Welding Tips and Tricks

I use a gas mixer and my tanks are in the other room and plumbed out to the mixer. I have a single gas line that connects to the machine and the mixer has a dial type flow regulator.

I never knew exactly what the flow was because the valve on the mixer is just a dial valve and I really don't think it's all that accurate. I have a gas valve on my torch and just set the mixer high and used it. It worked o.k. but then I came up with this setup.



Here's another of the full cart -



The flow meter is a Smith Precision flow meter and the lens rotates giving you Ar, He, CO2 or Ar in liters. I keep a pretty good supply of fittings around so I can usually make up just about anything I need on the fly. The flat bar is a piece of 1/4 x 1-1/2 Aluminum. It's just bolted onto the side of the cart. Go to your LWS and tell them what you're trying to do and they should be able to set you up with the fittings you'll need.

I run the gas from the mixer into the meter at 100cfh then set the flow meter to what I want. The output of the meter goes into the welder at the normal gas inlet. This way I still have the solenoid to shut it on and off and it operates just like it normally would. I used a standard inert gas restricter on the input side of the flow meter so I didn't blow it out.

The coolest part about this is I don't have to keep getting up and down to change my gas flow, it's always right there at my finger tips.
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More pictures! That looks pretty cool dude.

The flow meter is a Smith Precision flow meter and the lens rotates giving you Ar, He, CO2 or Ar in liters.

How does that work? Sounds awesome.

kermdawg wrote:More pictures! That looks pretty cool dude.

The flow meter is a Smith Precision flow meter and the lens rotates giving you Ar, He, CO2 or Ar in liters.

How does that work? Sounds awesome.

The lens on the flow meter has multiple graduations embossed on it. As you rotate it the scale changes to whatever you need it to be. The scale is on a glass tube that sits on the outside of the inner sealed tube as best I can tell. I've been using it for a couple of days now and it is the cats meow for sure. Not so much the gauge, you could use any gauge but having it right there at my finger tips lets me make adjustments really fast. That really comes in handy when I bump up from 80/20 to 50/50 and need to add more flow.

I'll take some close up shots tonight when I'm back in the shop.

Ahh I got ya. Thats cool man!!

Steve - does the pic above show that translucent blue air hose that off-gasses contaminants into the shielding gas stream, you were warning about in another thread? Thx

jakeru wrote:Steve - does the pic above show that translucent blue air hose that off-gasses contaminants into the shielding gas stream, you were warning about in another thread? Thx

Yes, it does. I've changed all that out now.

Do you use 2 check valves between your tanks and the flow gauge? I saw recently in a Welding Video
http://www.everlastgenerators.com/#. . . . should be OK to post the link here as it is a 'Weldingtipsandtricks' video.
where a man mixed his gases using a regulator and flow gauge on each tank, running these lines into a wye with check valves of each wye side.
The video doesn't show if there is a flometer at the welder (I think not). The instructor claims it is real good with thicker aluminum.

footboarder wrote:Do you use 2 check valves between your tanks and the flow gauge? I saw recently in a Welding Video
http://www.everlastgenerators.com/#. . . . should be OK to post the link here as it is a 'Weldingtipsandtricks' video.
where a man mixed his gases using a regulator and flow gauge on each tank, running these lines into a wye with check valves of each wye side.
The video doesn't show if there is a flometer at the welder (I think not). The instructor claims it is real good with thicker aluminum.

I use a Smith Gas Mixer rather than a Y adapter and check valves. I tried that method but I wasn't very successsful at getting the mix I wanted repeatedly. There are a lot of reasons why the Y valve system isn't all people say it is. One obvious reason is trying to read just few cfh of helium flow on a flow meter. The ball barely moves at 80/20 mix.

The Smith is a set of dual valves and a gear drive system so as long as its in Calibration the settings are pretty much by the dial. The flow side of the mixer is just a valve with a dial knob so this is why I put the flow meter on the machine. Now I set the mixer to around 25cfh on the dial and then fine tune it with the flow meter. The Smith is a 1200.00 investment but in my opinion, worth every penny.