Welding Tips and Tricks

Can some one explain Pluse setting still having troubling getting to understand jody is he hitting the foot pedal or torch to make it pulse on or off or does the machine do it for you. Just confused

If he says he's manually pulsing then I think he is using the down slope time to act like a lower amp period. I.e. A 2T push button scenario. Otherwise it's probably a continuous pulse controled by the welder.

sambo1985 wrote:Can some one explain Pluse setting still having troubling getting to understand jody is he hitting the foot pedal or torch to make it pulse on or off or does the machine do it for you. Just confused

Well it all depends because there is more than 1 pulse setting. He sometimes pulses with the foot pedal, but he also has the machines do the pulsing as well.

Bit messy to explain. If he's talking about the scenario where he is using 33 pulses per second, rule of 33 or whatever it is he is using the pulse setting on the machine. You can have the machine pulse and still use the foot pedal to control amperage/heat or use the buttons on the torch to initiate the upslope/downslope etc. The pulse setting is a ratio of on and off amperage and how many times per second whereas the foot pedal still controls the on/off and overall amperage/heat input.

On top of that you can turn the pulse settings off on the machine and pulse the amperage with the pedal manually, sometimes good for creeping up on an edge, but if you can do that more than a few times a second

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JoZS6LgqYI

Look at it this way
If you set your machine on 100amps and use half of the pedal you would be welding at 50 amps. (assuming you have pressed the pedal exactly half way)

Now lets set up the pulser, on a Miller it's set as a percentage,

you set peak time to 50%---this is the TIME you will spend at peak amperage
background amps at 10% (of 100 amps)---this is the % of the peak amps
and PPS (pulses per second) at 5
Remember the machine is set to 100amps
At full pedal the machine is at 100amps 50% of the time
and at 10 amps 50% of the time
and it pulses back and forth 5 times a second

if you're only at half of the pedal then the machine amp output is 50amps, and the background would only be at 5 amps.
Remember the pulse settings are a % (except for PPS) of the machines amp setting, no matter where you are in the range of the pedal

In the above example if I change the background amps to 25% then at full pedal it will pulse back and forth from
100amps to 25amps...5 times a second

LtBadd wrote:Look at it this way
If you set your machine on 100amps and use half of the pedal you would be welding at 50 amps. (assuming you have pressed the pedal exactly half way)

Now lets set up the pulser, on a Miller it's set as a percentage,

you set peak time to 50%---this is the TIME you will spend at peak amperage
background amps at 10% (of 100 amps)---this is the % of the peak amps
and PPS (pulses per second) at 5
Remember the machine is set to 100amps
At full pedal the machine is at 100amps 50% of the time
and at 10 amps 50% of the time
and it pulses back and forth 5 times a second

if you're only at half of the pedal then the machine amp output is 50amps, and the background would only be at 5 amps.
Remember the pulse settings are a % (except for PPS) of the machines amp setting, no matter where you are in the range of the pedal

In the above example if I change the background amps to 25% then at full pedal it will pulse back and forth from
100amps to 25amps...5 times a second

Thanks for the info. I have been wondering about those settings, but I haven't tried any of them out as I am still working on getting the basics nailed down to my satisfaction. Been going from one end of the spectrum to the other with tig practice (1/4 wall Al to 16ga stainless steel) and having a bit of trouble with heat control (my issue is pedal control and lack of hood time) and can see how that would be a good way to moderate the heat applied to the work piece.

What good does the pulsing do for you? I never used it as I never saw a reason for it but I am guessing it has a role to play in something, when is it used and why?

Olivero wrote:What good does the pulsing do for you? I never used it as I never saw a reason for it but I am guessing it has a role to play in something, when is it used and why?

Here is an article produced by Miller for pulsing both MIG and TIG