Welding Tips and Tricks

Spartan wrote:

Oscar wrote:BTW, I don't buy into the whole "gas cooling the cable" all that much. Typical Argon flowrates are very, very small in the grand scheme of things.

Now that would make for an interesting test

How so? To test the temps?


My reasoning is even though argon is flowing through the gas hose and passing over the cable, argon's thermal conductivity is 2/3 that of air, and post-flow won't help much unless you waste a lot of argon with stupid-long post-flow settings.

Oscar wrote:Nope. Google.

You could have put a link to it.

Oscar wrote:Which is why I have my belief about going to a heavier duty "air cooled" torch and a 2-pc setup for cable & hose: 1/0 copper welding cable for power, and a separate gas hose.

I don't see people liking that solution, mainly because most people don't need to weld at 350 amps so it's for a minority of people that have welders capable of welding at that amperage. I suspect many people with welders capable of that amperage don't actually weld at that range very often. You could be a case in point.

Oscar wrote:Well thats too bad as you cant have your cake and eat it too without going water cooled.

Not really. Not everyone needs to eat a 2 lb. steak when a 12 oz. steak will fill them up just fine. Bigger is not always better. This is why so many people prefer a CK 17, it is capable of welding the range that most people are welding at the majority of time and has a small flexible hose. If people are welding at 350 amps day in and day out, maybe the heavy hitter would be a solution, but I only see it being useful for someone like Spartan so he could have the ability to weld at 350 amps without taking his water cooler with him out into the field. Certainly no price savings on the heavy hitter, the cables alone cost more than a CK Worldwide torch with a hose complete. Call me a skeptic on the heavy hitter.

I agree with you on most parts. I'm not trying to convince anyone that this is a widespread solution to TIG welding problems. I'm simply pointing out what exists and is attainable. Price savings was never a consideration. Torch is $60. 25ft of 1/0 is $50. So that's $110. A Dinse connector is $15. Torch power/gas fitting $8. Total is $138 plus perhaps other small parts to fit into one's own TIG welder setup. So overall,it's not that bad. That being said, an acquaintance of mine said it's only good up to about 280A at 100% duty-cycle. Going to the full 350A very frequently will indeed smoke the torch.

Oscar wrote:

Spartan wrote:

Oscar wrote:BTW, I don't buy into the whole "gas cooling the cable" all that much. Typical Argon flowrates are very, very small in the grand scheme of things.

Now that would make for an interesting test

How so? To test the temps?


My reasoning is even though argon is flowing through the gas hose and passing over the cable, argon's thermal conductivity is 2/3 that of air, and post-flow won't help much unless you waste a lot of argon with stupid-long post-flow settings.

Yup. I would think soldering thermocouples at a couple points (maybe one on the cable itself and another on/near the torch head) would make for an adequate test. Run it with regular argon flow, with extreme argon flow, and without any argon flow to measure the temp differences. Argon could be applied externally at the arc area for the no-flow test to prevent creating a fireworks show at the weld area for that test.

Of course this is all just in my mind....don't expect you, me, or anyone else to actually do a test like this

Oscar wrote:I agree with you on most parts. I'm not trying to convince anyone that this is a widespread solution to TIG welding problems. I'm simply pointing out what exists and is attainable.

I guess I should say I do agree with your premise that you can't have your cake and eat it too, in the sense that if you want higher amps the heat needs to dissipate somewhere.

Oscar wrote:Price savings was never a consideration. Torch is $60. 25ft of 1/0 is $50. So that's $110. A Dinse connector is $15. Torch power/gas fitting $8. Total is $138 plus perhaps other small parts to fit into one's own TIG welder setup.

The heavy hitter cables were $169 for a 10' I believe.

Oscar wrote:So overall,it's not that bad. That being said, an acquaintance of mine said it's only good up to about 280A at 100% duty-cycle. Going to the full 350A very frequently will indeed smoke the torch.

Is the limitation the torch then?

