210ext what am i doing wrong

[pig75]

Just tried my new 210ext was working good (I think) now it's doing this

Any help would be appreciated

[Rambozo]

Your settings would help?

[pig75]

100A 0 balance

[zoama]

Do you have a clean ground directly to the piece you're welding ?

[Rambozo]

There are a lot more settings than that. One drawback to a multi-function digital display is one pic will not show all the settings. Sine-wave is a lot less tolerant than square for dirty material in general. TIG is a lot different than stick and MIG, if you won't eat off it, it ain't clean enough for TIG. Make everything bright and shiny, and wipe it down with a solvent like acetone. Use a stainless brush dedicated to aluminum and carbide burrs instead of grinding discs.

[Rambozo]

Do you have a clean ground directly to the piece you're welding ?

Looks marginal from the video. You can see the ground clamp, but the material is far from clean and no idea what that coating is. The fact that it does fire the main arc at some points and not others is a little odd.

[zoama]

Looks marginal from the video. You can see the ground clamp, but the material is far from clean and no idea what that coating is. The fact that it does fire the main arc at some points and not others is a little odd.

I see it now But the metal looks rusty.

[pig75]

I tried it again after about a hour to cool and it's working again
the metal is aluminum the stuff you can see is glue it is clean where I'm welding
Maybe it just got to hot ?

[performance]

You have way too far of a standoff...and the metal you have, should be discarded. You cannot get a good weld on that metal....and your balance should be more toward -25-30. And put it in advanced square wave. Why on earth would you want it "balanced" at 50% positive, and 50% negative? What is your AC frequency? What sort of tungsten are you using.

[zoama]

I tried it again after about a hour to cool and it's working again
the metal is aluminum the stuff you can see is glue it is clean where I'm welding
Maybe it just got to hot ?

Is the area where you placed the ground clamp clean ? if not the high frequency will jump but the main arc may not.

[Rambozo]

I tried it again after about a hour to cool and it's working again
the metal is aluminum the stuff you can see is glue it is clean where I'm welding
Maybe it just got to hot ?

Aluminum actually welds better once it's warmed up, but you can get it too hot when the whole piece gets to the point where it distorts and starts sagging and such. BTW not all aluminum is weldable, some alloys can't be welded by standard TIG process, for example 7075. You have so many things wrong that it's no wonder you are having trouble. There are some good videos explaining a lot of TIG settings on www.weldingtipsandtricks.com. You might have a look and do some practice on clean material of known alloy to better learn what each things does.
On a side note what you have done with your settings is to practically turn your new fancy TIG rig into one of these.

All you need to do is crank the frequency to 60Hz to complete the transformation. While you can weld with those settings, it is so much harder and the weld quality will never match what you can get out of a modern machine, hence why all these things were invented; square wave, AC balance, AC frequency, etc.

[pig75]

This is how it was working after the hour break same settings same piece of metal

I have since been told not to use the welder as it might have a software issue

[jakeru]

Set down the torch, and do get some education first.

Get some proper safety equipment, and use it. As a general rule of thumb, any skin exposed to the light of the welding arc should be covered. And you should use materials which will not "melt" and cause burns. Also, you need to insulate your skin from the electricity involved here. Not using gloves seem atrocious to me. You do understand that you are dealing with potentially *lethal* electrical power source here, if that electrical current were to travel through your body, depending where the current traveled, it could cause you heart problems, or even DEATH. Or, severe burns. Of if your lucky, a merely painful "jolt" which will give you a lesson "the hard way" in the need for proper safety gear.

Also, by not cleaning the spot where you are grounding to (which you said has adhesive on it) you already likely caused some pitting/damage to your ground clamp surface where it contacted the dirty surface. Inconsistent arc starting could be caused by a combination of this, and too much arc length. I'll bet you have a nice burnt carbon build up on your ground clamp, which is contributing to your inconsistent arcs. You should clean this back to shiny, conductive metal before trying again.

And like others have said, study what are good settings to use, (at minimum good "general purpose settings"), and apply them. And, do some studying on welding technique. There is so much good information on weldingtipsandtricks.com, as just one source. It is so much easier to learn now, than ever before.

I understand the purposes of your thread was to determine if there's a machine problem, but you should at least have proper safety gear before attempting further tests. And if you want to be successful at welding, you need to put quite a bit more effort into it.

Hope this helps, and best of luck.

[performance]

The only problem there is technique, and once again, and the settings. What is part of the problem is that you have "ground" the glue into the metal. It may look clean, but not under a microscope. No software problem there or reported on those units. If it was, it would not suddenly start working. Not sure who told you not to use it. Again, turn up the frequency and use a clean, fresh piece of metal. Also set your background menu AC arc transfer amps to about 20-25 unless you need to weld thin metal. You can ( and from the look and sound of it) get the settings so far out of synch with each other that the unit will be difficult to start an arc...ie too low of frequency on AC..too much AC+ etc. The problem with extreme adjustability is that it takes considerable knowledge in how to set it up right and make it work for you (or against you).

[pig75]

The only problem there is technique, and once again, and the settings. What is part of the problem is that you have "ground" the glue into the metal. It may look clean, but not under a microscope. No software problem there or reported on those units. If it was, it would not suddenly start working. Not sure who told you not to use it. Again, turn up the frequency and use a clean, fresh piece of metal. Also set your background menu AC arc transfer amps to about 20-25 unless you need to weld thin metal. You can ( and from the look and sound of it) get the settings so far out of synch with each other that the unit will be difficult to start an arc...ie too low of frequency on AC..too much AC+ etc. The problem with extreme adjustability is that it takes considerable knowledge in how to set it up right and make it work for you (or against you).

Funny that everlast AU sent me a loner machine (185 micro) till the updated software board turned up. It is much better with the new board

[Ultraman]

Funny that everlast AU sent me a loner machine (185 micro) till the updated software board turned up. It is much better with the new board

Really?? I'm waiting for updated board for my 210ext as well... Mine had issues with max amp on AC and AC balance was a little off. I hope new board fixes them.

[Rambozo]

Is this just a replacement of a defective board or is it actually a different version of the software?

[pig75]

I was told it was different software version. But as performance says "it is technique,"that is the problem it must have just been me

[downline]

I just installed the new circuit board two days ago and my 210 ext is working just fine now. It was some time before I narrowed down the cause to be machine rather than setting. I only noticed the issue on AC when welding AL. It shut down after crackling and popping. It is working fine at this time. Now to get some good information about smaller compatible torches. Apparently tec support is constrained on what they can say about 9 or 17 torches that work. The dinse connector is the issue I have had with two separate torches I have ordered from Everlast.

[zoama]

I just installed the new circuit board two days ago and my 210 ext is working just fine now. It was some time before I narrowed down the cause to be machine rather than setting. I only noticed the issue on AC when welding AL. It shut down after crackling and popping. It is working fine at this time. Now to get some good information about smaller compatible torches. Apparently tec support is constrained on what they can say about 9 or 17 torches that work. The dinse connector is the issue I have had with two separate torches I have ordered from Everlast.

What are you looking for in a torch ?