Pulsed Arc Welding?

[scootarida1]

I was playing around with my PP205 doing some stick and realized I had left the pulse feature on from TIG. When doing stick it still was pulsing and just wondering if there is any advantage of pulsing with stick.

I'm not sure if it would mess with the way the flux is transferred onto the weld pool but I can how it could possibly help with controlling heat. Anyways, just wondering if I stumbled upon something new or if people actually use pulse in stick welding.

[Odyknuck]

My question would be is it even active in stick mode?

[geezer]

Pulsed arc,,,makes me think of an AC buzz box switching current,,,DC arc welding is better with a constant flow of current,,,melting the rod..

[scootarida1]

It does stay active in pulse on my machine.

[Odyknuck]

Thanks for the clarification.

[Martine]

I was playing around with my PP205 doing some stick and realized I had left the pulse feature on from TIG. When doing stick it still was pulsing and just wondering if there is any advantage of pulsing with stick.

I'm not sure if it would mess with the way the flux is transferred onto the weld pool but I can how it could possibly help with controlling heat. Anyways, just wondering if I stumbled upon something new or if people actually use pulse in stick welding.

Interesting; I'm guessing you are in DC current and it's pulsing betwen a welding current and a lower background current. If you consider the benefits of pulsing in TIG (and perhaps to a lesser degree MIG), you can then consider analogous occasions in stick welding. One place where pulsing might be beneficial is running a root run in an open root where, conventionally, you want just enough current to open up the keyhole but not so much that you lose control of it. Possibly, with the right settings and a pulse frequency around once a second, it could be possible to lay the root; the background phase would be where the puddle freezes.

It would also be interesting to see what effect, if any, a higher pulse frequency has on arc
characteristics. This might be one of those occasions where one should play around with it and overcome the temptation to believe if pulsing were beneficial it would be used. One the other hand, it is only because of the introduction of modern power electronics that pulsing is possible, so stick welding had to evolve without it.

Martin