Welding Tips and Tricks

Hi all,

If this topic is already discussed in detail in another post please feel free to direct me there.

It appears to me that information on the web about the subject topic is hard to find. Can someone give me the basics of the pulse setting for ally mig. I’ve set the machine up to lay down some nice fillet welds on 3mm ally with approx 20.2 and 15 m/m wf.

The guy that sold me the machine said this is the starting point then introduce the pulse to see how it affects the weld.

Soooo... my question is how are these settings applied

Pulse v/a (peak volts)
Pulse duty
Base v/a
Pulse frequency

Love to know peoples settings and ideas to get smooth perfect beads

Cheers


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You won't get smooth perfect beads with aluminum pulse on MIG, so get that out of your head, lol. With single-pulse you get fine ripples, so the advantage is not with the bead appearance, but it is with the ability to weld thick and thin materials, and can be fine-tuned for out-of-position welding. With double-pulse, then you can start to challenge the aesthetics of the beads compared to TIG, but it will not be equal to the cleanliness of TIG.

I have a few machine that have pulse capabilities, but the actual pulse sequencing is already programmed for the wire type by the factory. So while I do not have experience actually setting the individual pulse parameters that define the pulse waveform, I can look up that info in some files I have saved on my laptop.

In the meantime, please disclose: the numerical ranges that you are allowed to set on your machine for those four parameters you mentioned (pulse peak volts, pulse duty, base volts, pulse frequency).

all the machines i've used have all the pulse setting pre programmed. on my basic machine you can't change it, you can only change wfs and volts. its also pre programmed for a certain wire size as well.

Awesome thanks for the info.

The settings I have to play with are;

Pulse v/a (peak). 14 - 27.5
Pulse duty. 10-90%
Pulse frequency 10-240hz
Base v/a 14 - 27.5

Inductance 0 - 100%

Here is a paper that I had downloaded describing a particular methodology

Experimental Approach to Selection of Pulsing Parameters in GMAW-P

I haven't needed to use it,since my machines are already programmed, but I haven't found anything else in more "laymans" terms. Which is the welding machine that you are using? Not too many have fully adjustable parameters to define the pulse waveform.

Thanks for the info. Thats a good article, very informative. No need to worry about describing things in Laymans terms, I have a very good understanding of the green steam.

The machine is a metal master 250, Not super budget but middle of the range coming in at a few $K

CamPaice wrote:Thanks for the info. Thats a good article, very informative. No need to worry about describing things in Laymans terms, I have a very good understanding of the green steam.

The machine is a metal master 250, Not super budget but middle of the range coming in at a few $K

Looks like a nice machine. I had been looking around to see which ones had fully adjustable pulse parameters, but there isn't too many unless they are big Miller power supplies that still need a feeder.

How has this machine worked out for you with the manual pulse settings?