Welding Tips and Tricks

Hi Guys,

Found this site via youtube and it has helped me out a huge amount in my tig work. I have been mig welding for years but I recently purchased a Kemppi tigmaster 2500, with the pulse panel and water cooler. I have a few issues that I have already solved via the tig tips section on the web site:
-post gas was not long enough contaminating the electrode
-torch angle was lent over too much making my filler melt before it was in the pool
-etc

I am getting some really nice beads going now but I seem to sometimes have a problem with the HF start not working when the electrode is somewhere between completely hot and cold. When its cold it arcs no issue, then one its hot if i start it again with in say 15 seconds it is also fine. If I want say 30 seconds then i can hear the HF start trying but no arc is initiated. If i let the electrode cool completly for say another 30 seconds it will start no issue. I have tried this with toriated 2% and zirconiated 2% with the same problem. Using 2.4mm electrodes, welding 3mm ally plate at the moment. frequency 100 hz, post gas 10 seconds, about 30% cleaning action.

Any ideas?

If your HF unit has an "auto" setting, try that and see if theres any differance. Usually the only times I have problems with the HF is when I try to strike an arc with to long an arc length, but I'm usin a Lincoln PrecisionTig 225. Check your work cable and be sure nothins loose, and be sure it has a good connection to your work piece/table.

Not sure how your HF works but most of them use an air gap contact inside the machine. It could be that the machine is getting hot and the air gap changes enough to make it hard to start. If you have or can hunt down the manual for your machine it should show you the procedure for setting the gap.

Another thing that works is just tapping the tungsten on the work piece a couple of times before you start the arc. This will correct the polarity and it should start right up. The guy I got my Lincoln from told me about that and said that everyone with Lincolns has the same problem. Ha, now I know what that problem is. They won't read the manaul.

Have sort of helped with this issue, cleaned all earths, also keeping the electrode semi sharp and ground up almost means it starts every time. How often should you grind up an electrode?

the electrode should be grinded when it's contaminated, even if it looks ok but u know u diped it just a litle bit u need to grind it again.
with the right size electrode, enough pre/post flow, u can weld hours , still i like to start the day with a newly grinded one.

some types of tungsten may give better starts with some machines, i welded years only with ceriated tungsten WC20 but recently went to the shop and they had none ,so i had to buy diffrent stuff, light blue (it says turqois on the pack) the guy at the counter told me it's special for SS , and i must say it works a lot better then ceriated (for SS), it droped the bad starts from anoying to 1 or 2 per day
All this with my overpriced ac/dc inverter, on the other hand i have a cheap 140A dc inverter witch starts perfect every time , but i can't use it for pipe welding cause it has no controls other then a crude downslope knobe.