Welding Tips and Tricks

Firstly hello everyone from Australia.

I have an issue with little stalagmites forming on my tungsten whilst doing alloy welding and ill try to do this simply
Everlast 210 EXT 6 months old
New tungsten and consumables
Tungsten 2.4mm Purple ( but get the same results with others)
100 % Argon supplied by client
Clean new aluminium supplied by client
Cleaning products supplied by client

I use the same settings as a guide for the same job as we have been comparing results.Adjustments are made for AC balance
They use a miller not sue of the models.
So.. my question is why is it i get this issue and they dont i even gave them my gas bottle and tungsten to try ... no issue.
I have checked for leaks.
Look forward to your advice guys and gals

hows things going across the ditch there?

pics would helps.
depends on if you mean nodules or splitting.
one thing to watch is some tungsten do not like being snapped. they will split once they get hot.

i've had issues with nodules forming and that tended to be due to the how the tungsten was ground.
but also i think how tungsten temp plays a part. more cleaning action, gas flow rate etc how hot the tungsten gets.

Cheers
I dont break my tungsten and this was a clean brand new item
ground on a new wheel using me battery drill to turn it all clean.

Crud is a little vague i know. it looks like pimples sometimes and other times its nodules.

gas flow was 15 now 10 no difference
Cleaning action was 30 then 25 then 20 then 15 same result till the handpiece got hot lol

all good over here i guess... partner lost a friend today from the virus so sad day i guess
stay safe kiwi

What cup size are you using?

Cleaning aluminum and filler?

What type of filler?

I don't weld aluminum, but if you would like a good answer you might try supplying those who do with the above info, plus pics if possible. Can never hurt to have too much info.

Welcome to the forum, there's a number of your neighbors here!

TraditionalToolworks wrote:What cup size are you using?

Cleaning aluminum and filler?

What type of filler?

I don't weld aluminum, but if you would like a good answer you might try supplying those who do with the above info, plus pics if possible. Can never hurt to have too much info.

Welcome to the forum, there's a number of your neighbours here!

Hi mate
Cup is an 8
Gas lens
5356 filler
As stated its all clean and i clean before welding]
ill try to send a pic
cheers

ozzie1010 wrote:

tig pic 1.jpg

Your tungsten is contaminated. You must have dunked it in the puddle or jammed the filler into it.

ozzie1010 wrote:
Hi mate
Cup is an 8
Gas lens
5356 filler
As stated its all clean and i clean before welding]
ill try to send a pic
cheers

tig pic 1.jpg

pics is a out of focus on the tip.
however i would say that also contamination.
that also look like very little stick out. makes things easy on yourself and stick it out a bit more.
the grind on the tungsten looks to fairly fine tapered. try a much blunter angle. think crayon tip.
if you try and do a really fine tip it will melt back at lower amps or blow completely off at higher amps. neither is good.
the nodules might simply be a fine tip melting back.
also try a 6 or 5 cup. strangely enough it works better.

Try the extremes on both ends of your cleaning knob. You might have an issue with it. It looks like too much heat on the tip and it wants to ball.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

If I hadn't read the posts and just saw your photo I would say it looks like you might be using 2% thoriated tungsten, or the AC balance is sending too much heat into the tungsten, and/or too much amps for 2.4mm (3/32") dia tungsten

Simclardy wrote:Try the extremes on both ends of your cleaning knob. You might have an issue with it. It looks like too much heat on the tip and it wants to ball.

This ^^^. Your tungsten is deforming due to the AC Balance. You are too high on the EP side. A purple tungsten will hold a gentle ball on the end if your tungsten is fresh (you claimed it was new and uncut, only ground) and you taper into amps on the initial startup to allow the tungsten to "ball". If you took a new tungsten and mashed the pedal, you can get this result (pictured).

I believe the Everest is reversed from the Miller on Balance. What you did was correct, but try is at 35, 40 and you should see a better condition. I even "prep" my tungsten (30 for me, 70 for you) to force a small ball (yep, even with 1%, 2% and purples) onto the tip. Then reset to 65-72% (Miller) for welding.

