Blinding Arc

[Cippee]

I am new to tig welding but I think I am getting pretty good. I can already weld aluminum pretty well. However one thing I can not figure out. Sometimes when I am welding the arc gets very bright. So bright it blinds me inside the helmet that I can not see past the flash to see the puddle. Is it contamination burning on the tungsten or the arc coming up the side on the tungsten? I would be very grateful of what in the heck this is. I have noticed it mostly on steel and in particular stainless.

[sportbike]

You likely should be using a darker lens.
What shade are you using?

[DaveO]

I was wondering if it might be an auto-darkening helmet with some kind of malfunction.

[Spike]

If anything happens while you are welding that flashes or blinds you to the point you can't see, STOP!
Stop and check your equipment, your settings, everything. Then sit back and rest your eyes until the 'burned image' goes out of your vision. That lasting, hazy, blur you see in yoir vision is Inra-red (IR) damage to your retina. It is cumulative and can detach your retina from the back of your eye if you get regular exposure to it over a long period of time.
Sodium and carbon are 2 things that burn incredibly bright and a brilliant orange when you put the heat to them. Usually you get a flash from them when there is contamination while you are welding. If you touch the tungsten to the weld puddle on accident you can get carbon on the tungsten (from the molten carbon steel) and it will weld much brighter than normal...
But a good welding helmet will still handle this without any problems.
It sounds like you need to get a better welding helmet, one with a darker shade settings. Cheap helmets can seem like a great deal, but the more expensive jackson, miller, and speedglass helmets really are worth the money. Its your eyes and vision, and you only get one chance to keep them safe.
I use a jackson NexGen helmet when i tig weld, and i usually keep my shade set around 12 for most stuff.

[Cippee]

I thought it could be the helmet flashing on and off but it's not a cheap helmet and it is happening at higher amps. If it was low amps I would think the sensor is not sensitive enough. The helmet has 9-13 shades that I can adjust. The helmet is dark enough but I'm thinking it may be a small piece of carbon like Spike said. I keep it at shade 11 usually. I can try going darker but that isn't the main problem because I can tell when it happens that it is not something that should not be happening. I'm thinking it could also be the arc not coming straight off the tungsten. What I mean is the arc is kind of coming off the top and sides of the tungsten which makes it have a larger area than if it was coming off the tip and therefore brighter because it is larger. Sorry for my run on sentences.

[welderdude]

If conditions are right, its possible for small flakes of aluminum to burn. It looks similar to magnesium burning. BTW, even a non-darkened auto darking filter blocks both UV and IR radiation. the after image is most likely from the visible light.

[Cippee]

I have seen this happen mig welding aluminum. Some pieces of the wire blow off and they burn amazingly bright. The first time it happened I was like what the hell is this light out the corner of my eye. When I looked it was a small piece of aluminum burring on the ground. It's cool it burn so bright white.

[Spike]

Some alloys of aluminum (5xxx and 6xxx) are alloyed with magnesium. If you get enough contamination on your tungsten and the aluminum boils the magnesium would begin to burn. The boiling metal will keep the tungsten from making a proper arc from the tip.

[Cippee]

Yeah on aluminum alloys with high magnesium content you can see the puddle has a greenish tint from the magnesium.

[CGCINC]

I have a helmet that does this once in awhile. It is a cheap auto darkening helmet and it will flash for a split second then go right back to being dark. I don't think its a malfunction, I think part of it might be the sensitivity of the sensor or how it reacts to the arc!?

Definitely not cool!

[Cippee]

It happened a lot to me today and it is definitely the helmet. It never happened long enough for me to diagnose it. The helmet is crapped out. I hope it is just the battery. I am poor and don't want to buy another helmet.

[Spike]

It stinks, but helmets don't last forever. Just make sure you don't waste too much of your vision trying to make a broken helmet work.
Typically when a broken helmet blinds me, I quickly lose my temper and the helmet meets an unceremonious end at the heavy end of my hammer.

[Powertig]

definitely time to buy a new helmet. There isn't a project in the world worth not being able to see. Don't take chances, even a cheap new helmet that does what it is supposed to is better then an expensive one that doesn't.

[srp]

I spent most of the day testing my new 250EX and comparing it to the the older one. I adjusted it every which way and when the supplied flow meter was adjusted below 15, it would have a blinding flash on DC and they would be random flashes. When adjusted above 15, it would never do it.

[Spike]

I spent most of the day testing my new 250EX and comparing it to the the older one. I adjusted it every which way and when the supplied flow meter was adjusted below 15, it would have a blinding flash on DC and they would be random flashes. When adjusted above 15, it would never do it.

Adjusted to "15" what? is that metric or US measurements? 15 seems awfully high, either way. There might be a problem with your regulator or hose or something. I usually weld around 4-7 on my flow meter.

[Spike]

Oops sorry, I made the same mistake of not stating the unit of measure. I weld between 4-7 LPM (liters per minute).

[srp]

Oh boy,

After thinking a while, it just did not make any sense how the gas flow could make one flash really bright. I raised and lowered the flow 4 times and every time I raised the flow, it would not flash. Also it would not do it on any pulse speed.

I went to the weld shop and got a gas lens and hooked it up, with a gas lens it would flash constantly at any flow or pulse. I got into the habit of looking down to test and not look right at the arc, I looked down and seen my shoe was untied. I thought that's it, the helmet. So I pulled a brand new one out of the box and it did the same thing. These cheap helmets will work on AC and DC on the Syncrowave and will work on the older 250EX AC and DC but it will not work on the new 250EX on DC all all.

So now I will buy my first ever good helmet. Its crazy because it cycles so fast, you can not tell its the helmet.

[Cippee]

I hear you I have to get a new one because when I weld at low amps my helmet flashes. I can't weld thin stainless at all because it is to low of an amp range and my helmet sucks.

[jakeru]

As a workaround to not having a top o-the line low amp TIG welding helmet, whenever welding in DC mode, just flip the pulser on.

It doesn't seem to matter very much what pulsing frequency you use, and you don't even need to run a very "severe" pulse setting. Just having some bit of pulsing in there seems to help trigger the auto-darkening helmets, IME.

[Cippee]

That is great advice. I can relate to this. If you look at the sun with a auto darkening they will dim for a sec and then go back to light state. So the pulse would always keep it dark. Great idea.