Today I went to my second welding class.
The regular teacher was on vacation so we had a different guy.. It's mostly hands on but he was hard to find..
So, I used the Syncrowave 250SD. I guess I was a little intimidated by all the controls on that thing.. Knobs all over the place..
Last week I was welding aluminum and it came out really good.. It actually looked like a "row of dimes" (slightly offset)..
Today I cut some 1/8" steel, cleaned it up and started to TIG.. I was making craters in my welds left and right.. Then I'd lower the amperage and it just didn't feel right.. It was very frustrating today. I did bring some steel home so I can practice tomorrow..
I think aluminum is easier.. I guess I just couldn't dial in the correct settings on the welder today.. Oh well.. I'll get 'em next time...
That's what I thought also. After welding the aluminum with the Tig on A/C setting the balance and freq ,it seemed pretty easy. You can see the aluminum start to puddle and then begin to dip and move. The mild steel on D/C doesn't seem to react the same as I was burning holes with less control. Let me know what you feel is helpful when you get it going. There are no classes to take around here as the closet place is 60 miles away. Let us know how it's going. Kurt and Ross at the Miller road show told me to try some ceriated tungsten on mild steel,although aircraft and dseman say 2% thoriated or lanthantiated. David
I will try to give you the pros and cons on Ceriated tungsten and let you decide for yourself.
Ceriated tungsten is known to be especially good for DC welding with low amperage because it starts very easily at low amps and usually requires about 5 to 10% less amps than Thoriated material to operate. Thus it is most popular material used for orbital tube and pipe welding and other automated processes. It is also commonly used for welding very small parts. Cerium also has the highest migration rate so it has the best delivery of oxides to the tip at the beginning of use. This gives it good welding properties at the beginning but later you have fewer oxides to surround the grains so you get grain growth and a significantly reduced migration rate making for a short lived tungsten, it would generally be good for short welding cycles and also where a specific number of welds are called for and then the electrode is to be replaced (automated welding). Higher amperage applications are best left to Thoriated or Lanthanated material. This tungsten is used primarily for DC welding and may split if used for AC welding. Now this brings us to Miller’s use of Ceriated tungsten. I think they do this to show off the capability of their Dynasty inverter to weld with a Ceriated in the AC mode and not spit tungsten in the weld pool. Which is way cool I just don’t like changing my tungsten that much.
"You are correct Sir"(ole Tonight Show quip from Ed) we were using a Dynasty 200Dx(since I have one at home) at the roadshow and we were discussing tungstens on mild steel. That is a great explanation Air. Thanks. I was saying aluminum was easier than steel on the Dynasty and all the tungsten I had were thoriated.
I have to say this about this board:
It's guys like Aircraft,Dseman,Franz,Dan,Roger,RockyD,Deere, DaveH,Jim,SBerry,Aaron (when he was here)Cope,Mike Sherman,Jerry Streets,ScottVand there are alot of others(i know I'm leaving some out) These are off the top of my head,
That all give excellant answers to all the dumb questions the rest of us have. I'd like to say I appreciate you guys taking the time because yall give out some of the best info that you can get anywhere. I'm always amazed at the answers yall give and how knowledgeable yall are about **** near everything. Thanks to all of you guys for making this a fun place! David
Bad day of welding
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