Welding Tips and Tricks

First off I’ll go ahead and say that my helmet was functioning properly when this happened, in the interest of saving time.

Ok I was Tig welding carbon steel, max pedal was prob. 100 amps but this happened in light-up, so maybe 25? I was welding this cheapo bandsaw attachment plate to a 1/8 piece of hot rolled plate to stiffen it. I had drilled several small holes in the cheapo plate and was putting beads in the holes. (Rosettes? Don’t know what that’s called). I had flapped the paint off the cheapo plate and the mill scale off the other but they were not super clean. Anyway I lit up on one of the holes, saw the arc as usual, and then a brilliant point of light appeared right at the point of contact. I was at shade 10, and it was like I wasn’t wearing anything. I checked my helmet by starting on a clamp, usual stuff. Back to the hole, same thing. Just brilliant white, had to look away. I upped the shade to 13, and it happened once more, still too bright at full shade. It went out, and never reappeared. All the other holes were normal.

Anyone know what it was? Seen anything like it? I’m almost positive it wasn’t my helmet.

Wells

More than likely your body position or posture was obstructing one of the sensors, or, there was ambient light behind you that was interfering with your SENSITIVITY setting on your helmet. Can also be batteries running low.

What helmet and model?

I have had that happen with what I'm sure had to be contamination...usually the color of the arc changes and it's so bright no shade level will help.

more than likely its the helmet.
either sensor was covered or dirty.

Not sure what brand of helmet—it’s about 2 tiers up from the Home Depot kind. It works well enough. I am almost certain it darkened though, both times. I saw the arc light up and the bright light popped on about a half second later. Seemed to come from the point where the arc met the material.

Contamination is what I was thinking. The piece had some sort of baked on paint, which was removed from around the holes, but not all that far back. I wasn’t too concerned with making sound welds, I just wanted to get it attached. I wasn’t getting bubbling or spitting, but I could tell they weren’t super clean; there was that initial hissing, with the arc flickering a little. Then it would settle down and I would give it more pedal and jab in filler. It just bowled me over how super bright it was. There was no in between either, the normal contamination flicker in the other holes would brighten maybe 1-2 on a scale of 10. This was a 12.

I’m going with contamination, or I created a microscopic black hole which annihilated itself in a brilliant flash of light.

Probably a black hole.

Yep.

Wells

Sounds like a battery problem.

I ve had a similar issue with that. Same but different. I run a speedglas with 3 sensors and although your body position seems ok courtesy of torch, arm etc only 1 sensor is picking it up. Then you hit some crap that A) drastically change the arc, quickly or
B) sends up a thick plume of smoke and temporarily blocks sensor. This is easier to do if you have already got soot around sensors. Givem a good wipe with a lens cleaner when changing outer lens.
I have never had this issue with tig, but if you do enough flux and stick you get to look at it a few times until cleaning them becomes a habit. As previously mentioned it can also be the indication the batteries are starting to fail. Same principle, sensors momentarily unable to do job.

I use old school passive lenses (real glass). I don't have threads like this.

Low battery almost certainly, however can you adjust the sensitivity of the helmet, and if so what is it at? Generally I like to find the point at which ambient light starts to trigger mine and turn it down just enough to where it doesn't anymore. Most times an arc should be bright enough to trigger the sensor regardless of the setting if you're directly facing it, but it helps in the event a sensor ends up partially blocked.

However this is a very common symptom of low battery and I've experienced 2 helmets start doing the same thing, kept adjusting the sensitivity, cleaned the lens etc, once I changed the battery neither of them ever did it again.

Also, don't be scared of getting flashed with your helmet on, it's unpleasant, but the lens itself blocks UV and IR wavelengths regardless of if it's darkened or not, and those are the things that will really damage your eyes. It's a whole lot worse to accidentally strike an arc with your hood up.

My Esab helmet flashed me twice in a row two weekends ago.
I was welding in the garage with an overhead light and the garage door slightly open with the sunlight pouring in.

It must have got confused by all the bright light sources as I moved my head.

Turned up the sensitivity and closed the garage door, so no more sun pouring in.

No more flashing.

Regards