Welding Tips and Tricks

I don't weld aluminum much but needed to yesterday. When I am through with my pass and lift my foot from the peddle I get an arc pulling out. I tried different slope settings but no change. I am grounded good. Any suggestions?

Ron
HTP 221 Invertig

You'll need to be more specific with defining "arc pulling out". I've never heard that in 10 years of reading welding forums.

When I come to the end of the weld,foot off the pedal, as I pull away from the work I'm getting an ark , mini lightning till I'm far enough from the work to break the flow.

like this:



?


If so that is the HF arc and it should have extinguished when the arc is extinguised. In what Mode are you in? 2T/4T/Spot/Reset?

croshaul wrote:When I come to the end of the weld,foot off the pedal, as I pull away from the work I'm getting an ark , mini lightning till I'm far enough from the work to break the flow.

i suspect its still running. check your final current setting and the post gas flow. simply sit there until gas flow has stopped, which can be a while. also check your actually taking your foot off the pedal. some only take a small amount of weight to keep the switch on. really easy when your trying to get things done, to accidentally have your foot still on triggering it.

the other thing is check your helmet. need to increase the delay time so it stays dark longer. that way you don't actually see the lightning or get flashed if the arc restarts.

It is indeed strange that's for sure. I'm pretty sure mine doesn't do that. If Ron doesn't figure it out, HTP is still open for "take-out" business, so they're still answering the phones

Oscar wrote:You'll need to be more specific with defining "arc pulling out". I've never heard that in 10 years of reading welding forums.

Oscar, I don't know much about the 221, BUT, is it equipped with 2T and 4T and is the down slope turned way up causing the flash?
Just a thought from gramps.

BillE.Dee wrote:

Oscar wrote:You'll need to be more specific with defining "arc pulling out". I've never heard that in 10 years of reading welding forums.

Oscar, I don't know much about the 221, BUT, is it equipped with 2T and 4T and is the down slope turned way up causing the flash?
Just a thought from gramps.

Yes it has those modes, but you'd have to ask Ron how he has it set-up. Although I have a hunch it's not actually related to the modes. It almost sounds like the HF arc is being erratic. We won't know until he comes back and tells us more.

Oscar, I had it in 4T. Which I did once before and it just came to me. All is well on that front. However, I must have changed a setting for general welding because I don't have the soft start which I thought would be slope up which I can't get to in 2T. I need to be relearned on this thing. I have been doing real well all winter welding mild steel down to sheet metal up to 3/8". It's basically set it and leave it cept for amps

I am guessing that the slope up would set the start, I'm having to scratch start at the moment and that hasn't been the way she's been working.

Ok. I'm trying to understand what youre saying (the way you type doesn't jive with me all that much, as I cant really tell if your commentary is really a question or not, but I'm trying).

So you had it in 4T. Did you have an on/off push-button switch connected or did you have the foot-pedal connected and thus used the foot pedal?

Ya, sorry about that. I had it in 4T and the hi freq was off and I use the peddle. I came across a guy on you tube that does a pretty good job of explaining what the functions are and what they do on the HTP 221 machine. I noticed that he was welding mild steel in 4T mode and the hi freq was on, so I went and set my machine that way and it was back to normal.

For some reason I have it in my head that I need to set the slope up and slope down modes. I can't access the slope up mode. The manual isn't specific, at least to me anyway, about accessing that mode. Do I even need it? If I do, how do I get there?

Just as I kinda (and BillE.Dee) suspected. 4T mode is not intended to be used with the foot-pedal. 4T is meant to be used with a momentary on/off switch/button, usually mounted on the torch. This would be for times when using a foot pedal is not feasible. So if you do want to use your foot-pedal you need to be in 2T mode. In 2T, you fully control the up- and down-slope by modulating the amperage output with your foot-pedal. The up- and down-slopes are there for use with 4T mode, when a foot-pedal is not being used. Gotta be careful with YouTube videos, as they don't always explain every single little thing because it only pertains to their scenario at hand.

So, take it off 4T and put it back on 2T if you intend to use the foot-pedal (and . If you want to use HF or not, that is up to you, but 4T is not meant to be used with a foot-pedal, because then you run into weird issues (hence the likely reason for this thread )

If you want to use 4T for what ever reason, only then do you need to mess with the up- and down-slopes, since they provide a certain measure of control for when there is no foot-pedal. But at this point, you'd have to fore-go your foot pedal in lieu of a momentary on/off switch. So set the up- and down-slopes to 0.1s when using the footpedal, and set it to 2T, and you should be golden.

Thanks for your time Oscar, alls good, for now.

croshaul wrote:Thanks for your time Oscar, alls good, for now.

10-4, over and out.