Sandy and cj,,,the everlast machine that ozzie has , would prob be a digital readout. Also as cj stated is opposite from miller and should be showing 20 - 35 for balance. I've got a similar one and run mine at 35 max but find that I need lower when working on cleaned material. I believe that I'have a purple tungsten and will give a try to see what might be happening. I'm pretty clever at messing up the tungsten. Heading to the barn now and will get back.

cj737 wrote:

Simclardy wrote:Try the extremes on both ends of your cleaning knob. You might have an issue with it. It looks like too much heat on the tip and it wants to ball.

This ^^^. Your tungsten is deforming due to the AC Balance. You are too high on the EP side. A purple tungsten will hold a gentle ball on the end if your tungsten is fresh (you claimed it was new and uncut, only ground) and you taper into amps on the initial startup to allow the tungsten to "ball". If you took a new tungsten and mashed the pedal, you can get this result (pictured).

I believe the Everest is reversed from the Miller on Balance. What you did was correct, but try is at 35, 40 and you should see a better condition. I even "prep" my tungsten (30 for me, 70 for you) to force a small ball (yep, even with 1%, 2% and purples) onto the tip. Then reset to 65-72% (Miller) for welding.

Yup, it is "cauliflower'ing", or creating "nodules". It can be minimized if you are successful at balling the tungsten. Some just don't want to form a ball. But if you are, the larger the ball, the better it holds up during high amperage use. Lanthanated/Ceriated definitely work better for this than Thoriated. Set the AC balance to as little EP as you can tolerate while still maintaining a clean weld puddle with no floaties (black soot floating in the puddle).

Thanks everyone for your help and i will keep you posted with all of your recommendations.

Time delay from us to you means it will be next week

Happy Easter to you all and stay safe
cheers ozzy

started out with 35 balance, worked well. Went to 15 and started to get pepper. Went to 55 and made a perfect ball in short order. Didn't go any higher, afraid of making the tungsten disappear all together. Let me know if you want me to try something else. I'm not doing much right now. would the type of base metal have something to do with the problem?

Original post stated that the cleaning agents are supplied by the customer. I’d be curious to see the msd on the chem.

BillE.Dee wrote:started out with 35 balance, worked well. Went to 15 and started to get pepper. Went to 55 and made a perfect ball in short order. Didn't go any higher, afraid of making the tungsten disappear all together. Let me know if you want me to try something else. I'm not doing much right now. would the type of base metal have something to do with the problem?

It's not you that needs to try things, it's the person with the issue at hand.

Oscar wrote:

cj737 wrote:

Simclardy wrote:Try the extremes on both ends of your cleaning knob. You might have an issue with it. It looks like too much heat on the tip and it wants to ball.

This ^^^. Your tungsten is deforming due to the AC Balance. You are too high on the EP side. A purple tungsten will hold a gentle ball on the end if your tungsten is fresh (you claimed it was new and uncut, only ground) and you taper into amps on the initial startup to allow the tungsten to "ball". If you took a new tungsten and mashed the pedal, you can get this result (pictured).

I believe the Everest is reversed from the Miller on Balance. What you did was correct, but try is at 35, 40 and you should see a better condition. I even "prep" my tungsten (30 for me, 70 for you) to force a small ball (yep, even with 1%, 2% and purples) onto the tip. Then reset to 65-72% (Miller) for welding.

Yup, it is "cauliflower'ing", or creating "nodules". It can be minimized if you are successful at balling the tungsten. Some just don't want to form a ball. But if you are, the larger the ball, the better it holds up during high amperage use. Lanthanated/Ceriated definitely work better for this than Thoriated. Set the AC balance to as little EP as you can tolerate while still maintaining a clean weld puddle with no floaties (black soot floating in the puddle).

i suspect this is a case of using a tungsten prepped for thin steel rather than aluminium.
i think its the tungsten melting back and trying to form a ball thats causing nodules.
theres probably quite a bit of tungsten to melt back due to the grind angle. possibly not quite hot enough hence its not doing a nice ball. its just melting where the arc is jumping off.
i nip the tip off the tungsten to avoid it melting back. if you know what size its going to melt back to when your welding, i cut it off close to that size. that way there is not a big long of thin tungsten sticking out thats going to melt and do weird stuff.

i hope that makes sense.
its probably not the proper way but its a way i find works ok for me.

