Welding Tips and Tricks

Back in the late winter or early spring I was approached my local welding salesman and he said Lincoln was looking for people to bata test their new TIG machine, like he had to ask if I wanted to. Well it arrived today. I was only had a little bit of time on it today but so far it seems pretty sweet! Kids loved it. I'll have more time tomorrow, figured I would read the manual tonight. Even though I did not read the manual setting up was pretty much a no brainer, AC easy to setup and pulse was too. 400 max on the AC frequency.
Don't ask, because I have no clue when it will be available or how much it costs, I will be meeting with the Lincoln product manager Wed.





Nice torch, the first foot or so of the cover it leather.

I like this

The display has a white readout and is really bright, and this was on the low setting.


John

Wait until I call my rep, he will get a ear full as to why I don't have one!!!

Looks cool, how do you like the arc characteristics compared to other machines?
-Jonathan
Edit; matter of fact, I will just copy him in on this post. Where's my machine at Buster???

all those setting seem way over my head.

motox wrote:all those setting seem way over my head.

Not at all, pretty simple. When you press something the readout tells you what it is or something is lit up.

Superiorwelding wrote:Wait until I call my rep, he will get a ear full as to why I don't have one!!!

Looks cool, how do you like the arc characteristics compared to other machines?
-Jonathan
Edit; matter of fact, I will just copy him in on this post. Where's my machine at Buster???

I don't know how many they released?
Over the years I have used an awful lot of different TIG welders, cybertigs, cyberwave, other Hobarts I can't name, syncrowaves, dynasty, precision tigs, invertecs, other Lincolns I can't name (must be getting old...) Esab, Linde Thermal Arc and an old Miller transformer rectifier with a high frequency box. The Invertec V310T is by far my favorite, I think this new one is going to be at the top of my list or a close second, I need to mess around with it some more.

My rep took a look at this post. While he can't give out details he did tell me that it is made here in Cleveland, Ohio. I bring this up because I have heard elsewhere that they think most Lincoln's are made over seas or Mexico. The small hobbiest machines are made in Mexico but the bigger ones are the states. I will push him as hard as I can to try one out. I course they should have one at FABTECH as well. When you are done you can send the machine my way He also reaffirmed that these machines are not yet available to the general public.
-Jonathan

Dang. Break out the GMAW gloves and sunscreen if you push it up to 375 amps!

Superiorwelding wrote:My rep took a look at this post. While he can't give out details he did tell me that it is made here in Cleveland, Ohio. I bring this up because I have heard elsewhere that they think most Lincoln's are made over seas or Mexico. The small hobbiest machines are made in Mexico but the bigger ones are the states. I will push him as hard as I can to try one out. I course they should have one at FABTECH as well. When you are done you can send the machine my way He also reaffirmed that these machines are not yet available to the general public.
-Jonathan

I'm not sure I will ever be done with it
The v310 t was made in Italy and maybe the v200t too.

Artie F. Emm wrote:Dang. Break out the GMAW gloves and sunscreen if you push it up to 375 amps!

I stomped it down today and just started shoving wire in,never got close to 375 it's a monster!

Nice.
Water cooled and all.

Sent from my SM-T537R4 using Tapatalk

Looks like a monster. What AC wave shapes are available and also is that independent amplitude adjustment I see?

When you start pushing plus 300amp loads what is the typical setup for tungsten size, gas flow etc?

My Dialarc 300HF goes to 315 I think but I never get to that point for the material I weld so I just use 3/32 for all my stuff.

Oscar wrote:Looks like a monster. What AC wave shapes are available and also is that independent amplitude adjustment I see?

The usual, sine, square, soft square and triangle. By independent amplitude I'm assuming you mean independent adjustment of dcen and dcep, yes it does have that.

Very cool. Can't wait to hear more about it!

Basically verifies another post that lincoln was discontinuing the invertec series. Best feature. On switch on the front of the machine!

