Welding Tips and Tricks

First, I want to say Hi I am a hobbiest and I have been mig welding since I was probably around 10. Even though it is not what I do for a living, I do enjoy welding things in my shop. I recently purchased a Everlast 256Si multi process machine manly cuz the price and the little I will use it thought the plasma cutter would come in handy ever now and again. I have been playing with it and welding on D/C it works great. However when I turn it to A/C it works, but having issues with the Balance setting. I try to turn it up for more cleaning and I don't get more cleaning the electrode just gets hotter? I am using a 2% lanthanated tungsten A number 7 stubby Cub and running 20CFH of argon. Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Attached are some images with the best results I can get. Thanks Mike

Looks like an interesting power source.
Can you post up a pic of your machine settings so we can take a look?

Mstechs3 wrote:However when I turn it to A/C it works, but having issues with the Balance setting. I try to turn it up for more cleaning and I don't get more cleaning the electrode just gets hotter? I am using a 2% lanthanated tungsten A number 7 stubby Cub and running 20CFH of argon.

what amps and what thickness plate?
by the looks of it your running way to cold. cleaning action is also a function of amps.

First of all thanks for the reply! The material thickness is around .25" and I am running at 180 amps. Just had some scrap aluminum laying around looking to get some better material tomorrow I will get some better pictures of the settings as well thanks again.

Mstechs3 wrote:First of all thanks for the reply! The material thickness is around .25" and I am running at 180 amps. Just had some scrap aluminum laying around looking to get some better material tomorrow I will get some better pictures of the settings as well thanks again.

180 amps is too low to get a decent puddle on 0.25 aluminum. You want 225 to start, pedal down once you get going. Some machines set balance by % of EN and some by EP. You’ve got to determine which yours is so adjustments can manage the tungsten. More cleaning erodes the tungsten more quickly.

Tech 3,, I also have an everlast machine much like yours. The balance should be around the 9 or 10 oclock position. Some machines are the opposite, simply because they are. You want to be about the thickness of the tungsten over the material and just be able to see past the leading edge of the cup. The tungsten, cup and material will get hot. Usually IF the tungsten is rounding and disappearing in a hurry, there is too much cleaning action and requires small adjustments,,counter clockcwise to lessen.
There is lots of knowledge and help available in here. Look over the different threads and you may find the answers to questions.
have fun, be careful and practice, practice.

if your running a 3/32" tungsten its may round off fairly heavily at those amps. might pay to use 1/8".
also a smaller cup would help.

So here are the results think I wasn't running enought amps. The following tests were .125 material at 116 amps and 110 hz

Test#1 Test #2 Test#3
I guess there is no substitute for practice and free advance thanks all!!!

Instead of increasing towards 50%, move towards 15%. The less cleaning, the better the penetration can be, the lower the amps you might need.

There's no issue with having more amps dialed in, then use your pedal to reduce the amperage in use. 1/8" aluminum, I set to 170 and run closer to 120 by the time I am done with a long weld (pedal adjusted). No since setting it to max required and not having room to increase it as needed.

Mstechs3 wrote:So here are the results think I wasn't running enought amps. The following tests were .125 material at 116 amps and 110 hz

still to way to cold.should be up around 150 amps. i usually start with a lot more.
you should be getting a nice clean puddle in a couple of seconds. i suspect your hanging around waiting for a puddle to form then going slow. the trouble with that is you will overheat your part.
so crank it up and travel faster.

btw i have noticed some weld calculators give the wrong amps for aluminium. so if your using one it pays to compare it to another.

tweake wrote:

Mstechs3 wrote:So here are the results think I wasn't running enought amps. The following tests were .125 material at 116 amps and 110 hz

still to way to cold.should be up around 150 amps. i usually start with a lot more.
you should be getting a nice clean puddle in a couple of seconds. i suspect your hanging around waiting for a puddle to form then going slow. the trouble with that is you will overheat your part.
so crank it up and travel faster.

MS - Have a glance at the backside of your test pieces. On aluminum you should see a nice outline of weld protruding to the back if you are using enough heat and penetration. Else, your bead is simply laying on the top surface with no strength.

When I turned up the heat it seems like I cant move fast enough the puddle just sinks into the part and cant add enough rod to get it back on top the part

Ms...it's pretty much like cj offered. Use amperage to make the puddle and you will control the size of that puddle with the pedal. Should only take a few seconds to make the puddle and then you will get to moving. When you add the filler, it is about like trying to shove the filler right thru to the backside of the material. That addition of the filler will help cool the puddle. Try operating the torch without filler for a while. You should be seeing outline of the puddle on the backside. If you have manually cleaned the material with stainless brush and wipe it with acetone or something like, you can usually cut back on the cleaning action. On your machine (everlast) don't go past the 10 oclock position..that will transfer heat from material up to the tungsten for sure. Cut back to the left to lessen the cleaning.

cj737 wrote: MS - Have a glance at the backside of your test pieces. On aluminum you should see a nice outline of weld protruding to the back if you are using enough heat and penetration. Else, your bead is simply laying on the top surface with no strength.

+1

Mstechs3 wrote:When I turned up the heat it seems like I cant move fast enough the puddle just sinks into the part and cant add enough rod to get it back on top the part

there is a technique where you want the puddle to sink a bit before adding filler.
a bit of fine tuning of the amps is needed.

the other thing is how heat soaked the part is and you need to adjust amps to compensate for that.
what tends to catch a lot of people out is not being hot enough at the start, waiting to long to get puddle to form which heat soaks the part and then your puddle sinks away really fast.
thats why many like to do high amps at the start. getting the puddle quickly means less heat into the part. then back off the amp.

Mstechs3 wrote:When I turned up the heat it seems like I cant move fast enough the puddle just sinks into the part and cant add enough rod to get it back on top the part

No one said it was gonna be easy, lol. I know I have a hard time because I hardly weld aluminum. You just have to find that right balance between amperage and ramp-up speed, along with modulation of that amperage with the footpedal. A lot of people lie to themselves as to how quickly they are actually getting that amperage to where it needs to be. Once you focus in on that aspect in detail, you'll really make progress. When I started to mentally time myself, I found I was taking wayyy too long, because I was scared of blowing through, and like others have said, it just over-saturates the part with heat, then things start to really get uncontrollable.

Here is some more pic after burning threw 1lb of 3/32 4340 rod lol getting to be a expensive hobbies but I love it.