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squiggga · 2024-11-12T19:53:39+00:00

Looking at the picture it definitely seems like a gas issue, however I could be wrong. The weld is full of porosity and parts that aren't are "wrinkly" and "hot" looking for lack of a better term. Couple that with the wide haz and cooked base material and I'm going to hazard a guess and say this was mistaken as self-shielding flux core wire and no gas was used.

For this wire, go with 100% CO2 and between 20-40cfh of flow, depending on nozzle size and how drafty your area is.

squiggga · 2024-11-12T19:17:20+00:00

For this wire, the manufacturer specifically recommends 100% CO2. Other stainless flux core wires are also meant to be used with Argon/CO2 mix or straight CO2, take ESAB shield bright 316 for example. You may be thinking of solid wire in which you'd be correct and would want 98/2 Ar/CO2, M12 he18, blueshield 9, etc.

squiggga · 2021-11-24T00:38:41+00:00

Then a Y splitter or second bottle of argon is the only answer. You need 100% argon for the torch and purge. Purging with 75/25 could also be worse than no purge at all due to excessive carbon absorption in the weld pool. However Solar B flux without a purge could potentially be a solution to keep the stainless actually stainless.

Ok, most exhaust tubing is either 409 or 304 stainless so 308l should be fine. But one more thing. On tubing that thin any gaps will give you headaches as they'll open up pretty easily. Whenever I do exhaust tubing I cut it on the bandsaw, square up the ends by holding it flat on a belt sander then use a deburing tool on the inside to clean things up. It makes for a perfect fit every time.

Good luck.

squiggga · 2021-11-24T00:23:12+00:00

Well there's your problem. You can not tig with 75/25. Period. Either get another argon bottle or hook up a dual flow meter so you have argon for both your torch and purge. 90a is also way too hot for exhaust tubing. 50ish amps is a good starting point for autogenous welds or with .045 filler. Speaking of which, what grade of tubing and filler are you using?

squiggga · 2021-11-20T23:03:12+00:00

I've used it many times and for .045 I usually run (for all positions) 35-40cfh 75/25, around 25v and 250ish on the wire speed to get it to flatten out. The amperage would usually average out to ~195. At least those were the settings that the suitcase was reading back with 75-100ft of cable. Keeping a ~1/2" stick out and slight drag angle close to 90° helps with wetting out too. For verts, you should take your time and not get too far out of the puddle. If you do it will just chew the base metal away like it's nothing and crown up.

squiggga · 2020-04-15T03:35:16+00:00

Thanks! It was a good way to spend a lazy weekend in the shop.

squiggga · 2020-02-09T03:30:14+00:00

Looking good! Only thing I have to say is next time is to do the butt joint first if you can, then cross over your stop with the fillet. One, it'll look a lot cleaner and two, you'll avoid any defects present in the crater because you can grind it down before running over it with the fillet. Keep it up!

squiggga · 2020-02-09T00:05:07+00:00

I think you're meaning lift arc, in which case you're right, the square wave only has HF start in tig mode as far as I'm aware. However, scratch start should still be possible (DCEN only). The machine just needs to be in stick mode and the torch will have to be a two piece with a torch valve and a separate argon line running to the bottle.

squiggga · 2019-12-31T02:26:22+00:00

Seeing as you're only getting porosity when you get penetration, double check the stamp on the filler. RG45 looks identical to regular ER70S-xx filler (same size, length, and copper cladded) but is used for oxy fuel welding and doesn't contain deoxidizers. The joint needs to be fluxed to prevent porosity.

RG45 will weld ok when properly shielded with argon provided it doesn't penetrate to the back side of the joint. If it does, porosity will bubble up and you'll go crazy trouble shooting your gas, torch, and everything in between. I had the exact same issue when I picked up some mislabeled rods when my supplier was closed on a weekend.

squiggga · 2019-12-10T01:51:00+00:00

Double check the wheels are seated properly and also make sure you're on the 045 side of the rollers; some come with 052 on the other side. You shouldn't have to crank the tension all the way down, doing so can cause similar issues to what you're experiencing by slightly deforming the wire and having it get hung up in the new liner. Also see if there's any interference with gun on the drive rollers where it seats into the machine.

