Nice! I'd have to dig out my old physics books to find out what the effective resistance would be of an ionised path through argon. Could well be low enough that the actual effect on any 'normal' welding distance variation is in effect pretty much 0. Quite interesting though as many docs and videos ...

Very nice to see the V/A graphs :!: Eg. you can clearly see the spike in voltage right after the crossover point where the arc need to re-establish (higher resistance) even though HF is helping to keep the ionisation. Once the arc path is there the voltage drops to the base welding level as the path...

Yeah.. I was kinda expecting the HF to be a headache there as far as voltage measurement goes as that basically indeed induces massive voltage spikes.

Thanks for trying anyway!

Bye, Arno.

Yeah.. Because the power source is being actively controlled and generating the actual 'signal' in an inverter welder and we're not looking at a traditional 'dumb' A/C source (like a bare bones transformer just 'translating' the incoming A/C sine to a different/lower voltage but doing nothing else),...

One thing that's always interesting to see would be an overlay of the amps with the weld circuit voltage on the same graph with these kinds of A/C or mixed curves to see if perhaps the volts are shaped like the described functions or not at all. As inverter machines (try to) control the various comp...

3-phase 62A at 230V input (assuming the 230V is between the legs of the phases and not to neutral) would be 24.7 kW.. Of course the others end up at the same value ;) That would need a 33HP industrial (rotary)phase converter to run on a single phase input. American Rotary lists a suitable unit for $...

Alright, I'll bite, why don't you guys paint trailers? because they are hot dipped galvanized. Ditto here in most parts of europe. Regulations around vehicle and trailer approvals make it time consuming for any individual to build a trailer and get it approved for road use, so most don't bother and...

That's exactly the use-case where 'seam sealer' was invented :D Used on spot- or stitch-welded parts that you still want protected and then possibly paint. It's like a super tenacious caulk that's designed to resist a lot of weather influences and be capable of being painted over. It also stays just...

while 3 phase to single phase conversion is always possible, whats the odds of having a single phase connection big enough to handle it. That will be the biggest question. Many 3-phase welders and cutters and such go that route when they exceed the current that a single phase can deliver easily. Th...

My thought was that silicon bronze with its lower melting point would be easier to braze the thick to thin decreasing the chance of melting the edge of the 20 gauge. Although true, the biggest challenge on things like this will be to control the inevitable warping that will happen to the sheet stee...

sounds about right. budget power supplies in those don't take kindly to drops in voltage. with the big push for efficiency many people here upgrade their lights to LED which then fail really quickly due to the budget power supply design. Not helped by the fact that in an effort to reduce cost and i...

Make sure to paint/coat the area after the repair as otherwise the more 'noble' stainless nut will start to create a corrosion ring around it on the mild steel if water gets involved. The steel plate basically starts to rust/corrode faster because of the contact with the stainless steel if it's allo...

Like many things, the red (thoriated), tungsten in it's 'solid' form is not a problem from a radiation standpoint. It's quite low dosage as the actual thorium content is of course limited. It's when you start grinding them and the dust gets into the air and that slowly works it's way into your lungs...

Prep and weld it right then it's fine. Eg. proper beveling, multi-pass where neded, etc. Eg. nice video's on basically using MIG (and sometimes dual shield) on massive excavator and other mining rigs stuff from CEE Australia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HANEJww4j8M He uses a lot of MIG as he oft...

i doubt the power requirements are very high. Yup.. The auto-darkening is quite similar to basic LCD operation in that an applied voltage, but only tiny, tiny current, is used to 'flip' the state of the liquid crystal layers in the lense and by playing with the polarisation and number of layers you...

Tried to figure out why I can't see where I'm going when welding. Bad news is, it's not my hand position. I can see the puddle clearly, but everything outside the arc light is black. I'll check the shade setting on my helmet, but I know I didn't set it very dark. I've always had poor night vision. ...

Problem solved. I believe there were cracks from the impact that were moving during welding that were not visible to my poor eyes. If you need to do more like these then perhaps get some dye penetrant kit (cleaner, dye and developer can): https://www.grainger.com/category/welding/welding-chemicals/...

Isn't it weird how women's welding gear seems to be so much more effective? Why do we have to gear up in full coverage clothes, gloves and such???? It's unfair!!

Bye, Arno.

The pump/motor combo is often the biggest cost when building one as it has to be one that can work at fairly high pressure/resistance and many of those are more expensive than a common impeller style garden pump which does a lot of flow but usually doesn't like too much backpressure. The flow throug...

Yeah, we were thinking along the same lines, but there was not even the tiniest amount of magnetic attraction when I tested them. Weird.. Must mean that they are an alloyed steel, but not a normal chromium based like 304/316 (aka. A2/A4 on nuts), or the nuts have been heated to very high temperatur...

Try sticking a magnet on the nuts. Likely they are highly magnetic and quite likely just plain (mild-)steel. Could be 409 'stainless', which will definitely rust and is not suitable for these applications, but as it looks like it's even rusting inside the threads that seems unlikely. Best option wou...

Yup.. Austenitic stainless steels like 304, 316 and the like are by default more tricky to machine as it won't make a good chip and tends to gall quickly. The advantage of these in fabrication though is that 304 and 316 and the like do not harden with heat, but can only be (cold) work hardened, so t...

The heat affected zone is another detail that's hard to understand. I know you don't want to end up with a large heat affected zone; but, I also know you don't want to be laying down a bead on cold metal. Is there a target I should set as a goal? 1/8", or maybe 1/4" on each side of the be...

Okay. But how tight is ideal? 1mm? 2mm? 3mm? 1/16"? 1/8"? Rule of thumb usually is to usually keep about the same distance as the thickness of your filler rod, but on thicker ones like 1/8" then closer is usually better as it keeps the heat focussed on the base material. What you'll ...

Using an 'Y' can work, but it would rely on the pump having significant over-capacity flow wise to feed both torches simultaneously. If it doesn't then the torch that has the least flow resistance will get nearly all the coolant and the other only gets a trickle and cooks if you were tyo weld with t...