubing, why would you be adding wire? If you can make square cuts to make up the joints( the ONLY way to go) than you should not have to add any filler wire.
Can you walk the cup?
70 amps is pretty high for that wall stainless maybe you cut back to 45-50 amps. You really need an inside diameter purge to make a sound butt weld other wise even if you manage to make the outside look nice, you'll still have a crappy contaminated weld which is anything but stainless on the inside. Maybe if you practiced on flat , straight material until you get the jist of what is going on with tig welding stainless, than yo can switch to something with a radius and you'll find you are improving faster.
Forum
