Best aluminum settings

[sportbike]

Again my 330 bottle of Argon is 40 bucks out the door! This is at 2 different suppliers.... Airgas is one of them and they are a national company and the other is local owned 3 stores in the state and they do 40 on a 330 Argon as well.. I do business with the local guys because I have used them for over 20 years same sales man the whole time....

I think teh different sizes are all the same price at the place I go to. The labor to fill them is pretty much the same regardless of the size and that is where the cost is. The gas itself is very cheap.

[srp]

I feel violated if Airgas fills argon 300 bottles for 40 bucks in other states, I own my 300 bottle and they charge me 83.11 before tax and I did not even mention the 8 dollar hasmat charge. Our Airgas is the one that blowed up about 5 years ago, I wonder if that has anything to do it?

I tried Cippee and jakeru's settings today with argon and red tungsten, I laid down some pretty good beads with both of them.

The more EP I added, the more dingle berries I got on my red tungsten, does 2% Lanthanated get them as well, or as bad?

[Cippee]

ep is always going to kick the tungsten in the balls no matter what kind you have. The red thoriated tungsten holds up as good as any so 2% lanthanated is not a whole bunch of difference. I just like lanthanated because I have a bad habit of getting grindings in my eyes and lungs. Every time I get thoriated in my eyes I'm waiting to go blind. If they scanned me when I used thoriated alot I would probably get put in a decontamination chamber. Watch this its a comparison of the tungsten's. http://www.weldingtipsandtricks.com/...odes-gtaw.html

[jakeru]

I feel violated if Airgas fills argon 300 bottles for 40 bucks in other states, I own my 300 bottle and they charge me 83.11 before tax and I did not even mention the 8 dollar hasmat charge. Our Airgas is the one that blowed up about 5 years ago, I wonder if that has anything to do it?

I tried Cippee and jakeru's settings today with argon and red tungsten, I laid down some pretty good beads with both of them.

The more EP I added, the more dingle berries I got on my red tungsten, does 2% Lanthanated get them as well, or as bad?

2% lanthanated gets the dingleberries/protrusions if you push it too far; yep. *Especially* after you dip it into molten aluminum, and just keep on welding. If you put a fresh grind on it, and don't dip, it's pretty resilient but would probably eventually get the protrusions. I have a diamond disc I use to grind mine, I don't know that it matters though. How it compares vs 2% thoriated, I don't really know I haven't run the thoriated very much.

With all the gas cost talk and all, I just figured out how much I paid for my Helium fill... $120 for the 330 cf bottle filled up last July, 2011. Supposedly, the price was just about to go up after I got it, due to a "helium shortage" back then. But that's not the first time (nor the last) I've heard that. (More info on my Helium initial setup purchase/fillup in this thread:
http://www.everlastgenerators.com/fo...ghlight=Helium )

FWIW, my LWS quoted me $60 to fill a 330 with argon. So the Helium (99.9% pure variety) runs about double the cost of the Argon. I usually get my 155cf bottle filled with Argon for about $40.

[srp]

It seems to be a big deal to be able to weld together two pop cans, I figured I would see if the 250EX was up to the challenge. I set the main amperage at 250, frequency at 250 hertz and the ac balance at 10%. I was easily able to get around it without burning through anywhere. Didn't really seem all that hard with the 250EX. All I had was 1/16 filler rod, I may try again with some .024 or .035 filler rod and some other settings.

http://i854.photobucket.com/albums/a...luminumcan.jpg

[sportbike]

It seems to be a big deal to be able to weld together two pop cans, I figured I would see if the 250EX was up to the challenge. I set the main amperage at 250, frequency at 250 hertz and the ac balance at 10%. I was easily able to get around it without burning through anywhere. Didn't really seem all that hard with the 250EX. All I had was 1/16 filler rod, I may try again with some .024 or .035 filler rod and some other settings.

http://i854.photobucket.com/albums/a...luminumcan.jpg

Are those special, solid aluminum cans that they needed 250 amps !?!

