Hobart 235 ac/dc for welding aluminum

[MarineMariner]

Can someone tell me how to setup this Hobart 235 for TIG 1/8" aluminum? Every time I try to strike an arc the electrode sticks to the aluminum(50 amps, AC). Do I have to switch + and - wires? Does this require me disassembling the machine? Can someone help? I have a tig lead and 100" argone. The Aluminum is clean, and new.

[MarineMariner]

i tried switching polarity and it didnt help at all... anyone?

[Krunch]

How do you switch polarity on AC?

[Blacksmith]

I believe it is generally accepted that the Stickmate can be converted to a scratch start tig for steel, but will not work to tig aluminum with any modifications.

[brucer]

wont work for tigging aluminum because of wrong ac frequency

[usmcpop]

You aren't going to have any success on Aluminum with AC without high-frequency. Some buy or build an add-on box for that. DC- would require a Helium or Helium-mix gas which is expensive and more suited to thicker material.

[rankrank1]

As other have pointed out. You will not be able to tig with your stickmate in AC mode. The AC mode on your stickmate is different than AC mode on a true tig welder. Your welder Stickmates output in AC is a just general 60 hertz sinewave where a true tig AC wave is both higher frequency than 60 hertz plus it is square wave to boot. There is no such thing as polarity on AC as your polarity is alternating back and forth.

You could buy a high frequency box to get higher frequency than 60 hertz for AC, but it is still not a square wave like a true tig machine so often times this is not very cost effective solution as it still is an improvise system but you could maintain an arc this way. I would only consider this if you get a great deal on a high frequency box.

Alternative option that is worth trying for non-critical work. This guy claims that you can use DC mode (electrode negative) and substitute aluminum arc welding rods instead of normal tig filler rods on a DC output machine - have no idea if it works although I do plan to try it on my Miller Thunderbolt/tig conversion (Thunderbolt is same as your Stickmate). Claim is the flux in the stick rod sorta substitutes in cleaning action that the AC output would normally provide on Aluminum.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAMZg..._order&list=UL

[usmcpop]

I believe the point of high-frequency is to simply sustain the arc, using a higher frequency and voltage over top of the one doing the real work. This is not stick welding when you have a real cloud of conductive gas to help out. Argon and Helium have their limits.

Square wave and variable amplitude/duration make it nice but folks managed with regular 60 Hz. AC as long as they could keep an arc going.

Look way back at welding history and you'll see the name Hobart among the early inventors. Heliarc, anyone?

[snoeproe]

High frequency also allows you to start your arc without touching your tungsten to the work piece. This is very important for AC tig welding.

[SundownIII]

It's BS posts like this that make me want to stay away from the boards.

The OP seems obsessed with TIG WELDING ALUMINUM, however he hasn't bothered to even do some basic study of the process.

If he's serious about learning tig welding, I'd suggest he go to millerwelds.com and click on the Resources tab. There he will find an offer for Miller's Student Pack. It includes an excellent Tig Handbook, as well as a bunch of other great information. Best $25 he'll ever spend on welding.

Besides that, what the he11 is with this obsession with Tig Welding. We seem to have a great number of new members who have never mastered any welding process who want to jump right into tig. How about they learn to walk before they enter the olympics as a sprinter.

Personally, I think that trying to learn tig welding using a basic buzz box is a terrible way to get a person started.

[Blacksmith]

Sundown, all the boards are like that. I also own a Ford Focus and of course they have a board. It's full of people that want to put a turbocharger and nitrous on their car without getting a tune for the ECU to make sure they don't burn the engine to the ground on the first pass. They insist that so and so said they could and my thought is "then why the heck are you wasting our time?" I'm getting set up to start doing GMAW in about 3 weeks and if I cop that attitude, please snap me a good one. I'll deserve it and understand if you do.

[canoecruiser]

Aluminum is the metal that humbles the proud. OK, I'm not that proud but I do have enough experience with stick and O/A on steel to be relatively handy. TIG welding is so darn useful that it was an obvious next step for me. Having some O/A time on thin stuff like autobody and exhaust helped; TIG on steel felt a lot like a really versatile blue-tipped wrench and wasn't too hard to get above the embarassment level. Sooo I forayed into ally.....wow is that a different world! The inverter helps tailor the setup to whatever I'm tormenting but there's no substitute for experience. If someone showed me good aluminum welds with a buzz-box-anything I would think they were a welding god. I can't even begin to think of trying that except for entertainment purposes.

See if your local community college has night classes in welding. Several years ago I took one at the CC and it's money well-spent. You get to play with some decent gear and have an instructor show you the ropes and critique your technique. I want more classroom time but they succumbed to the allure of stimulus money, $1.7 million worth and killed the weekend-warrior classes in favor of a six-month career program.

I agree with Sundown that the Miller student literature will go a long way to educating yourself but you'll also need suitable equipment. A transformer stick welder will just frustrate you.

[xdhd350]

Besides that, what the he11 is with this obsession with Tig Welding. We seem to have a great number of new members who have never mastered any welding process who want to jump right into tig. How about they learn to walk before they enter the olympics as a sprinter.

I've read a lot of the posts like that, and I am one of them. Here is the deal Sundown, and you've been in the biz long enough to know this.

Go back to the 50's and 60's... what metal was more dominant? Especially in automobiles. Now fast forward to 2011 and what do you find being used just about everywhere? ALUMINUM!

TIG seems to be the best way to do a quality weld with Aluminum, so naturally, everyone (myself included) wants to learn to do TIG. Unlike some, I'm old enough to wade into the shallow end of the pool and gradually get wet.

But overall, I think it's just the popularity of aluminum in many modern fabricated products that are driving this desire.

To that end, just last week, I burned some 1/8 Hobart aluminum rod and was able to do okay for my first attempt. Lots of smoke, slag hard as **** to remove, and got to keep pushing that rod down or the arc will go out on you before you know it. I also discovered that the thick flux covering, like on 7018, needs to be filed a bit to get a decent re-strike.

Just my humble opinion from personal observation.

Greg

[Bourne Bill]

i have a thunderbolt xl, and am interested in getting into tig. I have a need to weld 1/4 " ALUMINUM. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[usmcpop]

i have a thunderbolt xl, and am interested in getting into tig. I have a need to weld 1/4 " ALUMINUM. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Beg, borrow or steal someone else's equipment or just watch over their shoulder. 1/4" Aluminum takes more than a glue gun.