The Lincoln TIG Product Manager and someone from Machine R&D made the trip over today to talk about the machine. I didn't want to say much until I spoke to them to make sure it was okay. Not that I was ever told to keep it hush hush or anything. Sounds like they are all packed up and ready to go and the official announcement is coming soon. So if anyone would have a question I would try to answer it. This thing is awesome, stupid simple to use or as complicated as you want to make it if you want to really tweek the AC wave or the start current.

WTFH wrote:The Lincoln TIG Product Manager and someone from Machine R&D made the trip over today to talk about the machine. I didn't want to say much until I spoke to them to make sure it was okay. Not that I was ever told to keep it hush hush or anything. Sounds like they are all packed up and ready to go and the official announcement is coming soon. So if anyone would have a question I would try to answer it. This thing is awesome, stupid simple to use or as complicated as you want to make it if you want to really tweek the AC wave or the start current.

Does it have the same level of advanced feature set that the Dynasty has via it's sub and hidden menus? Also did it have a way to save multiple programs? I had a V205t. And it sucked not being able to save programs

Does it have the same level of advanced feature set that the Dynasty has via it's sub and hidden menus? Also did it have a way to save multiple programs? I had a V205t. And it sucked not being able to save programs

I'm not sure what the Dynasty has so I can't compare the two. But by pushing and holding the SEL button on the front panel you will have access to the GTAW Menu. In there you can change the starting characteristics, wave shape and some as they call them trigger features. So I don't give inaccurate information I will check out the starting features today and write up something tonight. I played around with the starting features yesterday and like it a lot, but am not sure I accessed all of the features.

A little bit better explanation.

To access the GTAW menu you need to push and hold the SEL button on the front panel until the display shows GTAW MENU, same for the Stick Menu. Once in the menu if you continue to press and release the SEL button you can scroll through the menu. The first item Wave the usual shapes are located there and to change from one to the other you use the Control knob (the dial on the front panel). Next you will see DIA, this is the tungsten diameter and sets the starting characteristics. Sizes are .020 – 5/32 there is also and Auto setting and ADV. AUTO sets the starting values based on what you have the max amperage set at. ADV is where you can fine tune the starting characteristics. Items there are Starting Current, Starting Time in ms, Starting Slope in ms, Preset Current Minimum 2-25 amps and Starting Polarity EN or EP. The Exit Menu button is located above the Control Knob. Once you have exited from the GTAW MENU to scroll through the front panel graphic to check the values of pre and post flow pulsing info etc. you also use the SEL button. Doing this you can check the starting amperage for the tungsten diameter you selected. An example is 3/32 the starting amps is 40 and you can turn it down to 20 or up to the max amperage you have set if it is under 200, 200 seems to be the max starting current. The starting amperage for 020 tungsten is 5 and the minimum is the machine minimum or 2 same as above for the max. So each tungsten diameter has a different starting and minimum amperage. The default setting is 3/32.

I messed around with the advanced start settings and found I could keep a needle sharp tungsten on an AC start if I wanted. I usually just set it to the 020 diameter for both AC and DC just because there were other thing to check out and 020 worked fine.

Pulse, is pretty typical. I’m not a big fan of pulse, just seems to make the pedal mushy and less responsive but more forgiving I guess. I ran this lap on 0.047 SS with 0.035 filler and a 3/32 tungsten using a 50/50/50 pulse. Max amperage was probably around 150 or so. Kinda squirrely but it has been a loooong time since I did something that thin. The pencil it there for perspective and to cover up the area I got to hot because some bonehead kid tapped me on the shoulder to ask if he could go see his counselor…


AC wave variables are typical, Auto, Balance from 5% to 99% EN. But this is new to me, you can also control the EN and EP amps of the AC wave within the parameters of the balance, that is the balance doesn’t change. Since balance is a function of the time the AC wave spends on a particular side of the wave changing the EN and EP amps with further enhance the AC wave, pretty cool!

And after sitting idle for a while it goes into Green Mode and flashes that on the display. Cooler shuts off and the fan in the machine if it is not to hot but I’m not sure what else is shut down. Touching pedal or a button will wake it up immediately.

