Welding Tips and Tricks

Hi,

I've just started a 18 week tig welding course (1 night a week) an get to use a Kemppi MasterTig MLS 2300 ACDC.

We are welding steel at the moment, and I am having two issues - not sure if they are related.

1. When igniting the arc it 50% of the time seems to wonder for ~1-2 seconds before stabilizing, and
2. When welding (again about 50% of the time) time output of the machine does seem to match what is set on the machine. I had it set to 100amps and I would say it was putting out 40-50 amps at a guess.

Some more information
I am not using a foot pedal just the hand piece
I am using HF start
I am using 2T mode
The welder has the ACX panel

I used the same make/model of welder last year during the a different course and didn't have any issue.

Any suggestions??

Thanks
Paul

To symptom one, I would say the points need cleaned and gapped. (Assuming, of course, that this machine uses a Tesla coil to generate HF.) I would treat symptom one first (and take the opportunity to blow all dust out of the machine), then check if symptom two is still happening.

Had this recently with a Miller SW250DX, and a clean and gap was all it took.

Steve S