Welding Tips and Tricks

I would like to pose a question to the experienced/professional TIG welder's out their.

Has anyone tried pumping ambient air through a water cooled TIG torch instead of water or liquid coolant?
Just think, if this was possible you could eliminate the coolant pump/tank, and thereby reduce the maintenance on the welding system.

Some experimentation would be required to monitor the air temperature exiting the out-flow tube.

I really believe that this could work.

Wob

This could be a great idea for a water-cooled flex-head torch. I burn through a lot of these.

An air-cooled flex-head will get hot enough to anneal the copper in the head.

A water-cooled torch never gets that hot, so the copper "work hardens" when you flex it, and fails. (Anyone with an air-cooled flex-head knows not to bend it until it's hot.)

I'll give this some thought, as I might be able to experiment with it. I have a source of dry nitrogen that could serve as a coolant. I suppose the flow would have to be matched to the amperage, to allow the head to get hot enough to anneal.

Steve

Steve,

I do not have a WC torch to test my hypothesis, I am running a #17 (150A) on a Lincoln Precision 225 (transformer/rectifier).

A small fan with an output necked down to the water input hose of the torch is all you would need.
The neck could be a long narrow funnel made-up with your choice of material.

If we eliminate the water cooler and coolant we could save $500 to $1,000 in equipment cost, and of course welding system maintenance cost. The fan and neck could be sold as an aftermarket component group for low cost, and still make a profit.

Wob

Wobulate, I'm not so sure. I use a water-cooled flex head at work every day, rated at 250A. It's smaller than my personal 150A dry rig, and will fit into tighter places. I suspect the airflow required to equal the cooling capacity at 100% duty cycle would be excessive. On the other hand, compressed air as a cooling source would not be "dry". I guess the next time a water-cooled flex head torch dies on me, (I biult a little "bypass" so I can finish my job before I change the torch), I'll give it a try. I suspect the next water-cooled torch in my shop will die in the next six weeks.

Steve

Steve,

Compressed air would most likely be the way to go, maybe 30 PSI (need to compute the CFH), using a filter similar to the one all plasma cutter users should be using. This would include a water seperator of course.

I will wait for your test results

Bruce

i guess you are using a lot of amps to burn those torches, right?

The vast majority of our welding is 75A or less. It's the amount of extreme flexing that kill our torches