Anything welding

Also for welding heavier gauge using lower voltage, I slow down a lot when laying the beads. This will introduce a lot of heat for better penetration, so make sure you have good tacks on both ends or along the work piece or you'll notice the heat warp will move things and you'll get curvy joints. I've welded 1/4" with my 110 welder and never had an issue. You could make multiple passes too depending on how structural the piece needs to be (this introduces less heat at once so there's less chance of warping).

 

That makes perfect sense. I did notice that slowing the weld down allowed it to penetrate better but I still don't have the motions correct and consistent yet. I need more projects! Eventually I want to weld my own shock relocation and suspension gussets but need alot more time behind the gun. The most I've done is a simple cmc. Regardless, I had alot of fun and it killed some time.

 

I've heard the same and tried it when I first started welding. Didn't notice it helping any, but haven't tried again since I've gotten better.

 

Save for later

 

In today's episode of "too late to help, but hopefully still informative" here is a guide as to when polarity matters with AC wiring:

If you have two hot wires, e.g. 240V split-phase or 208V two-phase, then polarity doesn't matter. This is the answer for your welder.

If you have only one hot wire (plus a neutral), e.g., regular 120V circuits in your house, or 277V circuits if your shop has a 480V panel, then you should really try to get the polarity right. White = neutral and Black/Red = hot. The appliance will probably work either way. But, and in fact especially because of that, an undetected hot-neutral polarity reversal increases the risk of shock or other problems in the future. And you might not realize it until you wake up on your rapidly flooding basement floor with a broken nose, gasping for air, choking on blood, with the plug to your brand-new sump pump still grasped tightly in your now-numb hand. Don't worry, polarity reversal alone can't cause this type of nightmare, but if your house was wired by the type of idiot that can't get the polarity right... then there might be far more insidious problems waiting for their chance to drag your soul to hell.

If you have three hot wires, from a three-phase panel, and you are wiring an induction motor coupled to a positive displacement pump, then you definitely need to pay attention to the polarity (aka phasing), because this is what determines which way the motor will turn. Imagine for a moment that the simple act of confusing two wires on your truck could cause the engine to spin backwards when you turn the key! In an ideal world, maybe this backwards-running engine would suck CO2 and water vapor out of the air, and churn fresh gasoline into your tank, but sadly it probably wouldn't work that way. It's more likely that your oil pump would suck every drop of oil from your bearings, then start blowing bubbles in the oil pan. Your worn-out exhaust pipes would deliver their lifetime collection of accumulated dirt and rust directly to your piston rings, while your plastic intake and air filter would explode into flames in a deafening roar. It would probably sound pretty awesome, actually... but needless to say, there are certain types of machines that should not be run backwards, and if you are wiring a three-phase motor to such as system, then you need to get the phasing right!

Finally, no matter what, the most important thing when it comes to AC wiring, is to keep the grounds grounded, and the neutrals neutral. Oh, and keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to fire!

 

240 is a game changer. I hate welding without it on mobile jobs

 

Few pics from last Friday

 

Who needs a tacoma when youve got a Kia?

I wasn’t planning on getting the Vulcan but it called out to me.

 

nice. I look forward to hearing how you like it.

 

Same. I can’t wait to get the extension cord stuff in so I can really test it out.

 

sweet. I have seen good things about those.

There has been a new 225 for sale locally for a while that might have a little wiggle room. Might look into it if you like that unit.

 

Sounds like something you might spray on your pants legs and catch on fire

 

Whenever I need a few sticks of conduit or strut channel, the Tacoma stays at home. My steel-hauling workhorse is a 2-door economy car from the 1990s. With the rear seat folded forward, and the passenger seat fully reclined, I can fit dozens of 10-foot sticks of conduit between the passenger floorboard and the trunk lid. So far, the limiting factor has simply been the amount of material I'm willing to purchase and drag to my car in any one trip. The car itself could probably carry even more material, if I were willing to remove the subwoofers from the other half of the trunk. But as a civilized being, I have to stand for something, and for me, that means I want my license plate to makes the deepest farts of any car at the payday loan place. So removing the subwoofers is simply not an option.

But despite this handicap, my economy car is great for hauling 10 foot lengths of strut and conduit. I just load the materials, shut the trunk and go. No tying things down, no straps, no stupid flags, and no checking the rear view mirrors for lost cargo or approaching lawsuits.

Kind of funny that, at least in this application, and practically speaking, an economy hatchback can outhaul and outpace a decade-newer mid-size pickup truck.

God damn, I have to say, those are some really nice looking welds. You must be either a robot or an instagrammer. And I don't mean that in a pejorative sense.

 

Ha, thanks. It was on the bench and I was comfortable. Feel like i'm finally starting to really dial in this new machine (miller 211)

 

Some tube bending and welding

 

I've been trying to get some information on welding with tempering, quenching, and annealing. Does anyone have a good source of information on this?

 

Its a book about welding, but I think it has a ton of good general metal working knowledge in it (Still reading it...)

https://www.jflf.org/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MHW

 

I found some of the book on books.google.com.

https://books.google.com/books?id=h...onepage&q=metals and how to weld them&f=false

 

Boss man ask if I could fix his chair without setting it on fire. I said only one way to find out.

 

Where do you guys get your shielding gas from?