Welding Tips and Tricks

Have to do some maintenance on my Syncrowave as have not encountered this before. It’s a 350LX pre slant front.

Last time I welded aluminium with it which was a while back everything worked fine. Went to weld some today and as I normally do pulled out some scrap pieces I keep for doing test arcs one and it’s welding like an absolute dogs breakfast. It’s like it has no cleaning action at all across the balance range. Very black very sooty. No weld pool at all just melts the aluminium underneath but does nothing to the oxide layer.

Going to check everything. Have tried different tungsten, Different gas flow, of course made sure my aluminium was clean.

Just thought I’d ask on here as I’m sure someone has encountered similar.

Not an expert, but the following are some things I would try if I had this problem
-Make sure the scrap/test piece is a weldable alloy (2024 & 7075 don't weld well at all, for example). If you have some test pieces that welded OK in the past with this machine, they would be pretty good to try again.
-Were you able to hear the high frequency before, but not now? Is it on continuously or inadvertently left @ "Start" as for welding steel. My high frequency hearing is gone, so this doesn't help me, but you may be younger.
-Check argon flow @ the torch.
-Try changing setup to DC (& high frequency start), then weld some clean steel. This would give a crude check that your argon bottle is not contaminated or one of the mixes used for MIG.

Leejohnson1313 wrote: ↑Sat Nov 26, 2022 9:08 pm Not an expert, but the following are some things I would try if I had this problem
-Make sure the scrap/test piece is a weldable alloy (2024 & 7075 don't weld well at all, for example). If you have some test pieces that welded OK in the past with this machine, they would be pretty good to try again.
-Were you able to hear the high frequency before, but not now? Is it on continuously or inadvertently left @ "Start" as for welding steel. My high frequency hearing is gone, so this doesn't help me, but you may be younger.
-Check argon flow @ the torch.
-Try changing setup to DC (& high frequency start), then weld some clean steel. This would give a crude check that your argon bottle is not contaminated or one of the mixes used for MIG.

Yeah I checked all the normal mistakes/things one would check straight away. I’m going to pull the covers off and give it a really good going over. I’m going to reset the spark gap and check the high frequency and go through everything. I’ll even get the boards checked if I have to. There is a circuit board specialist about 5 minutes drive from me who does repair on industrial controllers and custom circuit designs.

William --

When you figure out the problem (& solution!), please post (or email me, below) the results. I have a 1980s vintage Syncrowave 250, so may have future need for problem diagnosis & solving ideas. Fingers crossed, my machine continues to run well.

Lee Johnson
Leejohnson1313 [at] gmail {dot} com

Well I found one problem. I’ll clean all this up and get rid of the corrosion and put in new fasteners. The points according to the manual are the same as in the Dynasty 700, same part number.

Is there any chance you changed bottles since the last time you welded aluminum with this machine? A while back I swapped bottles and for a short time only welded on steel. The first time I tried aluminum it was awful....black soot, hardly a bead, etc. Luckily, I have multiple bottles and tried the one on my other TIG...zero issues. For whatever reason the gas was just slightly contaminated and worked on steel, but not aluminum. I'm guessing it would have also been bad on stainless, but I didn't try that.

Points shouldn't have anything to do with it since they don't change the cleaning function which is just AC balance.

G-ManBart wrote: ↑Wed Jan 04, 2023 2:52 pm Is there any chance you changed bottles since the last time you welded aluminum with this machine? A while back I swapped bottles and for a short time only welded on steel. The first time I tried aluminum it was awful....black soot, hardly a bead, etc. Luckily, I have multiple bottles and tried the one on my other TIG...zero issues. For whatever reason the gas was just slightly contaminated and worked on steel, but not aluminum. I'm guessing it would have also been bad on stainless, but I didn't try that.

Points shouldn't have anything to do with it since they don't change the cleaning function which is just AC balance.

Yeah that was something I thought about. I will see what happens when I get all the parts I ordered to rebuild all the points assembly. I did try the bottle on my mid with ali wire and it was ok so who knows.

This got put a bit of the back burner while I sorted some health stuff and had a surgery among other things. While I at it over christmas I ordered all new points assembly and everything so now that I am a bit more "alive" will put it all back together. While I am at it just because I am in there I am going to replace the gas line hose inside the machine logic being hose doesn't last forever and this machine is 20 years old.

But what is kind of funny and will confirm sometime soon when I have the energy to take care of it. But I talked about all this with the Air Liquide rep and asked him what the likelihood of a contaminated bottle would be. He said it would be incredible rare but has happened. He said just when I get a chance take it back and have them flag it as a potential contamination and they will check.

I just this last week in the middle of me going through my surgery stuff got an email from the Air Liquide guy asking for the bottle information. He emailed me today confirming that they did in fact have a bad batch of argon bottles and for me to swap mine out.

I forgot to update this for anyone interested. So between new points and a new gas bottle everything is happy again.

Glad you got your machine working properly. Did you happen to make the changes one at a time or did you just do the changes together?

BillE.Dee wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 7:15 am Glad you got your machine working properly. Did you happen to make the changes one at a time or did you just do the changes together?

Both at once but to be fair it needed new points either way.