exnailpounder wrote:It's just too damned hot here to weld today. Lens fogging up non-stop. I will have to live vicariously through you guys till I can get back in the seat. Played with pulsing. 10 PPS about made me have an epileptic seizure bot 30 PPS worked really good. I knew my machine had pulse but I pretended I forgot about it. Now I have to learn some more...dang!
Interesting. When I bought my machine a few friends of mine said "Pulse? Don't bother with pulse, you'll never use it!" Well, within 3 months of starting to weld I was using pulse and loving it.
(Thanks Jody for the 'rule of 33!')
There are some situations where it really can make all the difference. Although yes, 10PPS will mess you up.
exnailpounder wrote:It's just too damned hot here to weld today. Lens fogging up non-stop. I will have to live vicariously through you guys till I can get back in the seat. Played with pulsing. 10 PPS about made me have an epileptic seizure bot 30 PPS worked really good. I knew my machine had pulse but I pretended I forgot about it. Now I have to learn some more...dang!
Interesting. When I bought my machine a few friends of mine said "Pulse? Don't bother with pulse, you'll never use it!" Well, within 3 months of starting to weld I was using pulse and loving it.
(Thanks Jody for the 'rule of 33!')
There are some situations where it really can make all the difference. Although yes, 10PPS will mess you up.
Kym
The majority of my welding is mig Boring! I used to tig weld years ago so I wanted to get back into it to do specialty stuff. I don't tig alot but I do enjoy practicing and keeping up with my skills but I never saw the need for pulse and to be honest I still don't. Certain circumstances warrant using it but in the day to day world, plain ole tig is usually sufficient. I kind of got really good with the pedal so I can do welds that someone else might want to use pulse on but thats just because I am old and set in my ways. I am definitely going to play with pulse more to see where I can save myself some time and aggravation but the reality of something coming in to me that I would use pulse on is pretty remote.
"Hey guys, today I had a welding job to do so I decided to use pulse. 33 percent on time, 33 pps....you know how I roll."
(Silence. Crowd looks at shoes. Cricket noises.)
A bit like when I roll out a half decent weld and come striding into the house with my hood still on, holding the piece in a pair of vice grips, grinning and showing it off to my wife, who looks up briefly from Facebook, raises one eyebrow and says:
"That smells hot. Don't drop it on the carpet, babe."
One of the frustrating parts of thin outside corner autogenous welds is getting the puddle to run in direction of travel. Hi speed pulse can help this alot.
I guess that pulse might be something good to learn for pulling yourself out of a pinch but I just don't like playing with all the different ratios that just seem to cause me to have to add more heat while doing little else for my welds. The way I feel about it is this: if I have to rely on some electronic brain to manage my thinking and coordination for me then I probably don't have any business doing it in the first place. I can weld up to an edge without rolling over it or blowing it out and it just feels natural to back off of the peddle and stay over the puddle to get it done. Can pulse speed it up a bit? Maybe. But at the end of the day I wanna feel like I accomplished something rather than having to rely on some electronic crutch.
There are however two things about my electronic tig gizmo that I favor highly.
1: Advanced Square Wave
And
2: Adjustable Hertz Cycle
Advanced Square puts a good bit more heat into the part than soft square. This makes welding aluminum a bit easier than with a traditional square wave machine.
I personally find that 120 hertz is much easier on my ears than most other frequencies and it definitely gives better definition to the puddle than does 60hz.
I bought my machine for it's advanced pulse feature which is supposed to be able to penetrate 25% deeper into aluminum than any other brand welder of the same power but so far I haven't needed to use it. At 225 amps I find that 3/8" aluminum is easy prey with no use of bells, whistles or helium (I do wish that I had helium though because aluminum cleans up so much nicer with it). I bought this machine with 3/8" aluminum in mind and if I do need to go thicker then I'll likely be preheating the parts anyway so that I don't have to tax the hell out of my machine.
IMG_20160620_191329192.jpg (31.24 KiB) Viewed 1724 times
I weld stainless, stainless and more stainless...Food Industry, sanitary process piping, vessels, whatever is needed, I like to make stuff.
ASME IX, AWS 17.1, D1.1
Instagram #RNHFAB
Coldman wrote:One of the frustrating parts of thin outside corner autogenous welds is getting the puddle to run in direction of travel. Hi speed pulse can help this alot.
