Butt Welding Aluminum Pipes

[drifterific]

So I have had my PowerTig 250ex for a few weeks now and I can butt weld stainless and mild steel pipes together, but for the life of me I can not join two aluminum pipes together. The arc seems to want to wander between the two pipes. I am learning to weld aluminum pipes together for intercooler piping for my car. Any tips would be very helpful, I am going to go buy some flat plate from home depot and see if I can butt weld those together.

Im running about 65 amps with around 220 arc frequency and around 30% balance.

Oh also is my tungsten supposed to be balled? If I remember right Im using 2% lanthinated tungsten also.

Thank you guys for the help in advance.

[performance]

No, it shouldn't be balled. It should be a point, with just the tip barely nipped off. Have you downloaded the manual? It covers this.

What size tungsten? It sounds a little low on Amps. What thickness and size of "pipe?" What kind of oxidation do you have? Are you cleaning it well with a stainless brush? What standoff are you using? Stickout? The frequency is too high, but you refer to arc freq. I don't know if its AC or Pulse you are referring to. IF it is pulse, turn it off. IF it is AC turn it down. I'd back down to 100-150.

[cmd]

your going to have to just get the spot where your starting hot and jam filler in, once you melt that ball down per say you should find it much easier to join the pieces as they will become molten in unison...kind of.

[drifterific]

I may be reading the settings wrong on the welder for the Ac frequency and the Ac balance. I haven't played with the pulse settings yet, because I would like to get comfortable with welding joints before trying with pulse. I took a few pictures of my welder setting, tungsten stick out (my cup is kind of mangled from to much heat and accidentally touching the material ) and the pipe thickness.

I am using 3/32 tungsten with 3/32 4043 filler rod.

I will update with pics here in a few

[performance]

Does changing the setting make a difference for you? Do you here a loud buzz that is almost earsplitting at that freq? That looks like aluminum contamination though from dipping, which will form a ball.

[drifterific]

It doesn't seem to make a difference on where the AC frequency is set and there is not an overly loud buzz. It honestly almost sounds like it was still set on DC. I will buy some aluminum plate tonight and run some passes on that at different settings and post up the pictures later this evening.