280amp could be useful for people with a Dynasty 280DX, but I think it gets down to the same question, how often will you use it at 280 amps? Maybe a different type of cooling system that is smaller and able to use less liquid or being able to blow air into the copper braid somehow?

TraditionalToolworks wrote:This is why so many people prefer a CK 17, it is capable of welding the range that most people are welding at the majority of time and has a small flexible hose. If people are welding at 350 amps day in and day out, maybe the heavy hitter would be a solution, but I only see it being useful for someone like Spartan so he could have the ability to weld at 350 amps without taking his water cooler with him out into the field. Certainly no price savings on the heavy hitter, the cables alone cost more than a CK Worldwide torch with a hose complete. Call me a skeptic on the heavy hitter.

No more field work for me, so my 20s and an 18 cover 99.9% of my work.

However, I'm a bout to create a "tacking table" so to speak with my new fixturing table, and that will probably get a dedicated machine and a 17 flex head as it's resident torch.

TraditionalToolworks wrote:

Oscar wrote:I agree with you on most parts. I'm not trying to convince anyone that this is a widespread solution to TIG welding problems. I'm simply pointing out what exists and is attainable.

I guess I should say I do agree with your premise that you can't have your cake and eat it too, in the sense that if you want higher amps the heat needs to dissipate somewhere.

Oscar wrote:Price savings was never a consideration. Torch is $60. 25ft of 1/0 is $50. So that's $110. A Dinse connector is $15. Torch power/gas fitting $8. Total is $138 plus perhaps other small parts to fit into one's own TIG welder setup.

The heavy hitter cables were $169 for a 10' I believe.

Oscar wrote:So overall,it's not that bad. That being said, an acquaintance of mine said it's only good up to about 280A at 100% duty-cycle. Going to the full 350A very frequently will indeed smoke the torch.

Is the limitation the torch then?

280amp could be useful for people with a Dynasty 280DX, but I think it gets down to the same question, how often will you use it at 280 amps? Maybe a different type of cooling system that is smaller and able to use less liquid or being able to blow air into the copper braid somehow?

I'm not sold on their special cables though. My speculation is that they are probably using some kind of soldered fitting/joint to improve the heat transfer into the welding cable to wick it out of the torch. That is why I was quoting the cost of regular 1/0 welding cable. I'm not sure what the actual limitation is since I've not used it, just going by the word of my acquaintance who actually has the torch and has smoked one already. As for cooling the copper conductor, which one are you referring to exactly?

Oscar wrote:As for cooling the copper conductor, which one are you referring to exactly?

Ultimately what needs to get cooled is the brass section in the torch head, AFAICT. The hose has copper in it however. So I guess some way needs to be worked out where heat could dissipate from the torch head. How, I'm not entirely sure.

I see, but at that point once you start to consider ways to cool the torch head on an air cooled torch, that's already water-cooled-thinking territory IMO. The only way I can see that happening (to a gas-cooled 1pc cable) is using a source of compressed air and reworking that 1pc cable and the fitting, so you can cool only the internal copper conductor using force-fed air, which would then have to be dumped somewhere far away from the weld area. This would keep the copper conductor close to ambient temperature, which would then act as a continuous heat-sink for the torch head itself. Obviously this would necessitate running/routing a separate gas hose to the torch and introducing a tube/fitting to integrate it, but in theory it is possible. You'd have the world's first forced-air cooled TIG torch.

Oscar wrote:I see, but at that point once you start to consider ways to cool the torch head on an air cooled torch, that's already water-cooled-thinking territory IMO.

Indeed, my point being there's a better mouse trap out there, or a better way to cool the torch that would take less space and be more portable. Maybe different material for the torch, not sure...someone needs to think outside the box to discover it.

TraditionalToolworks wrote:

Oscar wrote:I see, but at that point once you start to consider ways to cool the torch head on an air cooled torch, that's already water-cooled-thinking territory IMO.

