Welding Tips and Tricks

I have a ESSETI AC/DC tig rahter old must be 9 years ald inveter suare wave welding machine and i try to learn to weld aluminium . i cannot be considered amateur but not a pro either . There is always room for better . This drove me to buy this tig and made a member of this Forum . So when i tig weld alumium i see that my machine does not perfom well nor it has good focus . Usually i use 50/50 cleaning and penetration . To my knowledge i cannot make a nice straight stack dimes or similar . I did all possible adjustments with frequncy and cleaning mostly .Seems hard to weld properly and i must have the tugsten electrode to close to the edge of ceramic tube. 0.5 mm of flush with it . Does anyone has any ideas how i can improve this or it is due the machine charateristics.

You definately have the electrode too far up into the cup (ceramic tube). Extend your electrode out to about 3-5mm. Give some info on all your settings and material your using. Can help a little more.

50/50 cleaning penetration , 8.4 cfh of argon flow , Green pure tungsten tig needle grinded lengthwise , 60A current, the minimum pre and post flow .
ceramic is 9.5 mm or 1/2 an inch 12.5mm. The starting of HF is bad I have to touch the ceramic of vertical say 80 degrees tungsten needle 1mm to earth metal to be welded , I was told it helps earthen static electricity , of torch , to promote starting of arc.
But I see not much of spark of HF jumping out of torch as in another STEL DC tig I have .The Arc starts rather always and better when hot or after initial starting , I cant think of something else but im willing to add if it is needed.I have tried all variations to improve performance but I have run out of ideas.
Eventually I thought that this is it not nothing else can be done ..Also and essential note is that when I pull out the tungsten needle, then on the top of the weld paddle a grey color apers like oxidation dirt or insafficient argon flow but it is not cured if I increase he flow of argon.
Thank you foro your interst to help jpence38 i arpeciate it .

60A is way too low for aluminum, unless you're welding beer cans.
Half that AC is going the wrong direction to melt aluminum.

Whatever Amps you'd use to weld that thickness of steel, double it and add 10%. Seriously. I'll weld 1/8" aluminum at 160A or more.

Steve

[attachment=0]best1.jpg[/attachment]

I have welded this with 55A and it is my best i have done so far , clean base metal 5sec preheat i would try for better .
You can be an artist but this does not mean that will aproach this possibility barefoot , without technical knowledge and a good machine to support it .
( this sample is made with 1mm thickness base metal , adecuate cleaning as you can see form the frost area over the welding puddle and rather thick welding rod , that means that
the droplel of melting rod is rather more in quantity so i cools the welding puddle and causes interupts in continuity of weld . thickness of welding rod is another story).The question ramains it is the machine that cannot produce good welds with 5mm tungsten out of caramic or it is something else .

essenti ...

Hi there,

Thats a nice weld. Just remember to bump up the post flow so it protects the electrode and weld pool while they are very hot after you finish welding. Also too much gas flow can screw you around because it sucks in air at the end of the gas cup/nozzle/shroud.


Mick

This is reply to my case problem , upon new evidence .Thank you Mick I take this as a compliment . As I have described earlier the esseti 200 ac dc machine seems that does not perform well when I extend the tungsten electrode more than 0.5 mm out of the ceramic nozzle . So after years and many hours of trying looks like that the turbulence inside the torch makes this mess or some how due to vaccum created air is drawn in to the weld pudle .When I use gas lens things are a lot better and goes towards the acceptable levels of decent working of my machine . This makes me pleased and I intend to keep my machine in service. HF high frequency seems a bit of a problem too, but it is acceptable it is propably due to leaks of HF current , rather normal to an old machine. I feel a lot better
Esenti

I sold it eventually and i bought a new machine FRONIUS , i do know if you know it but it is a poem , poetry . I go it to work to learn it it has 180 pages of manual . Eveyrhting is ajustable.

