Welding Tips and Tricks

Hello. I am a new memeber here and I have a question regarding the limits of my machine or any machine for that matter. So I have a Miller syncrowave 210 and online it says that if I am running on 220v then I can weld materials up to a 1/4". Now I understand that they are probably describing a single pass. So how do I interpret that for doing a mutipass? For instance, I am practicing for my structural steel cert test and it is a 1" V-groove. I mean my machine puts out more than enough amperage than what I typically use at school so I don't see why it wouldn't work. But I don't want to push the limits on my machine and damage it somehow. So how do I approach this situation?

Welcome to the forum Tannet.

what process? stick, TIG or MIG?

Tannet,
Welcome to the forum.

You should be able to weld up to the duty cycle of your machine. If the duty cycle is 20% @ 150 amps, it means you can weld 2 minutes out of every 10 at that amperage. Remember that every pass while welding is putting heat into the part so multi-pass welds don't necessarily need more amps. You might have to use a 1/8" rod and put down more passes than someone with a larger welder using a 5/32 or 3/16 rod, all while staying in the limits of your machine.

Your machine should shut down or at least show a fault when it reaches it's duty cycle. At that point you'll have to stop and let it cool before you can continue. While stick welding, stopping to change electrodes doesn't give the welder much of a break so figure you're only going to be able to run maybe one or two passes at 125-130 amps (30-40% duty cycle) without stopping for awhile. You shouldn't hurt the machine if you let it cool between.

Len

Louie1961 wrote:what process? stick, TIG or MIG?

This is for stick. Using 1/8 7018

Braehill wrote:Tannet,
Welcome to the forum.

You should be able to weld up to the duty cycle of your machine. If the duty cycle is 20% @ 150 amps, it means you can weld 2 minutes out of every 10 at that amperage. Remember that every pass while welding is putting heat into the part so multi-pass welds don't necessarily need more amps. You might have to use a 1/8" rod and put down more passes than someone with a larger welder using a 5/32 or 3/16 rod, all while staying in the limits of your machine.

Your machine should shut down or at least show a fault when it reaches it's duty cycle. At that point you'll have to stop and let it cool before you can continue. While stick welding, stopping to change electrodes doesn't give the welder much of a break so figure you're only going to be able to run maybe one or two passes at 125-130 amps (30-40% duty cycle) without stopping for awhile. You shouldn't hurt the machine if you let it cool between.

Len

That's what I was thinking. And I use 1/8 electrodes anyways. I am just worried about my machine is all its my first machine and I spent a lot of money on. I don't want to wear it out. I wasn't sure if it is bad for it to do something like that.

I tend toward the empirical school of research, so I've always just welded until the overtemp breaker triggered. Haven't harmed a welder yet. When it cools off, it'll weld again. No problem.

Leaving aside duty cycle concerns, stick welding is about the amps needed to burn in the rod correctly. Its not really about metal thickness. I would say there is virtually no limit to the thickness of the metal you can weld if you know how to properly stack beads in a multi pass weld. those parameters about welding thickness usually refer to the maximum single pass thickness a MIG machine can handle. The Syncrowave 210 can MIG as well.

While stick welding, stopping to change electrodes doesn't give the welder much of a break so figure you're only going to be able to run maybe one or two passes at 125-130 amps (30-40% duty cycle) without stopping for awhile.

Wow I didn't realize the Sync 210 had such a low duty cycle. I think I will keep my 250 which has a 100% duty cycle at 150 amps

Louie1961 wrote:

While stick welding, stopping to change electrodes doesn't give the welder much of a break so figure you're only going to be able to run maybe one or two passes at 125-130 amps (30-40% duty cycle) without stopping for awhile.

Wow I didn't realize the Sync 210 had such a low duty cycle. I think I will keep my 250 which has a 100% duty cycle at 150 amps

My machine has a 60% duty cycle. I am not sure what he is talking about.

ldbtx wrote:I tend toward the empirical school of research, so I've always just welded until the overtemp breaker triggered. Haven't harmed a welder yet. When it cools off, it'll weld again. No problem.

I somewhat agree, only because not all machines are set-up with the same safety margin with regards to the Overtemp light actually being the rated duty cycle when at max amperage. Some machines state that if you repeatedly hit the Overtemp situation where the welder shuts off and you have to let it cool, that could void warranty. It could very well be that the Overtemp light is programmed to light up well after the duty cycle, or well before the duty cycle is reached. You just never really know.

Tannet.
You might want to look at page 13 of the manual like I did and you'll see that your duty cycle is 60% @ 90A and 20% @ 150.
I didn't take the time to do the actual math but I think if you do, you'll find my estimation for 120 amps is not far off. But hey, I usually don't know what I'm talking about. I just make this shit up as I go.

Len

Oscar wrote:

ldbtx wrote:I tend toward the empirical school of research, so I've always just welded until the overtemp breaker triggered. Haven't harmed a welder yet. When it cools off, it'll weld again. No problem.

I somewhat agree, only because not all machines are set-up with the same safety margin with regards to the Overtemp light actually being the rated duty cycle when at max amperage. Some machines state that if you repeatedly hit the Overtemp situation where the welder shuts off and you have to let it cool, that could void warranty. It could very well be that the Overtemp light is programmed to light up well after the duty cycle, or well before the duty cycle is reached. You just never really know.

I probably should clarify here, Oscar. I've only done this with transformer machines. I just recently got my first inverter rig, but I've only put about an hour on it so far, and got nowhere close to duty cycle.

I have tripped out a couple of diferent inverters but it's usually odd circumstances. Like one time was on the side of a building in mid summer when the average temp was 80 F plus and stuck in full sun against a building in a basket. It's harder to trip out a welder from bumping it's max than you might think duty cycle or not. Push it till it cry's for help let it cool down and start again.