I haven't had any trouble getting it to flow uphill or horizontally so far but I also haven't tried anything thinner than 18 gauge as of yet. I've been having serious problems with some of the tacks though and I can't seem to figure out why at this point. They sometimes just don't wanna conduct or wet from one piece to the other, even though the torch is pointed down and gravity should be doing the work, in a very similar manner to aluminum. I'm thinking that I should overlap them a bit more but I don't have anymore of the 18 gauge to play with.
MosquitoMoto wrote:Pulse makes for better boasting down at the pub.
"Hey guys, today I had a welding job to do so I decided to use pulse. 33 percent on time, 33 pps....you know how I roll."
(Silence. Crowd looks at shoes. Cricket noises.)
A bit like when I roll out a half decent weld and come striding into the house with my hood still on, holding the piece in a pair of vice grips, grinning and showing it off to my wife, who looks up briefly from Facebook, raises one eyebrow and says:
"That smells hot. Don't drop it on the carpet, babe."
Kym
Lmfao....sounds like we have the same wife
I weld stainless, stainless and more stainless...Food Industry, sanitary process piping, vessels, whatever is needed, I like to make stuff.
ASME IX, AWS 17.1, D1.1
Instagram #RNHFAB
Is this with the 25% background setting?
I do see the difference in the HAZ and in the coloring.
Yes 25% back, 75% peak
I weld stainless, stainless and more stainless...Food Industry, sanitary process piping, vessels, whatever is needed, I like to make stuff.
ASME IX, AWS 17.1, D1.1
Instagram #RNHFAB
Ok, I'm a believer. I got in a hurry to try it and buggered up one of the tacks. This is way better than I can do with stainless, sans pulse. The heat input seems to remain constant rather than building up and it is definitely faster. You can definitely make much longer runs on stainless with these settings thatn you can without them. Two pulses/second definitely zipped up the seam a little faster than 10 pps did without any extra width to the heat affected zone.
You can see where I dipped my tungsten in the center of the run on the first image. I just broke it off and continued welding. It didn't seem to make one lick of difference other than the tungsten inclusion being there.
Two pulses/second ran faster and looks nicer as a finished product (in my opinion anyway).
This has been the most revealing welding experience that I've ever had.
Thank you very much!
I don't think I did. This was the test and that grinder whooped my ass. This isn't the ugly one. 1/2" plate, open butt 90 degree v-groove with 1/8" land, 85/15 gas, 12" long, downhill That air grinder weighed about 30 pounds and it took forever to put those bevels on the plates. I was shaking when I finished and my forearms started cramping later. Old Lincoln Idealarc from the 60's that I had to get another guy in the shop to set for me because I couldn't figure it out. He set it while I was running a bead but it never did sound right. Didn't let the plate cool off nearly long enough and had metal dripping a couple of different times. Finally started using stringers because weaves were putting way to much heat in. I'll take a job if they offer me one but this really isn't my cup of tea. I seriously doubt they are gonna offer me anything.
RamboBaby wrote:I don't think I did. This was the test and that grinder whooped my ass. This isn't the ugly one. 1/2" plate, open butt 90 degree v-groove with 1/8" land, 85/15 gas, 12" long, downhill That air grinder weighed about 30 pounds and it took forever to put those bevels on the plates. I was shaking when I finished and my forearms started cramping later. Old Lincoln Idealarc from the 60's that I had to get another guy in the shop to set for me because I couldn't figure it out. He set it while I was running a bead but it never did sound right. Didn't let the plate cool off nearly long enough and had metal dripping a couple of different times. Finally started using stringers because weaves were putting way to much heat in. I'll take a job if they offer me one but this really isn't my cup of tea. I seriously doubt they are gonna offer me anything.
Wow they made you bevel your pieces. What'd they cut it with?
It was just a test to see if I can actually weld. They cut 3" x 1/2" flatbar in a shear. Went through it like butter. It was a serious workout because those pieces took me anout an hour and a half to bevel with that heavy grinder. I was boiling sweat as if I had just stepped out of the shower.
They make a lot of heavy industrial structural and mechanical stuff. The robotic welder was kinda neat to watch. It was hard facing a 50' x 4' diameter screw for some type of wood silo.
You can see what they do here. Really nice people who politely kicked my ass! http://www.shatonellc.com/
It's an ass kick separation test! If it was an ideal arc and he adjusted it while you were welding then the insides were likely already burnt up. That means the arc was going to stutter no mater how good of a welder you are. They were seeing where your limits were for skill. Big ass air grinders are normal in big fab production settings. They last longer if oiled and running compressed air is cheaper. Making you bevel your own plates was to see how good you were on fabing up your own parts. Another common practice in heavy shops. I garontee they were testing how you worked more than how you weld. I've been on both sides of those tests.
