[electrode]

I know about the recommended angle for the tig torch angle but, you see pics and videos of people holding the torch at way more than what the book says. I have seen recommendations of 10-15 degrees and others say no less than 60 degrees? So for the sake of conversation, what do you guys with more experience have to say about tig torch angles? Just for kicks I used a protractor to see some of the angles I use and I need to straighten up a bit.

[Oscar]

From the normal to the surface (perpendicular) it should be no more than 15°. Not sure where you (or they) are getting the 60° from. Maybe they are talking from-the-horizontal, but even that doesn't make sense, because they they are saying you can hold it 30° from the normal. That's way too much. Unless you're walking the cup, where the edge of the cup is in a "trench" and maybe that would permit a more extreme torch angle, but then again, I'm no pipe welder, that just what it seems from watching the pipe welding videos on YouTube.

[electrode]

From the normal to the surface (perpendicular) it should be no more than 15°. Not sure where you (or they) are getting the 60° from. Maybe they are talking from-the-horizontal, but even that doesn't make sense, because they they are saying you can hold it 30° from the normal. That's way too much. Unless you're walking the cup, where the edge of the cup is in a "trench" and maybe that would permit a more extreme torch angle, but then again, I'm no pipe welder, that just what it seems from watching the pipe welding videos on YouTube.

I guess what I was trying to say is that if you look on the internet there is a bunch of misleading (wrong) information out there. Check this link out and look at the Roadkill Customs image in the top row (3rd image from left in top row). I know the correct way but after seeing some video's online and other welding helper sites they don't practice what they preach. Pay attention to the torch angles on any welding video and you will see what I mean.

https://www.google.com/search?q=tig+tor ... 20&bih=897

[Oscar]

Yea I see what you mean. 30° from the normal is quite excessive IMO.

[noddybrian]

You can get away with it in corners where the argon is trapped at a push when access is limited on some materials but it's still asking for trouble - on aluminum no way - you just get balled up oxidized filler & poo welds - we all did it starting out ! angle is always more than you think it is so try for straight up in your mind & it's probably still 10 degrees.

[Olivero]

I just hold mine at whatever angle works for the weld I am doing, normally its straight up with a slight tilt..... Never measured how many degrees its at.

[Farmwelding]

I just hold mine at whatever angle works for the weld I am doing, normally its straight up with a slight tilt..... Never measured how many degrees its at.

Yep... Ideally no more than a 15 degree push angle but sometimes you need more depending on the joint configuration. Some repairs may require you to use some weird torch angle but probably not 60! Just depends.

[electrode]

Ok, so I see everyone agrees that the internet shows a lot of misleading info. My welding is fine but like anything else, there is always room for improvement if I want to post weld porn like those real pros do in the other thread. The reason I started this thread is because I see some serious tig torch angles even on Jody's videos sometimes and was wondering if it was the camera angle, or done on purpose to make the video more easy to see what he was doing. I wanted to be sure there is not any good reason for excessive angle other than when you just have to, or in a corner, or it doesn't matter as much as they say. Seems like everyone agrees the straighter the better. I tend to exceed 15 degrees sometimes (most of the time) if I hold the torch different. I normally hold it like a pencil but if I grab it like a hammer, the angle is always going past the 10-15 degrees for some reason. That is why I have been looking at getting a swivel head torch as I think it would eliminate that issue.

[Oscar]

A swivel head torch can help in the front-back direction, but if you're welding in the usual sense of Left-right, many times torch angle is simply because we need to see the puddle and its right under the tungsten, so angle-ing the torch just slightly off to the side is usually necessary.

[electrode]

A swivel head torch can help in the front-back direction, but if you're welding in the usual sense of Left-right, many times torch angle is simply because we need to see the puddle and its right under the tungsten, so angle-ing the torch just slightly off to the side is usually necessary.

I think when you get older and need cheaters and reading glasses and have light entering from the back of the hood, you angle the torch more cause you need all the help you can get seeing what you are doing. So the swivel head would still be good as I do a lot of tubing welding anyhow.

I was just thinking...it seems this angle question just came up recently because I was noticing I was starting to develop a bad habit and was trying to figure out why. I think I just did. My welder is to my left and I am right handed, but if I lay my torch leads/hoses over my lap they tend to pull on the torch. I never noticed it being a problem as I usually put the leads/hoses around the back and into the right but since I got a new dog that wanted to chew on everything, I did that different. Which brings another question. If you have a 25 foot set of hoses do you unwrap the whole 25 feet even if you are 6 feet from the welder? Or unwrap what you need?

[GreinTime]

A swivel head torch can help in the front-back direction, but if you're welding in the usual sense of Left-right, many times torch angle is simply because we need to see the puddle and its right under the tungsten, so angle-ing the torch just slightly off to the side is usually necessary.

I think when you get older and need cheaters and reading glasses and have light entering from the back of the hood, you agle the torch more cause you need all the help you can get seeing what you are doing. So the swivel head would still be good as I do a lot of tubing welding anyhow.

