Welding Tips and Tricks

Hoping for some advice. I tried some TIG welding on my inverter last year and it worked well. However, I've just set it up again in exactly the same way and the welding arc is terrible! The torch, the machine, everything is the same as it was last year. The only new element is the gas, a brand new bottle of argon.

As you can see from my image, the weld is terrible. The arc drifts around, it's noisy and the steel just melts, regardless of how high the amps are. Here's my set up -

DC inverter
Earth clamp positive
Pure Argon around 6 lpm (measured with flow meter)
Amps around 100 but I've tried altering it and it's still erratic
Everything is clean, there's no leaks...My gut feeling is that it's the gas as it's the only new element in the set up. I've called the gas supplier and they've never heard of a mix up before.

Any help would be much appreciated as I've wasted 2 days on this.

Thanks

Most definitely gas contamination in some form. If you are positive there are no leaks ANYWHERE, and you didn't dip the tungsten, and you have proper torch angle/technique, then it's the gas. Post a picture of the label on the bottle. Someone just had a similar issue and with the picture it was quickly diagnosed that he was given NITROGEN and not argon!

You haven't said what size cup you are using, but 6 l/min is likely not enough. Up it to 10 l/min and see if that helps.

Or wind / fan air movement. But definitely a gas issue.

Coldman wrote:You haven't said what size cup you are using, but 6 l/min is likely not enough. Up it to 10 l/min and see if that helps.

Thanks for your response. Cup size is 6. I think I've tried it at 10 lpm and it was no different. I've tried using my other inverter and the result is the same. So it's not the machine. The steel is clean so it's not the material. So it's got to be a problem with the hose/torch and it's many parts or the gas cylinder doesn't contain argon (which seems very unlikely but I can't test it without the expense of buying another cylinder and trying it out)

Poland308 wrote:Or wind / fan air movement. But definitely a gas issue.

Yes, I agree but it's 100% argon going into the hose. I'm tempted to swap the bottle for a new one but it could be a waste of $100. I've heard of problematic bottles but I've always thought they were a myth.
No airflow in my shop.

Go back to basics. Leak test every joint in the gas flow from the cylinder to torch with soapy water spray. If you can eliminate that you can then blame the cylinder.
Can you post a pic with all the settings you are using live?

Torch assembled correctly?
My friend put his collet in backwards, no gas flow.
Tungsten stickout too long?

I had similar issues when a torch body had the rubber on the back cap area start hardening and allowed air to be sucked into the shield gas flow.
I replaced it with a new CK handle and the problem went away.

So industrial metal, what happened?