Welding Tips and Tricks

got out of tig school a while ago. The school was more industrial oriented but my needs are fabrication in the racecar industry cm ms stainless al. I am always practicing and researching info via videos. I can lay a good bead (I won't say perfect) my question is I see all the vids of foot pulsing when is it needed and not? Most of the fab stuff I have done is rather large thickness and I can get a good handle on heat control with the pedal But maybe this is my link between good and great.I know mine and many machines come with pulse but does this give more control as when you need it and don't? I know and have experienced how aluminum is an incredible heat sink and requires more pedal control than steel. Does pulsing work better than watching the puddle and determining when to ramp down and up or is it an extreme of the same. I am just STILL a noob trying to grasp the process.

Hello there. I only use pulse on the thin stuff and when welding on an egde or putting a cap on a pipe as it keeps you from melting the egde. Its a good tool to use but its not a substitute for skill. You can pretty much make a similar looking weld by dabbing your wire in the puddle faster. i dont use a foot pedal its not that common where i live so i dont know how that and pulse works but i hope you got a somewhat good answer out of my reply

i use pulse for almost everything...


super high pulse on stainless sch40 pipe for manifolds, 300-400pps
aluminum .7 pps
sch40 to 1/2" thick mild steel flange, 30pps

on aluminum i use it to maintain a consistent bead size but still use the food pedal to maintain heat and control the puddle size even more. ill go through about 2lbs of 1/16 aluminum filler rod in a day so the pulse really makes my job alot easier in the long run. i can also use no pulse but then i have to focus more and whatnot all day long...not cool

low-speed pulse vs pedal pulsing is a preference thing. they're doing roughly the same job. the advantage to machine pulse is it evens out your times and amperage so you have less variables and can repeatably produce a more consistent weld. foot pulsing allows you to compensate more for variations in thickness, different geometry, ect. I don't use pulse on aluminum because what I weld on is not new metal, it's thin old crappy metal that's been bolted to a car for 40+ years. I also tend to prefer lay-wire on most aluminum because of the tighter ripples. the 'stack of dimes' look raises the bead profile too much for my liking.

the high speed pulse is a different animal. I haven't been able to experiment with that because the machine at my previous job only did .2-25 PPS or so (lincoln precisiontig 185).

pulsing of either method really helps keep the heat down in aluminum. alu requires a lot of heat to melt in rod, but it also suffers when overheated, so the pulsing gives you a compromise of keeping overall heat down and the welding heat high enough.

gurew wrote:i use pulse for almost everything...


super high pulse on stainless sch40 pipe for manifolds, 300-400pps
aluminum .7 pps
sch40 to 1/2" thick mild steel flange, 30pps

on aluminum i use it to maintain a consistent bead size but still use the food pedal to maintain heat and control the puddle size even more. ill go through about 2lbs of 1/16 aluminum filler rod in a day so the pulse really makes my job alot easier in the long run. i can also use no pulse but then i have to focus more and whatnot all day long...not cool

I feel for you gurew....2 lbs a day I wouldnt be able to stand up at the end of the week