I was just thinking...it seems this angle question just came up recently because I was noticing I was starting to develop a bad habit and was trying to figure out why. I think I just did. My welder is to my left and I am right handed, but if I lay my torch leads/hoses over my lap they tend to pull on the torch. I never noticed it being a problem as I usually put the leads/hoses around the back and into the right but since I got a new dog that wanted to chew on everything, I did that different. Which brings another question. If you have a 25 foot set of hoses do you unwrap the whole 25 feet even if you are 6 feet from the welder? Or unwrap what you need?

I unwrap what I need, and a little more typically. I wrap the cables around my forearm for the most part, or try and hang them above table level so they are not hanging down pulling on the torch as you said

Sent from my VS995 using Tapatalk

[Poland308]

I only unwrap enough for it to lay on the floor nice so I'm not supporting any more weight than I have to. This keeps me from walking on the rest.

[electrode]

That must be it then. A long time ago someone told me that leaving the cables wrapped around the handles (Miller SW250DX) and not removing the whole lot, could cause an electromagnetic field and damage the electronics. I have always left what I don't need wrapped on my machine and never had a problem, although I did have a high dollar main board go bad that only affected high amp A/C welding, but it could have been bad from the factory and I didn't notice as I didn't do much aluminum with the welder. Worked fine with DC but when I started welding thick aluminum I was out of warranty and had to pay $700 for the part. I kept the old board as it works fine with DC and lower amp A/C. Anyone ever hear of the potential issue with the hoses left wrapped around the handles of a SW250 causing problems?

[Poland308]

I've heard about strange things happening when there is an excessive amount of coiled lead laying around when stick welding. I.E. several hundred feet of coiled lead.

[LtBadd]

That must be it then. Anyone ever hear of the potential issue with the hoses left wrapped around the handles of a SW250 causing problems?

With a few decades behind me, no.

[Otto Nobedder]

That must be it then. Anyone ever hear of the potential issue with the hoses left wrapped around the handles of a SW250 causing problems?

With a few decades behind me, no.

I second that. I've heard anecdotes and theories, but never seen evidence.

Stick-welding, as Poland mentioned, I've seen effects when a hundred feet or so are coiled up. The arc seems a little "softer". It may just be perception and not fact, but my theory is, the coiled wire acts as an inductor and dampens the high-frequency noise induced by the arc. Theory is a strong word... Let's call it a guess.

Steve S

[Oscar]

That must be it then. Anyone ever hear of the potential issue with the hoses left wrapped around the handles of a SW250 causing problems?

With a few decades behind me, no.

I second that. I've heard anecdotes and theories, but never seen evidence.

Stick-welding, as Poland mentioned, I've seen effects when a hundred feet or so are coiled up. The arc seems a little "softer". It may just be perception and not fact, but my theory is, the coiled wire acts as an inductor and dampens the high-frequency noise induced by the arc. Theory is a strong word... Let's call it a guess.

Steve S

That's pretty much right on the money, an educated guess. If a welding lead is coiled in a fashion similar to 3-D helix (the way transformers are wound), then it will indeed form an inductor, which means that when there is a rise or drop in current flow with respect to time, during that time there will be a voltage drop during which electrical energy is converted/stored in the form a magnetic field.





By looking at that formula, inductance (L) is highly on N, the no. of turns-squared. The fact that N is squared, means it is quadratic in behavior; ie: double the no. of turns, inductance goes up by a factor of 4, triple the no. of turns, the inductance goes up by a factor of 9.

For DC welding, this would have a large impact upon arc strike, where di/dt is greatest. For AC welding where it is changing 60+ times a second, inductance would rear it's ugly head on each and every polarity reversal and really soften the arc by killing the voltage at the arc.

[electrode]

That's pretty much right on the money, an educated guess. If a welding lead is coiled in a fashion similar to 3-D helix (the way transformers are wound), then it will indeed form an inductor, which means that when there is a rise or drop in current flow with respect to time, during that time there will be a voltage drop during which electrical energy is converted/stored in the form a magnetic field.





By looking at that formula, inductance (L) is highly on N, the no. of turns-squared. The fact that N is squared, means it is quadratic in behavior; ie: double the no. of turns, inductance goes up by a factor of 4, triple the no. of turns, the inductance goes up by a factor of 9.

For DC welding, this would have a large impact upon arc strike, where di/dt is greatest. For AC welding where it is changing 60+ times a second, inductance would rear it's ugly head on each and every polarity reversal and really soften the arc by killing the voltage at the arc.

But, could that destroy a circuit board behind the front panel? In my case the machine would shut down with an error 1 when welding thick aluminum. DC never a problem:

Help 1
An SCR overcurrent or undercurrent condition has occurred.
Turn power off and back on to correct condition.

I turned it off and tried to weld aluminum again at high amps and it failed over and over again. Miller said sounds like the main board. And it was. Of course I have read of many board failures on Miller SW 250's so my guess is that they were common at one time and I just got unlucky.

[Oscar]

Unfortunately, I don't know. Your best bet is to call Miller tech support.

[electrode]

This happened a few years ago and they said replace the main circuit board. I don't think they may have said it is best to not leave the cables wrapped around the handles but I also read about a lot of other people having to replace main circuit boards that were a certain revision so there may have been a bad batch of them at one time. So I found one from a re-seller for $700 and bit the bullet. The machine was out of warranty and had very low hours but that didn't help me any. I am pretty sure it was a defective circuit board or just popped a component the first time I cranked up the amps on AC welding.