Haha, yeah, for what you are doing, forget pure tungsten even exists. Stick to one of the alloys. That's why there are alloys to start with, they drastically increase current capacity. I personally use 2% Ceriated. Lots of people, if not most people, swear by lanthanated. One of these days I'll get around to trying it. For me though, ceriated works great on AC. Now... on to your practice.
On a piece like that, at your current stage, don't even bother moving across it width wise. It's just going to blow out on you until you get more used to aluminum soaking up heat and having to back way off the foot pedal to keep with it. I'd stick to running long wise. There are two sections in there of pretty good looking beads. However, both of those started off too cold. Then, as the material started to heat up, the bead started to lay out nicely. Then, as you got close to the edge, it blew out on you. You may want to go without filler for a little while. It's good to play around just making a puddle and traveling along with it and trying to keep a constant width, so you can see how the aluminum reacts in different situations.
Also, for the loudness of the arc in AC mode, the amount of gas flow you have will directly effect this. Having a lot of gas flow will accentuate the sound and make it much louder. You might be able to get away with turning your flow down some.
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Originally Posted by 225