Indeed, my point being there's a better mouse trap out there, or a better way to cool the torch that would take less space and be more portable. Maybe different material for the torch, not sure...someone needs to think outside the box to discover it.

Oh its already been discovered. There are materials that have extreme thermal conductivity but act as electrical insulators, so in theory the copper/brass torch head could possibly be bonded to them to wick heat out stupid fast, without worrying about being fried by the welding current. The info is out there; you just have to follow physics news as opposed to other news. 9/10 news feeds I read revolve around tokamak's/nuclear fusion, LIGO's for gravitational wave detection, the LHC and its proposed successor, and a few other odds and ends. You'd be surprised what materials are being invented/discovered in such endeavors. One such material is Black-X. Acts as a dielectric insulator, but with 3x the thermal conductivity of copper. Half-way between silver and diamond.

Oscar wrote:Oh its already been discovered. There are materials that have extreme thermal conductivity but act as electrical insulators, so in theory the copper/brass torch head could possibly be bonded to them to wick heat out stupid fast, without worrying about being fried by the welding current. The info is out there; you just have to follow physics news as opposed to other news. 9/10 news feeds I read revolve around tokamak's/nuclear fusion, LIGO's for gravitational wave detection, the LHC and its proposed successor, and a few other odds and ends. You'd be surprised what materials are being invented/discovered in such endeavors. One such material is Black-X. Acts as a dielectric insulator, but with 3x the thermal conductivity of copper. Half-way between silver and diamond.

The perfect material to use for the most efficient TIG torch: FOGBANK

Oscar wrote:Oh its already been discovered.

It's more than just discovering the materials to use, it's doing in a cost effective product that people will buy. If it's been done already, we'd all be using tig torches with other materials in them, but as it is we're all using brass torch heads for the most part.

Being cost effective is key, otherwise it would be easy to come up with a product that is more efficient.

TraditionalToolworks wrote:

Oscar wrote:Oh its already been discovered.

It's more than just discovering the materials to use, it's doing in a cost effective product that people will buy. If it's been done already, we'd all be using tig torches with other materials in them, but as it is we're all using brass torch heads for the most part.

Being cost effective is key, otherwise it would be easy to come up with a product that is more efficient.

Well of course I know that. But discovery was the only thing you mentioned in your post

I don’t understand all the fuss about a 26. I use one whenever I weld above 200 amps for an extended period of time and I never burn my hands, the torch doesn’t melt, nor does the cable. I use a 17 constantly up to 180 amps and have the exact same torch for over 3 years without incident.

All the hypothesis about duty cycle, pieces melting and thermal conductivity is horse crap. People should spend less time reading about welding and more time reading the puddle while they weld. FFS, millions of miles of filler has been welded over the past century with air cooled, single cable machines and this has not become an issue until someone decided this standard is no longer viable. Really?

cj737 wrote:I don’t understand all the fuss about a 26. I use one whenever I weld above 200 amps for an extended period of time and I never burn my hands, the torch doesn’t melt, nor does the cable. I use a 17 constantly up to 180 amps and have the exact same torch for over 3 years without incident.

All the hypothesis about duty cycle, pieces melting and thermal conductivity is horse crap. People should spend less time reading about welding and more time reading the puddle while they weld. FFS, millions of miles of filler has been welded over the past century with air cooled, single cable machines and this has not become an issue until someone decided this standard is no longer viable. Really?

I will agree with one difference. I have burnt up 2 17 torches in the last 3 years. And I’ve melted through 1 power cable. But I was putting 180 amps long enough I had to wear stick welding gloves to hold the torch, even then it was hot. But one was running 5/32 filler on 12in 300 # flange non stop (till the torch melted) due to a rush / emergency repair. That torch had run probably 50 # of rod before that. It took probably 2 or 3 # at that high rate to melt it. There a disposable consumable!

cj737 wrote:I don’t understand all the fuss about a 26. I use one whenever I weld above 200 amps for an extended period of time and I never burn my hands, the torch doesn’t melt, nor does the cable. I use a 17 constantly up to 180 amps and have the exact same torch for over 3 years without incident.