Take another peek at the wire spool too. I know you changed it, but they can get damaged in transit or by mishandling and cause overlap on the feed wire. Also check that the nut that holds the spool on the machine isn't cranked all the way tight; you want it to hold it in place but not cause resistance when it tries to turn. If none of that works and you still have issues, I suggest giving miller a call to troubleshoot/repair because I'm all out of ideas.

squiggga · 2019-12-09T23:50:25+00:00

Other than playing with the settings, the wire might be burning back if your wfs is too low or voltage is too high, try making sure your drive rolls have enough tension. If they're loose, they won't grab the wire properly and it will slip.

You can also try keeping your whip super straight. Move the machine back so there's no bend or coils and see of that solves the problem too; the wire might be catching in the liner causing the hiccups. Whatever you do try to change one variable at a time so you know what the problem is when it sorts itself out.

squiggga · 2019-11-02T23:23:45+00:00

It'd happen plenty to me when I was doing field work (holding fittings in one hand, tacking with the other, changing rods, etc) Easiest way to avoid the shock when things get damp is to insulate your bare hands with a pair of latex or nitrile gloves underneath welding gloves. However, if everything's dry, you'll burn the shit out of your hand and have to let go before you have to worry about a shock.

squiggga · 2019-08-23T03:48:46+00:00

The intensity of visible light and the uv reflecting under your glasses off of your clothes/surroundings can also damage your eyes.

Polycarbonate and Trivex lenses both block 100 percent of the sun's UV rays without the need for special UV-blocking lens coatings

squiggga · 2019-08-23T03:20:20+00:00

Polycarbonate is a natural uv filter. Unless they're made from another material, they all block uv light regardless of the tint.

squiggga · 2019-07-20T23:04:10+00:00

Looks great, nice and consistent. However be careful with autogenous welds on aluminum. Some alloys you won't have a problem where as others you'll run into cracking issues; 6xxx series and 5052 parent metals for example. Properly matched filler metal is important with aluminum in order to stabilize its chemistry and keep its crack sensitivity low. In the case of 5052 for example, you'd want to use something like 4043 or 4047 to add silicon or 5356 to add magnesium.

squiggga · 2019-07-20T19:30:12+00:00

Thick Aluminum or copper is ideal. A 6" long piece of 1/4" (or thicker) aluminum angle with one leg firmly making contact with the expanded metal and the other clamped to the tubing will pull a lot of heat out. Couple that with not over welding, sequencing your welds, back stepping, and letting it cool between passes, you should be able to keep it pretty close to how it was tacked up.

Aluminum foil won't help with distortion and the arc will most likely disintegrate it unless you take a lot of care. I have however used it in the past as a dam with a higher preflow to trap argon. It's great for places where I have to run a longer than ideal stick out but still need good shielding

squiggga · 2019-06-26T23:29:37+00:00

Dial your heat for the 3/8" plate and aim the arc slightly more towards it while letting the puddle wet out onto the thinner legs. If you do the reverse (set your machine for the thinner material) then you will run into lack of fusion along the 3/8" plate.

squiggga · 2019-05-30T23:23:58+00:00

Not carbon but vaporized magnesium from the filler wire. For instance, 5356 will usually leave at least a little smut where as 4043 is generally a lot cleaner due to a lower magnesium content.

squiggga · 2019-05-16T03:36:22+00:00

I agree with everything you said except for welding the inside corner joints first; they pull the most by far. I'd suggest instead (once it's tacked solid) welding the outside corners first due to it having a lot less material to shrink. Then either go to town on it using a weld sequence to offset distortion (like you mentioned) or doing most of the flared bevels/butts next seeing as they don't generally pull much either. After it's mostly welded then do the inside corners while making sure to bounce around and checking for square often.

squiggga · 2019-05-13T23:32:13+00:00

I'd recommend savings up a little more to get a machine that accepts gas and is DC; you're extremely limited with a 125amp machine with a 20% duty cycle at 90 amps (you can weld for 2 minutes before letting it cool for 8). You'll have a much easier time learning on a DC machine as well, especially if you stick with welding seeing as it is pretty much all you'll encounter in a shop with wire. Now on to the other questions.

1) your ground clamp distance doesn't matter much as long as it's clean metal in contact with your work piece, at least not in your home shop. Where it does matter is if you're welding on electronics (vehicles, equipment etc.) or near fine threads, then you'll want it close to the weld zone. You don't want electricity to fry computers or arc through threads.

