Learning!

[Ron66]

With everyone's help here I have been learning so I thought I'd share some stuff that I've come across too.
1)When everyone says still air needed that doesn't mean just shut off the floor stand fan. I had the welder too close to my work and the air moving out of that thing kept me from getting an arc to start. I didn't notice how much air was blowing across my weld until I took off my gloves! Moved the welder back and problem solved! Then I sharpened my tungsten and again no arc. This time it was the bench grinder!

2)Don't weld at night with the garage door open. I had a grasshopper the size of a small bird fly right into my arc! I almost crapped myself.

3)The PP256 pedal needs some TLC. It did not work out of the box. The design of the pedal is very poor and I doubt any work as they need to. I have made some improvements to mine and plan to make some more. There's lots of great ideas on this site for how to "fix" the pedal. I hope new designs are in the works.

4)Out of the box check the arc gaps. Mine were mangled. I'm sure they get set at the factory but something went terribly wrong durring shipping. 5 minutes to confirm the points are ok is well worth it on the PP256 at least. They can be checked by carefully removing the front cover. My unit had just enough slack in the wires to get my hand in there and check them but the covers had to come off to set them to the correct gap.

I'm having a lot of fun practicing on aluminum scraps and just laying beads. I think another couple of practice sessions and I'll be ready to try some joints!

[Rodsmachineshop]

weld at night when the mosquitoes are out you just turned in to a large bug zapper lol

[Rodsmachineshop]

as for air or wind i have a piece of sheet metal i cut i clamp to the end of my welding table to block wind when i am running my fans or desert cooler

[Ron66]

I do understand now why a lot of welding tables had sides.

[Rodsmachineshop]

yey sucks to sweat your but of with no fans or coolers lol i use cement board on my welding table its nice so you dont get spatter on the metal

[Ron66]

Looks like I won't be doing a lot of tig welding here in Fla this summer!

[Rodsmachineshop]

shoot gets hotter were i live lol

[Ron66]

Yeah but it's a dry heat (sure you heard that a million times) I have a friend in Az that sent me a picture of his car's outside thermometer. It said 126F. He was in his garage!

[Rodsmachineshop]

my heat is humid i am rite next to the river in july and august the humidity just runs off you

[everlastsupport]

Looks like I won't be doing a lot of tig welding here in Fla this summer!

We weld at night at the edge of the shop sometimes. We use a big fan and a person to move it on and off as we weld to keep the gas on the welds and from not blowing away. Also, it helps keep the bugs at bay. And it is a little cooler at night. We use bright lights that help with the welding as well. You would think the arc would be bright enough, but drop a bright light in the mix.

Funny on the grasshopper, I would probably have crapped too if alone when it happened. We have large sodium lights and the bugs love them and fry them. Maybe get one of those to draw the bug there and away from the torch.

I recall some show I too the kids too way back. And it was a bug telling a big "don't look at the light" or into the light... Appears that bug didn't know.

On our products, the point on occasion get pushed. I believe sometimes they are bumped in finally assembly when putting the front panel on. But it can happened. Sorry and glad you knew to check it and caught it.

Where abouts in Fla are you? Had a tech call from Delray the other day.

[Ron66]

I'm just outside of Orlando.