I give a sample of this new machine I recommend to everybody .It was a long piece broken and I add a piece of 4mm aluminium and I weld it.The purpose was to be as original but I made few mistakes and I go a bit inpatient I think I do better next time .The area the new piece is inserted it is where the tinny bubbles are,to get an idea . I used aluminium welding rod as a plaster, then I had to file it and polished it with emery cloth. For the friends need more details the filler rod has 5% of magnesium so the colour matched better.
Silicon 5 percent it is a bit dull i think . Magnesium makes it brighter. This was a good quality casting.
Any way the puspose was to announce my new machine and things now are a lot better i have a mchine i can rely on .

ESENTI ..

Hi, You've come a long ways. Nice to see.. the side cover looks great.. What does the inside look like? Did you use a heat sink on the backside?

No it was not necessary it is thick 4mm and it was not a problem for support actually it was easier than I was expecting, the back side has some nerves as reinforcement that I did with tig also ...I got impatient I should be more patient .
I think because that this piece has a lot of surface and is aluminium so it has not problem to overheat … it needs though good skill and patience with a form of little time intervals during welding so some form of heat to dissipate.
Esenti ...

That's great work, especially considering the oil that casting has seen.

I'm pleased you're so happy with the new Fronious!

Your English is good, as well. May I ask your native language?

Steve S

Dear Steeve S i prefer it to be anonymus like the others no labels . Your english are good too also you write well .My work is good but i trying for better , this time im trying to find better gas and on the way there is also a good water cooled torch . ( parweld makes good torches ).I will ttry to make my own tig water cooler . Also i will try with Helium ...Maybe we can try to do something private if you insist.

Esenti

Anonymous is fine, I was just curious.

Sometimes I can guess a person's native language or language group by their sentence structure when writing English. You've got me stumped.

Steve S

I think it is better . good to see that your replay insinuates that degree of inteligence.

ENTROPIA ......DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD............
One thing you cannot see is entropia which is the thermal content of a metal or in anything else ,melting is when the heat has heated base metal to the melting point . You start your welding well then the piece heats up if the heat input is more than the base metal can dissipate THE METAL CAN stay in acceptable temperature lower enough from melting point ( heat is lost from radiation to environment mostly the higher temp the easier , metal surface is very significant and kind of material in aluminum heat travels 3 times faster than steel ) .
So it rises the moment is rises more than a limit the base metal has high heat content.( Note temperature is the indicator of the level of heat content in something, here is the metal to be welded definition of the temperature and heat in the form of energy and has to do with the degree of freedom of electrorns of matter).
So with little more heat from the torch it melts easily so appearance is less , metal tends to boil ,meltring extended or a nice hole .This is more obvius when the material is thin or it is very small in size You cannot easily control the heat to base metal, also worse oxidation takes place especially if the temperature of base metal is high enough and stays there or close …
This a problem it is not easy to solve .A back up metal aluminium type or copper Very low amperage just to melt , a lot of gas more than normal , water cooled torch (hot air stream from torch does not help ) and patience. maybe at moment you rest you hand a strong draft of air form a ventilator. Few extra breaths while you wait to restart and keep your patience. ( as french say :all the good things arrive to those who know to wait ).

Esenti

Dear Friends
I must correct the mistake i have made in my article about entropia , i did a mistake the right word is Enthalpy ..sorry ...

Eseti ...

Entropy?

The tendency for a system to become more disorganized over time?

My disorganized mind did a mistake. my intention was to write my thoughts over thermal content and oxidation but English is a bit of problem. I believe
heat is important factor in welding, from distortion to oxidation , note you weld with heat .Entropy is a very long talk and still not easy to cover or handle. In my school was ,the not convertible part of energy in energy conversion .It has not to do with welding , but since Einstein said nothing is accidental someone somewhere might need this ).
If I a had a go I would say this: When you weld, electric energy turns into heat energy and melts metal during welding , the heat is less in amount or not equal the electricity it had cause it .You pay 10 dollars of electricity to weld and you get 4 dollars heat and you cannot do something about it,but you must pay the bill how this sounds ...

Esseti

Nice summation.

The first law of thermodynamics says you always get the same energy from a system as you put in, meaning for every 1 KWH you consume, you might get 750 WH of work, with 250 wasted as heat in the machine.

Thia is the idea, about the fist law , i think it has to do with energy not being born not destroyed only changes form .