Poland308 wrote:It's an ass kick separation test! If it was an ideal arc and he adjusted it while you were welding then the insides were likely already burnt up. That means the arc was going to stutter no mater how good of a welder you are. They were seeing where your limits were for skill. Big ass air grinders are normal in big fab production settings. They last longer if oiled and running compressed air is cheaper. Making you bevel your own plates was to see how good you were on fabing up your own parts. Another common practice in heavy shops. I garontee they were testing how you worked more than how you weld. I've been on both sides of those tests.
In other words, they were seeing how hard you would work so they could hire you and then work your beanbag off. You were probably gonna get thrown onto some serious whip-crackin so take it for what its worth. I'm getting too old for that run, run, run shit...I'll get my shinebox and go home before I'll let some bosshole piece me out.
Where the super had me tack it on the table was from gonads to belly button......that really sucked because the only good position was the top three inches. That thing got so hot that i would have just walked out and told them that the job wasn't for me if I hadn't taken my tig finger and tig finger XL. I did a little bit of damage to my tig fingers but I never got the hot finger. I decided to try it at one point without one of the tig fingers and kinda smoked one of my stick/mig gloves. The mig tip was set back in the nozzle between 1/2" & 3/4" which made me unhappy right off the rip. I also have never had the experience of getting a mig nozzle so damn hot. The guy who set the machine for me said that they only ever use that machine for tacking parts and then they send the parts to dual shield for welding. I told he supervisor that I was finished and asked him what he thought about it after I told him that I think the two test pieces turned out like crap. His only response was, "you can make another one if you want". I respectfully declined because I knew that my forearms couldn't take another beating. He said the big boss would have to look at them tomorrow and call me if they were interested.
Whether they hire me or not, I am glad that they gave me the opportunity to test. It was a unique experience and it was just like Jody's videos, sans the good welding.
exnailpounder wrote:
In other words, they were seeing how hard you would work so they could hire you and then work your beanbag off. You were probably gonna get thrown onto some serious whip-crackin so take it for what its worth. I'm getting too old for that run, run, run shit...I'll get my shinebox and go home before I'll let some bosshole piece me out.
No one there was really busting their ass. They were, slow, steady and methodical. The supervisor was working harder than anyone because his position was more like short stop. He was helping anyone who needed it and getting pulled in several different directions by most of the folks there and also checking therir work.
But on the up side if you can stick it out at a place like that you will end up with some amazing experience! Just looked at there site you posted and that's a big variety of work. Putting flighting on an auger or replacing it will stretch your patience. You learn a lot the first time you warp one beyond repair while you think you are repairing it!
Someone in the area told my buddy that that place starts weldors out between $16 & $20/hr. He also told my buddy that the top guys make $28. They also have a cnc machining center there. I didn't really check it out but I saw it on my way to the restroom.
Poland308 wrote:But on the up side if you can stick it out at a place like that you will end up with some amazing experience! Just looked at there site you posted and that's a big variety of work. Putting flighting on an auger or replacing it will stretch your patience. You learn a lot the first time you warp one beyond repair while you think you are repairing it!
Yeah sometimes you gotta eat chit for a bit before relaxing. Id work there for the experince. Working there will only open up better jobs in welding.
RamboBaby wrote:Someone in the area told my buddy that that place starts weldors out between $16 & $20/hr. He also told my buddy that the top guys make $28. They also have a cnc machining center there. I didn't really check it out but I saw it on my way to the restroom.
It doesn't sound like a bad place honestly. Kinda like were I work. I'd try to test again if I was you.
Beveling a 3" price isnt bad. They could have been 8 or 12 inches long.
Boring! I used to tig weld years ago so I wanted to get back into it to do specialty stuff. I don't tig alot but I do enjoy practicing and keeping up with my skills but I never saw the need for pulse and to be honest I still don't. Certain circumstances warrant using it but in the day to day world, plain ole tig is usually sufficient. I kind of got really good with the pedal so I can do welds that someone else might want to use pulse on but thats just because I am old and set in my ways. I am definitely going to play with pulse more to see where I can save myself some time and aggravation but the reality of something coming in to me that I would use pulse on is pretty remote.