[srp]

Are those special, solid aluminum cans that they needed 250 amps !?!

I wanted to know I had full control of the welder when set at full output. I did adjust the potentiometer in the foot control to go from 0 to full resistance and full resistance to 0 when I got it new.

[GUNNER]

It seems to be a big deal to be able to weld together two pop cans, I figured I would see if the 250EX was up to the challenge. I set the main amperage at 250, frequency at 250 hertz and the ac balance at 10%. I was easily able to get around it without burning through anywhere. Didn't really seem all that hard with the 250EX. All I had was 1/16 filler rod, I may try again with some .024 or .035 filler rod and some other settings.

http://i854.photobucket.com/albums/a...luminumcan.jpg

Very nice job.... Like you I don't see what the big deal is but like you I've done it just to prove I can.. However I can't seem to find anyone willing to pay me to do it? So with that being the demand I guess once was enough for me...

[srp]

After welding up more pop cans today, I came to the the conclusion that 10% EP with 250 hertz was the best setup with the tungsten ground on a very fine wheel. Also tried a fast pulse ( 300PPS to 500PPS ). The machine seems to pulse only on the DC half of the wave because it has more cleaning action on pulse. It did very good on both pulse and non pulse with not one burn through at those settings.

[jakeru]

I gotta say srp, you are making your 250EX do some impressive things. I don't think my super200P offers as good heat control on the low end as you have demonstrated the 250EX can provide with that popcan weld. The only way I have a chance of controlling can welding is to crank up the EP% AC balance to make the arc stabilize with less heat being inputted into the work. (And it doesn't work all that well; the arc is not very focused set like that, and it tends to wander all over.) Luckily I don't find myself needing to weld very many aluminum cans. I do feel like have great heat control in the range where I need it, at least. And oh by the way, the pulsing on the Super200P ceases to function at low amperages. I think the "background current" is a minimum current setting on it so if you throttle the output below that setting, no pulsing action no matter where you set the pulse control knobs. The fact the 250EX can pulse at a very low amp output range is impressive.

That said, I've been experimenting with varying the footpedal with each dip to change the profile of the built-up weld bead recently, and am still discovering some new "tricks." With some techniques and settings, I find that I can make the edges of the built up portion of the weld bead stick up abruptly, and then flatten the tops (kind of like stacking dimes) with another setting, I can make the tops concave, and with another, I can mound the whole weld bead up in a convex shape. (see picture example below.)

Here is the convex droplet (with footpedal modulation) example. (Compare it to the "flattened droplet top" example I attached in post 17, here; it is basically the same item, material, joint, and machine/gas settings, only with the footpedal now being modulated/synchronized to the filler rod adds)


I am still not sure if using the pedal with each filler rod ad may make the overall process that much more difficult to achieve perfect consistency though, or whether it might be helpful to have the extra control (as long as you're paying attention while putting down the bead.) I'm going to keep practicing it. It's funny how we get into these habits of doing things a certain and it just "seems right." Anyway, so far, I like the footpedal modulation technique very much, it seems to provide me more leeway as to how fast I need to move also. What I mean is, if my filler rod needs a bit more time to catch up feeding the rod, I just dwell at lower current setting a little longer, and there is no problem. With the more constant amperage technique, that might necessitate varying the pedal and kind of getting the rhythm thrown off, or breaking the arc and needing to restart (or else, get an inconsistently large puddle.) By the way it's not just about changing the footpedal, as much as it is changing the footpedal while also synchronizing the addition of the filler rod. For example, to get the convex shape, as I throttle the current back, I continue to add rod as I throttle it and the base of the convex shape freezes, and only the top of it remains liquid. You just do the same thing over and over and the beads are pretty consistent.

I suppose if I wanted I could try doing a sequence of bead profiles. EG: concave, flat, convex, concave, flat convex, etc. Just for fun, I think I will have to give that a try!

[jp2code]

Nice beads, Jake.What is the gold looking material, brass?