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.

[performance]

You may have the same issue wrenchtamer did. There may be a little plug on the board that is unplugged. If you not getting a loud buzz, then it is in DC+....OHHH Wait...
Is your torch in DC NEGATIVE hole?

[drifterific]

I did some mild steel today and there is a slight difference in the sound between aluminum and steels. My torch is in the DC Negative hole. I am going to try a completely different piece of tungsten since ive been using the same one for aluminum and steels with grinding in between.

[Rugar]

You should hear a big difference in sound between DC on steel vs AC on aluminum, especially with the AC freq. turned up that high as your photo shows. On DC the arc should be fairly quite, but on AC at that freq. you should be hearing a very high pitched buzzing sound. Also your post flow time looks a little low, although it may be the camera angle.

[drifterific]

Yeah I just tried some aluminum an there is an increase of sound but not by much. I will search for the thread with the similar problem by wrenchtamer.


So I went back and listened to the videos that Jody posted on welding tips and tricks for the aluminum settings in part 5 and my welder in AC does not sound anything like the video. It kind of sounds like a louder hissing sound is the best way to explain it.

[performance]

Contact me or Mike and we will be glad to help you. Likely it is a loose plug on the top board.

[drifterific]

ok That sounds good. I will try to call sometime this week. I will also open up the welder and get some pics to post up here so everyone can see the internals of the welders.



So I got bored and decided to open up the welder and get some pictures. Maybe these will help someone in the future.

[Rugar]

Wondering if you could take a picture of the back of the quick connect for the gas line on the front of the machine. If not, could you tell me what kind of hose is connected to it, and how its connected? (Rubber hose, plastic, hose clamp. crimped...ect.) Thats if you can even get to it to see it. Wow, what a wiring nightmare inside there.
Thanks

[everlastsupport]

On the AC freq knob, moving it from 10 o'clock to 2 o'clock should change the arc sound a lot.

I can see in the pictures, a bend in the top rail. Looks like it was dropped and hopefully just popped the AC switch plug off like Wrenchtamer.

Call into support and we will check it out. Leave the cover off and the machine off for 2 hours before calling.

[Wrenchtamer]

From my conversations with mike have given me the impression that that high frequency spout shouldnt be tie strapped to the flyback transformer like that. It's oe of the first things he told me too look for. It's the red wire on the passenger side of the machine next to the inverted transformer you see with the l shaped bracket. that wire is the spark output to the high frequency points. I would check to see if it is arcing out there. and the plug that was off on mine is not easy to find. it's on the top board near the fron kind of in the center. a three wire plug sits transverse to the body of the unit. its kind of hidden up near the front. i had the cover off myself and didnt catch it until I took it to mark.

[Wrenchtamer]

here I took your pics and circled the problem areas I noticed. Minus the big bend in the suspension rail. check with mike or ark about the flyback transformer thing first tho. It might not be a problem unless it is arcing out.

[drifterific]

Wondering if you could take a picture of the back of the quick connect for the gas line on the front of the machine. If not, could you tell me what kind of hose is connected to it, and how its connected? (Rubber hose, plastic, hose clamp. crimped...ect.) Thats if you can even get to it to see it. Wow, what a wiring nightmare inside there.
Thanks

Here are some pictures of the gas fitting on the case. To me it looks like the black rubber hose is held on with a metal crimp to keep the line from blowing off. Hope these pics work for you. If not let me know and I can try to get different ones.

[drifterific]

So I went looking around the upper board of the welder and noticed that a connector did not look seated, so I made sure the connector was fully seated. Hopefully this was the issue with my AC not working correctly. I have some pics to show the area I am talking about.

[performance]

That's the one. It controls your AC switching (for a lack of better terminology). Without that plugged in, it will be stuck on DC positive. That was the loose plug on wrench tamer's unit as well. Not sure why we have seen it loose on two units like this close together. I know I haven't seen any, maybe Mike has, or Ray. Move the copper strip coming out the bottom over so it doesn't touch the wire of the transformer (black thing, red wire pic 4)

[drifterific]

I will try some aluminum later tonight after I get the welder all back together and post up if it made a difference. Thanks for all of your help.