Good deal. Now...any better luck with the welding?

I killed the power, disassembled the outlet and found that the previous electrician had used ALL BLACK wires and custom labeled them. If it was a 240V outlet, it would have had two blacks -- both hot -- one from each leg of 120V. And a ground. Since the legs of 120V would be out of phase, the volta...

That’s about the dumbest thing I’ve read. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with an inverter-based welder. Millions of them in production and running well for decades. ...and probably an equal number smoked within their first decade. Ya think there's any reason why posts about "smoked inverters...

From here it sounds like something was wrong with the welder, if it worked and then suddenly didn't work after leaking smoke.

Short of flat-out shorting it out and then letting it cook, I doubt there's anything you did wrong beyond buying an inverter in the first place.

Good luck.

Overhead ain't much different from welding on the flat. Vertical up on the other hand...

My understanding (and I'm far from an expert, so take it FWIW which ain't much) is that passivation only helps so much, and there's still the problem of carbide precipitation at the intergranular boundaries, and the only way to minimize that is to minimize the amount of time that the material is hot...

VA-Sawyer wrote:It all turned into a deep rabbit hole.

Ain't the internet great?

Lightning: Is the welder and lights sharing fuse/line? Thats the case in my shed. Well, both circuits come out of the same sub-panel, but the welder is on a 240V circuit and the lights were on a 120V circuit. As I said, replacing some of the failing fluorescent fixtures solved the problem. Now ther...

I've had the HF kill fluorescent fixtures that were on their last legs, but never LED so far, knock wood. For a while, the HF start would make fluorescent tubes go dark (or sometimes light up!) ... then it started shutting them off pretty regularly ... then it started tripping the GFCI breakers in t...

I'm far from an expert, but my understanding is that much (most? all?) of the problem is due to carbide precipitation, and the way to reduce carbide precipitation is to get in and get back out as fast as possible, because the longer the metal is hot, the more carbide precipitation you get. https://v...

Not really worth worrying about IMO. Plenty of great work has been done, and continues to be done, using 60Hz AC welding. FWIW, if you want a focussed, more narrow arc, a blunter point on your tungsten will work better than a sharp point. Counterintuitive, maybe, but true: https://i.pinimg.com/origi...

Handyman in Two Cans FTW!

Because changing arc length (voltage) will have a more pronounced effect on amperage on the "High" range than on the "Low" range, the "High" range should give you more dig when using 6011. On the other hand, if you're a beginner and not so good at maintaining a particul...

In general, the longer your arc length, the higher your arc voltage. After that, "it depends," and a lot of it depends on the Volt-Amp curve for your particular welder, and the slope of that curve in the amperage range you're using it. See: https://www.millerwelds.com/resources/article-lib...

Any time you bring carbon steel up to its flowable point and don’t introduce filler then you will create a weaker point. It also gets weaker when you do add filler, generally in the HAZ. But usually not enough to matter, or structures wouldn't be welded. Chips, you don't need to actually liquefy th...

Even the "standard" versions of the WeldTec/TecTorches are nice. Their WT-20H looks very much like a WeldCraft WP-20 but it has a bigger conductor and takes the full 310A of AC that my Sync250 will put out. I've heard that WeldTec/TecTorch was started by a guy who left WeldCraft and then i...

I don't know if I would say I did fusion welds. I held the torch close to the metal until it started to liquefy, and then I moved on. I didn't try to join anything. There was no filler rod. I was working in an area where there were no welds. This is defined as a "fusion weld". And his poi...

LtBadd wrote:Get a holder like this and use them down to about 1/2"

20190925_203531.jpg

Or use needle-nose pliers...

bap_ wrote:When you say ac balance at 10 is that cranked all the way? Try AC balance at 7/8?

+1 ... or even 6/7.

OP, why do you have the AC balance way up on 10?

just seems strange I wouldn't have heard more about the coolers in the videos I have watched. You simply may not have noticed the coolers in the videos. But if the torch was small, and the lines were real flexible (like more flexible than a telephone pole), you can bet they were water-cooled torche...

If you're looking to "buy something once," buy a transformer machine, not a Chinese lunchbox that you have to replace like lightbulbs...

I run a transformer machine (Sync 250) and 2% lanthanated tungstens work just fine on AC. I wouldn't worry about the nodules that form on the end, it's just the way it is. I think it's just a version of the "balling" that you get with pure tungsten, which I believe is caused by the "e...

Never heard of getting better corrosion resistance with 304 than 316 in saltwater -- the chlorides in various salts are tough on SS -- but yeah, a smooth / polished finish is important in either case, due to crevice corrosion. I've heard of guys "cleaning up" SS in saltwater with a wire wh...

I've used railroad spikes to make third hands. I took two 10" pieces of 1/4" steel rod and welded them to the pointy end of the railroad spike for the legs, then welded a 6" piece of the same stuff to the head of the spike pointing down. Kind of like this: http://www.weldingtipsandtri...