After a week of TIG practice I feel like I'm finally making some good progress but I know I have much to learn. Looking for some weld critiques and advice, good, bad, and the ugly.
My setup is a Lincoln Square Wave 200 set at 55 amps but I have a little pedal left as I'm welding, need to film the display to see where I'm actually at. 1/16 Tungsten 2% lanthanated, Gas lens, 3/32 70S2 filler, Argon at 15CFH. Metal is 1/16 mild steel working on an outside corner joint.
I think I'm running a bit hot and I should probably be using 1/16 filler which would help with backing off the heat?
Your amperage setting is probably fine with 1/16" filler, but as you've discovered, the 3/32 is soaking up all the heat you have set available. Either increase your amps to 80 and use less pedal or reduce your wire size to match the amps needed.
Filler causes the pool to chill. You're needing the full heat because of the new material (wire) you're adding to the puddle.
I think most folks set their amps much higher than required, but use the pedal to "feather" the amount of amps being used. This allows more freedom and finer tuning while welding. Backing off the heat as you go becomes normal as the metal soaks up and accumulates the heat.
Definitely get some 1/16 as it is the recommended size and try both back to back.
One of the things that I had to break myself of was camping out in one spot on the pedal. I'm less concerned of the amperage settings are now and it is generally set to mid-high range of what those welding charts spec. Setting it high combined with some manual pulse drills helped quite a bit. I like the ability to romp on it and get a puddle going quick or unfreezing the puddle from a low amperage re-position. Reading the puddle will tell you how much pedal you need.
I did some experimenting with gas flow on 1/16 and cheap gas lens. It was dropped down to as low as 11CFH with sings of contamination beyond that. Maybe you can find some economy there while working with practice pieces.
Miller 350P w/Python
Miller Syncrowave 250DX - Beaterwave project
Hypertherm Powermax65
Hobby class lathe and milling machine
Try running a few passes at70 amps. Don't focus on the start but more on picking up on your travel speed. Then back down on your amps by 3 or 5 at a time till you find a speed that matches your pace. The initial results will be a bit frustrating, but after even just a few passes pushing you out of your comfort zone you will be amazed at the results as you back the amps back down.
Feel like I'm slowly getting the hang of things, still can't feed rod very well, just need to practice feeding filler while I'm watching TV. Looks less like fidos butt and slightly more like a TIG weld. All criticism and tips appreciated
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Lots of improvement from the first pics to these! Your on the right track. It’s just a matter of practice now. As you progress try to not change more than one thing at a time, IE amps,or rod size, cup size, joint angle, or many other things. This will alow you to see how much or little these changes affect things.
Thanks Poland,
Treated myself to a new helmet, Optrel 2.5 Vegaview with a 2x cheater lens, the difference from my old cheap hood is crazy I was basically welding blind. Here's my first weld with the new hood
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