Newbie with 200DX

[kpsxtyone]

Hi All,

New guy here with no tig experience. I was able to pickup the 200DX few days ago and I am pretty happy with my ventures to tig welding. Being from Toronto I drove directly to the warehouse in Burlington to test/pickup the unit.

Here are some pictures from day 1 to day 2 with about 1hr of figuring out what to do. Yes i did watch the videos from weldingtipsandtrick and I can say Thanks for all those tutorials that help people like myself and probably someone with more experience than a newbie.



day one - pulse off, 100 amp, freq and balance set like the pic above.



day 2 - more practice with same settings on upper right corner
lower right corner and left column - pulse on... im loving the pulse it helps me to get the rhythm on when to dip the rod



I am welding on a 1/8th tick alum plate with pulse set to 80 low and 130 high. Any recommendations on the amp for no pulse and with pulse? I notice that the plate is starting to warp. I am using 3/32 rods but do have some 1/16 rods to practice with.

Cheers!
Ryan

[performance]

Turn your AC balance fully left. Too much cleaning. 30% on this is all you need.

Pulse is really an average of amps, but the math gets complicated when things get skewed. A slow pulse setting is best for timing dips, at the minimum settings. Amps are also dependent on your pulse time on. a 50% setting is a good starting point and easiest to manage, providing a balanced time on and off. Lower the amps to 110, and 60 and post your results, other than that things look quite decent.

[dgarnier]

If you turn the AC balance all the way to the left, will the ecthing go away 100%


I found that 1/16 filler is just too small, for us rookies. I had to turn the AC freq all the way up to tighten up the spread and still had trouble keeping the puddle small enough that the 1/16 just dipping was enought to get the ripples. I plan to stay with 3/32 for a while till I get a better handle in aluminum

[kpsxtyone]

made the changes as per Marks suggestion

settings
I am not sure if half way is 50% for the pulse time on. What is the benefit of the Pulse Freq?


result - lower left
- noticed a narrower path (maybe due to lower amp setting 60 low / 110 high)
- dipping the rod was more manageable than original setting

[dirtyfarmer]

I don't see much difference in the width of the etching.

[kpsxtyone]

i turned the ac balance all the way left to -30 and no difference in etching. I was hoping it to be almost as small as the bead.

Is there something wrong here?

[performance]

A possibility is an issue with the speed you are welding. You really shouldn't try to learn with pulse. You should be learning to master regular steel first, then aluminum and the start to figure in pulse. If you are welding too slow, a wide cleaning area can be observed. When you adjust the AC balance, what clock position do you start getting good balling? What tungsten are you using? What gas flow rate according to the gauge on the EVERLAST Argon meter?

[dgarnier]

I didnt want to hijack the thread, but I also have/had the same problem....and from what little I have learned so far it looks you might have too long of an arc - the welding tricks ant tips guy said the thickness of the tungsten is a good rule of thumb for your arc length. Plus some of my first aluminum welds looks just like yours, wide and lots of ecthing. I had to turn the AC freq all the way up to get a narrower bead. After talking with Mark he suggested that I tighten up the arc length, ans sure enugth I was able to set the AC freq back to noon and get a narrower bead and well and slim down the ecthing.

I am running a 3/32 thoriated tungsten, and 10cfh of argon with a number 6 cup.
Here is the tungsten at the start


All 4 test were run AC freq set and noon, 90amps but using the foot pedal floored to start and then backing it down to 3/4 once the puddle gets going
Bead A has the AC Bal set all the way to the left
Bead B had it set to 9oclock
Had a bad start for bead C and got the tungsten too close, then put in another tungsten and ran bead C with the AC Bal at noon. After the down slope I noticed some somke from the tungsten, so I bumped up the post flow from 8oclock to 11oclock
Bead D I set the AC Bal to 1oclock and in my test run it balled up, so bead D started with the balled up tungsten. Not sure how people welded like that in the past because the arc really wanted to wander, unless I floored the petal.


And the tungsten after the bead from D

[performance]

dgarnier,
You will get even better results if you sharpen the tungsten back a little more.

[dgarnier]

To more of a point? or give it a longer taper?

[Timberwolf]

I think he's saying a longer taper. I sharpen mine with less of an angle like yours for better penetration and sharper/less angle for more precise work. it's balling because you're cleaning is up way too high (look at the etching in your pics) and the tungsten can't handle the heat so it balls up.

[kpsxtyone]

Thanks for the comments.. btw no worries about thread hijack its more than welcome so we can all help each other.

I was using 3/16 tungsten with red band. I will have to redo the way i sharpen the tungsten and post some results. I will try to make a video clip

[dgarnier]

Am I setting the amps too low? If you look at bead A you can see that in order to get the puddle going it took some time and the etching keeps growing, then as the puddle got going I was able to move along and the etching thins out to just about nothing, and keep in mind that I had the AC balance set all the way to the left for that bead.

I did grind a tungsten with a taper about 3 times the length and I can see how it help to keep the arc focused, but the odd thing was it didn’t seem to penetrate as much as the bead seemed to stack up more than sink in to the base metal.


Also good luck with the video - getting the focus, white balance to all work out so you can seen the arch is no easy task...or it just be my POS camera..either way I tried for an hour to get some footage and it all sucked

[kpsxtyone]

how are you able to set amps when using the foot pedal? When i plug in the pedal it just stays at 15 amps even if i crank up the main dial.

[sportbike]

There is no display of the amps when you use the foot pedal. The dial on the foot pedal itself controls the welding amps. Half way on the foot dial is approximately half of the amps (100 amps).

I experimented with mine by setting the foot dial and holding a constant arc length and watching the display when pressing the foot pedal (actually starting an arc and maxing out the pedal while watching the machine display, not the arc...)

John

[dgarnier]

I guess the 200DX and 250EX are not the same display. While doing some video tests I was able to watch the display as I worked the petal, and it looks like it does display the changing amps, but in up slope and down slope it does go -130 then if the slope is long enough it will disply the right amps.

If when you plug in the foot petal I am pretty sure you need to make sure the rocker switch is in the 2t position. Then the main amp dial will set the max amps when the foot petal is floored. If yours is stuck at 15, I would give support a call or email

[performance]

The 200DX will reflect actual amps when the unit is welding. Otherwise you might be confused by seeing a negative number. The rheostat on the foot pedal controls the current on the DX.

[Injected65]

The 200DX will reflect actual amps when the unit is welding. Otherwise you might be confused by seeing a negative number. The rheostat on the foot pedal controls the current on the DX.

Do all of the tig machines operate the same way when using the foot pedal or do any have the adjustment on the front panel as seen on the domestic welders (ie Lincoln, Miller, etc...)?

Chris

[performance]

225lx and 250 ex adjust on the panel just as other units do. However, not all domestic models have always adjusted this way.

[Injected65]

I guess I haven't run into any domestics that didn't adjust on the front panel. Knowing that the 225 has that feature makes we wish I had just ordered it over the 200 but i'm sure I can manage. Thanks for the quick answer.

Chris