Trouble shooting a problem part 2

If a quick mental check of things you have or haven’t done doesn’t resolve a welding issue, the next course of action is to check for environmental problems. Environmental problems consist of things like contamination, drafts, magnetic fields, moisture and  even low  or high power input issues. The environmental aspect can be difficult to diagnose.

Sometimes there may be more than one issue at play. You could be experiencing a contamination of shielding gas along with a contamination of the metal or tungsten. It could be an issue with an unknown metal and weldability. In fact the environmental picture may end up being very complex, but it is worth working through. The process of elimination combined with logical reasoning  is about the only way to do it.

A very wise, very mechanically oriented man, once told me to ALWAYS check the simplest thing first, because that is usually where the problem lies. I have found a lot of customers will jump to the worst conclusion because they thing examining the simple issue may be simple or irrelevant, but I can assure you,  most often it IS the simplest things that cause the greatest amount of trouble.  Whenever I have abandoned this principle, it has often come around to haunt me. Go over the basics, like checking the voltage, make sure your gas flow is set, check the wires on the plug and other easy to do things first before you panic and dial the hot line to tech support.