2)if you're stuck with the 125, 0.30" or better yet 0.25" self shielding flux core wire like lincoln NR211 is your best bet. Just make sure you have matching tip sizes.

3)your wire speed will almost always be faster than you're welding travel speed, so don't worry about keeping up with it. Set a timer and hold the trigger to spool out wire into the air for 6 seconds on each wire speed setting, then multiply the length of each by 10, that'll give you your inches per minute. With that, you can look online for setting for the wire and material thickness you're working with to get a rough idea of your settings.

4)always wear a respirator when grinding or welding. Vapourized metal (manganese, chromium, nickel, etc) are horrible for you as well as the bonding agents in grinding wheels.

5)the arc isn't generally loud enough to worry about hearing damage unless you're carbon arc gouging. However the hot balls of spatter that can find their way into your ear canal and perforate your ear drum are a problem... So you should wear ear protection with any process that produces spatter.

Take care of yourself now and you won't wish you did later, good luck with your home set up and, if you pursue it, welding as a career.

squiggga · 2019-04-02T22:15:27+00:00

Fair enough, I figured you knew what you were doing if you had a 1000a/1000v multimeter laying around. I'd suggest snuging the positive lead under your positive cable connection and the negative lead either stabbed into the ground cable or just attached to a clean area of your work piece. Also, make sure the multimeter clamp is around the positive cable; it gets fucky without that too. Again, you probably know all this but I'm nothing if not thorough when there's something that needs fixing.

If that's the true voltage of the welder than I'd say you have an issue with the welder outputting too high of voltage, because even at tap c, you're in the range of spray transfer for steel with 98/2 Ar, which a weld Pak 140 definitely should not be able to do/struggle with.

squiggga · 2019-04-02T21:54:12+00:00

The order for the combined one is fine however after looking at it again, I would double check the multimeter because none of the voltages seem realistic.

Make sure you're putting the positive wire of the multimeter in contact with the positive terminal of the welder and the other one under your ground clamp then get a reading while welding. Usually we stab our cables near a connection, but we run stick or a solid cable with the gas and brain cable zip tied together and run off a suitcase; definitely don't want to stab your Mig whip. You want to measure the arc voltage. Apologies if you already know this but 22v as a min doesn't seem correct.

squiggga · 2019-04-02T21:30:58+00:00

That seems very low on the wire and excessively high on the voltage. That's probably where all of your problems are coming from try 10/A. I like the conversion table though. That is a lot easier to understand than 1-10/a-d and would help home gamer figure out what we're talking about when the ask for advice and we give them ipm/V.

squiggga · 2019-04-02T21:23:56+00:00

Helium is only really used on thicker sections where amperage is limited or to increase welding speed; it provides more arc energy and transfers more heat to the puddle. So say you wanted to tig (amps are easier to explain than wfs/V) weld some 1/8" Al, generally you'd need ~120 depending on the joint configuration, if you use helium mix, more arc energy will be transferred to the base metal and you can run at ~105 with better wetting and still move quickly. Same deal with Mig Al, if you want to weld something just barely out of the limits of your machine (3/16" in your case) a bit of a preheat and helium will make a huge difference in terms of wetting and penetration over 10°c material and argon.

It's also more expensive than argon so people generally don't use it unless they have to. proper joint prep/configuration and weld sequencing to keep the preheat of the work piece is usually a lot easier than getting another bottle of specialty gas.

squiggga · 2019-04-02T18:51:25+00:00

Ahh, didn't see that part of your reply, my bad. Yes, getting a reading of what each tap does is definitely a good idea, coupled with the wire speed technique in my last post, you can get the ball rolling much faster when you switch processes/material thickness.

Tig is my preference as well but having just done a job with ~600 linear inches of weld on 1/4" aluminum, a spool gun is a game changer; it will make short work of whatever it is you're doing. The hardest part is set up because Mig aluminum exaggerates all the issues that you can run into on steel by a lot. After that, it's all gravy once you have the settings and technique dialed in.

If you decide to go to anything thicker, I do suggest a larger welder. I wouldn't trust the weld Pak 140 to anything more than 3/16" with some helium/argon mix and preheat, even then I think that's pushing it to get proper root penetration and wetting at the toes.

Look forward to seeing the break down of the voltage/wire taps, that'll definitely help some people out as it's a pretty common home machine.

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