It's not you that needs to try things, it's the person with the issue at hand.[/quote]

I can dig it Oscar, but I would surely like to know what is causing problems so I can avoid them when I turn my fantastic metal into wods of scrap. I seem to have a memory of doing that same thing as Ozzy did, but can't find it in my file....I'm OLD...and suffer from CRS a lot.

I did it ... needle point and hovering made the purple tungsten get dingle balls. After I resharpened it .. it really didn't want high amps even after balling. Maybe it was me, but that's what I came up with.
Have fun, stay safe and have a safe and blessed Easter.
Gramps.

tweake wins. He has to send Josh his address to get a pair of gloves and underwear..

BillE.Dee wrote:I did it ... needle point and hovering made the purple tungsten get dingle balls. After I resharpened it .. it really didn't want high amps even after balling. Maybe it was me, but that's what I came up with.
Have fun, stay safe and have a safe and blessed Easter.
Gramps.

tweake wins. He has to send Josh his address to get a pair of gloves and underwear..

What Balance did you use?

hi cj, the balance I used on my everlast when it started to knot up was 30% and about 150 amps, 20 cfm clean material, just the opposite of miller at 70%. It seemed that the purple didn't want hi amps... even after I sharpened it for aluminum with a crayon tip. the needle tip started to wod up almost immediately. I believe the purple is considered a tri mix (?) tungsten. I did NOT try it on steel and dc...maybe tomorrow if it stops snowing. I then switched to blue lanthanated and had no problems even with a fairly sharp tip. Is it the color ?? dunno
gramps.

cj737 wrote:

Simclardy wrote:Try the extremes on both ends of your cleaning knob. You might have an issue with it. It looks like too much heat on the tip and it wants to ball.

I believe the Everest is reversed from the Miller on Balance. What you did was correct, but try is at 35, 40 and you should see a better condition. I even "prep" my tungsten (30 for me, 70 for you) to force a small ball (yep, even with 1%, 2% and purples) onto the tip. Then reset to 65-72% (Miller) for welding.

I have a 210 EXT and just FYI, the A/C balance is "cleaning %" so moving the number on the display up increases EP.

cosmokenney wrote:I have a 210 EXT and just FYI, the A/C balance is "cleaning %" so moving the number on the display up increases EP.

Does anyone know, is this the same on the Primeweld 225? I've seen talk of this in the past, but since I have never owned an AC machine it didn't pertain to me.

From reading the Primeweld manual, it seems the same although it's not very clear. But it seems that when you increase the balance it increases the EP of the wave. They do show how the wave is effected, but they don't say how that relates to the balance setting on the machine...

When I get my machine, I will test it out. Supposed to ship by end of week, so should arrive next week. I'm sure I'll be full of questions for you guys...

Also, when people talk about the Miller being reverse, does that mean when you increase the balance it increases the EN?

afaik they all change the amount of EP.
the difference between brands is some have the numbers the other way around.

so try it on 30% and if the tungsten balls up, melts away, glows like a light bulb filament, then you set it to 70%.

tweake wrote:afaik they all change the amount of EP.
the difference between brands is some have the numbers the other way around.

so try it on 30% and if the tungsten balls up, melts away, glows like a light bulb filament, then you set it to 70%.

Thanks tweake, but let me ask you a different way and/or phrase it differently. If others have some confusion, maybe laying it out in layman's terms would help them (and me).

When the EP is high, the tungsten gets hotter, at least my understanding. So the dial only has to do with which direction adds EP, right?

I would guess that most any machine set on 50% where the EP and EN are equal, the tungsten should be able to survive, right?

I am guessing that people are trying to get less heat into the tungsten when they turn their dial to 30%, meaning if we look at a square wave there would be more time running on straight polarity (EN) than there is on reverse polarity (EP). It is all about the direction in which the current is flowing, and the trick is in balancing the amount of time the machine spends on each during AC as the current alternates in both directions. Is that correct?

And then for extra credit, do the Miller machines lower the EP as you turn the dial/setting up?