Welding Tips and Tricks

I have and alpha tig 200x and when I am welding in AC mode, I get some popping. Does not seem to matter if using hi a/c hz or in pules mode. Welding thin aluminum, .035".

quadrod wrote:I have and alpha tig 200x and when I am welding in AC mode, I get some popping. Does not seem to matter if using hi a/c hz or in pules mode. Welding thin aluminum, .035".

Do you see something going on with the arc, or is it coming from the machine?

It is with the arc. Not in the machine. What does an unstable arc sound like?

It could be at the very best, difficult to accurately describe a sound and diagnose this issue.

Can you take a short video and post that?

Does the weld show some anomaly that you could post a photo of?

Does the tungsten look normal after making a weld?

Here is a video, can't see much but you can hear what I'm talking about.

Can you show us the tungsten after welding and the weld itself?

-Sandow

Will try and get a pic tomorrow of tungsten, it is an .040" 2% lanthenated running at 25-30 amps. on .035" 6061 t6 aluminum tubing. I get the same popping with a 3/32 tungsten too. My welds are not pretty so don't laugh at them.

That sounds a lot like the rattle you get with too high of argon flow rates.
What are you set at for flow?

I called AHP today and asked about the popping on A/C welding and found out that this machine will only go down to 20amps min. Welding this thin aluminum tubing is right at the min amps when I start, I had my son watch the amp readout and am fluctuating between 25 and 30 amps when in the bead. So this is not a problem with the machine, I just have to watch my start amps. Thanks for the reply's and putting up with a noob.

I had something like this with my Syncrowave. Later realized it was my arc length. For me it was the machine turning on the HF to reestablish the arc.