Hear hear, thanks for jumping in, I honestly don't get what the issues with a 26 are either. First it was claimed that it was too big and bulky, than it was claimed that it couldn't stand the heat...

cj737 wrote:All the hypothesis about duty cycle, pieces melting and thermal conductivity is horse crap. People should spend less time reading about welding and more time reading the puddle while they weld. FFS, millions of miles of filler has been welded over the past century with air cooled, single cable machines and this has not become an issue until someone decided this standard is no longer viable. Really?

Thank you for saying this, I'm going out to do some welding, I stopped by Home Depot where I probably overpaid for some stainless nuts to weld onto my cart as I didn't buy them by the pound and bought them in packs of 2 or 6 pieces.

I couldn't agree more, I am getting the flock out and under my hood rather than procrastinating over the heat. As Jody says, enough talking, more welding.

cj737 wrote:I don’t understand all the fuss about a 26. I use one whenever I weld above 200 amps for an extended period of time and I never burn my hands, the torch doesn’t melt, nor does the cable. I use a 17 constantly up to 180 amps and have the exact same torch for over 3 years without incident.

welding DC or AC?
i've gotten mine up to the point you don't want to hold it any longer. not melted anything. however thats only using it in the 150-180 amp range but on AC.

I love my 20 ! I have broken hands to contend with and I'm sensitive to HOT. I still like welding and do my best with what I have. Do I keep a 26 torch around...YEPPPPP . There are times when I need to get into nooks where large 26 won't go but still need the heat. Do I keep smaller air cooled torches around ... YEPPPPPP Some people drive VW and some drive Cadillacs. Have fun, make a living and stay safe. Trust me, AIN'T nothin on the other side.
gramps

tweake wrote:

cj737 wrote:I don’t understand all the fuss about a 26. I use one whenever I weld above 200 amps for an extended period of time and I never burn my hands, the torch doesn’t melt, nor does the cable. I use a 17 constantly up to 180 amps and have the exact same torch for over 3 years without incident.

welding DC or AC?
i've gotten mine up to the point you don't want to hold it any longer. not melted anything. however thats only using it in the 150-180 amp range but on AC.

Both, Tweake. Sure, the darn thing gets hot but it doesn’t “melt” as is being implied. Yes, the cable gets hot wrapped around my arm when I am plowing away in the summer heat with a lightweight, long sleeve shirt in the shop. I solved that by adding a mini split So now I can comfortably wear a welding jacket. Problem solved.

As BillE says, when I can’t get into tight quarters with a 26, I’ll bang away with a 17. I keep a bucket of clean water nearby, drop it in, blow argon through with the pedal, and keep welding. No issues.

I do have to admit the 1 piece cable on my Lincoln 26 is ridiculously thick and stiff, If I position it right, I don't find it to be too much of an issue, but I do miss being able to wrap it around my arm. On the other hand I think the torch itself would melt before the cable did, while the parts laying out in the sun felt pretty warm, the end of the cable that was in the shade didn't' feel like it really heated up at all despite running at 165-225 amps most the time.

Just ordered a Heavy Hitters 350 torch. Let's see what this thing is all about....

Oscar wrote:Just ordered a Heavy Hitters 350 torch. Let's see what this thing is all about....

Hooya! Can it stand up to the water cooled stinger? Time will tell....

Those are two completely different beasts.

Oscar wrote:Just ordered a Heavy Hitters 350 torch. Let's see what this thing is all about....

Crank it up to around 300 amps for a few minutes, I've yet to even get the hose of my 26 appreciably warm, but when I run near 200 amps for a while or for a minute or two at 225 amps the collet and tungsten starts binding and I need to use a pair of needle nose or hit the point on a block of wood to get it out. I'm curious how that torch avoids cooking the consumables.