The display it a bright white with three levels of intensity and is easily seen through an auto darkener.

All in all I really like this machine, my new favorite! It will be a sad day when I have to give it up…..

Oh and nine memory slots. And since I'm hearing of a potential argon shortage. Post flow can be set to AUTO and the time is based on the the max amperage you have the machine set at. I used this today and never had a blue tungsten but never paid attention to the time it ran in relation to the max amperage I had set.

John

"Argon shortage" is a rumor, and only a rumor.

Argon is the ultimate "green" welding gas. It leaves the arc unaltered, and is then re-distilled directly from air. It would take a significant loss of capacity (the failure of 50 cold-boxes?) to begin to significantly affect the price of argon.

Remember the rumor of a helium shortage about two years ago? Helium is a finite resourse and is still so widely available that Goodyear still wastes a blimp-full for every major NFL playoff...

Steve S

Otto Nobedder wrote:"Argon shortage" is a rumor, and only a rumor.

Argon is the ultimate "green" welding gas. It leaves the arc unaltered, and is then re-distilled directly from air. It would take a significant loss of capacity (the failure of 50 cold-boxes?) to begin to significantly affect the price of argon.

Remember the rumor of a helium shortage about two years ago? Helium is a finite resourse and is still so widely available that Goodyear still wastes a blimp-full for every major NFL playoff...

Steve S

My local supplier is on a 90% allocation, if they had why not sell it? If their supplier had it why not sell it?

A portion of an email I received the other day, they get their gas from Linde.

We are experiencing an industry wide argon shortage. Air Separation Plants that produce argon have been operating at or close to 100% capacity in recent years. Industrial gas manufacturers have been swapping product to keep the pipeline full. Unfortunately, a few major argon producing plants went down.
We believe that argon supplies will improve around mid-December. There are new Air Separation Plants coming on-stream that will have a positive impact on supply.

John,
I'm not aware of any Argon shortage but I'll ask around. I know that the demand for Nitrogen and Oxygen are both up, this affects the amount of Argon that's produced. If there's a demand for more Oxygen then some of what normally would go towards making crude Argon will be left go with the Oxygen to up it's production since they're all coming off the same ASU.

There's not a real major "pipeline" per se for Argon. Most times Argon is made in many locations in it's crude form and then has to be trucked to other locations to be purified. If those plants are down then it will cause a short time shortage.
Unless there are quite a few of these plants down at the same time you'll not likely see anybody waiting on Argon soon.

I'm not directly involved in Argon production, but usually hear about what's happening in the industry in general. I'm on vacation this week, but will ask on Monday.

Len

Braehill wrote:John,
I'm not aware of any Argon shortage but I'll ask around. I know that the demand for Nitrogen and Oxygen are both up, this affects the amount of Argon that's produced. If there's a demand for more Oxygen then some of what normally would go towards making crude Argon will be left go with the Oxygen to up it's production since they're all coming off the same ASU.

There's not a real major "pipeline" per se for Argon. Most times Argon is made in many locations in it's crude form and then has to be trucked to other locations to be purified. If those plants are down then it will cause a short time shortage.
Unless there are quite a few of these plants down at the same time you'll not likely see anybody waiting on Argon soon.

I'm not directly involved in Argon production, but usually hear about what's happening in the industry in general. I'm on vacation this week, but will ask on Monday.

Len

Thanks for the insight Len, I'll be curious to see what you find out. I wonder if it could be a regional thing? Could be its to costly to ship it cross country or something. Hopefully others will chime in if they have heard similar from their local suppliers.

John

I know pricing is a regional thing because the price of Ar is ridiculous in NW Ohio compared to Pittsburgh PA. Like 2.5x the price. A 330 bottle in PA is like $40-50, whereas in Lima it's $100-120.

GreinTime wrote:I know pricing is a regional thing because the price of Ar is ridiculous in NW Ohio compared to Pittsburgh PA. Like 2.5x the price. A 330 bottle in PA is like $40-50, whereas in Lima it's $100-120.

That's insane!