Anything welding

I'll give it a try after work and report back. I appreciate the help from everyone

 

https://youtube.com/shorts/BNFssAlZ1jc?si=8skGHPYXhHZo3AGE

Messing with wire speed made it worse

 

https://youtube.com/shorts/Pxb5tM3ZSU4?si=pbJFPbfCiyaq_dTG

fluxcore makes it much better, I’m goin with either not getting flow at the nozzle or it’s the wrong gas

 

Rarely make anything personal so I went out to grab some steel



Little sign to go above our aquarium; 22" x 13"

Unfortunately, I got lazy and kept my bigger nozzle on causing me to lose some detail, but it still cut alright

 

If you are welding flux core well, without having switched your leads from when you were running MIG, then your leads were wrong to begin with.

Not sure what you said in your videos.

As for wrong gas, it can't go from being right to wrong if you welded up those hitches. And it can't go bad especially since you said it was new.

Moisture can develop in the bottle, but that's only if it was completely emptied out and only afterward if left in certain conditions.

You wouldn't have enough pressure to properly weld and let a bottle empty itself out completely.

 

I swapped the leads in between mig and fluxcore. Dcep for mig dcen for fluxcore.

When everything was working right was with the previous bottle that I swapped out last week when I ran out. I thought I mentioned that.

 

No didn't see that, although I could've missed that detail but I thought someone else mentioned it.

Your bottle would state what gas it has. I check and ensure it's the right stuff before I walk out the welding store. What'd you buy?

If you normally run 75/25, your settings may differ just a hair going to straight co2 or vice versa. But not enough at all to cause the issue you're having.

 

Says c25 right on the bottle, and the reciept.

 

Dang that's weird then.

But again your test beads didn't look all that bad as they were practically stringers on thick metal.

There was fusion, and that's what we were looking for.

A bead on a flat surface isn't going to lay down like it did in your fillet welds as the weld metal will basically stack on itself.

 

Bad tank of gas?

 

I haven't been welding for that long, maybe some 3+ years now but I know and have gotten to know many long-time welders and the subject has come up

Guys with 20-30 years of experience and never having experienced or even heard of someone getting bad gas

Yes, getting the wrong gas (not checking the label on the tank) but not bad

It's why I learned about the whole moisture developing in a tank under specific conditions

 

Can you actually hear the gas flowing out the nozzle?

I wear ear plugs 100% of the time in the shop. When I'm getting low in gas I always do a flow test near my ear.

Obviously you do not want the wire going into your ear.

If I can hear the gas flow, I know I'm still running a cover gas. You should be able to hear it even with ear plugs.

Both gauges on the regulator can show zero, but gas is still flowing for a short while longer.

In short, just check to make sure you have gas flow.

 

Today's order.

 

I am just as shocked as you are. To make 100% sure it is the gas I have a friend lending me another tank of C 25 and if the welding goes fine with that I am going to go to the welding supply.

I can hear and feel gas coming out of the nozzle. A pea shooter is coming in tomorrow so I can see how much flow I am getting out of the nozzle. This bottle is fresh with about 12k psi in the tank and I have tried flows from 10-30 cfh. I typically run a bit over 15 cfh.

I appreciate all the help guys.

 

I think you may have an extra zero.

 

When I mentioned bad/wrong gas earlier, I was meaning the ratio of the mix. It could also be the grade of gas used or a contaminated lot. We have accidentally received “balloon grade” helium at work, and the lab equipment does not like it. Balloon grade is just that, good enough to make a balloon float. Try using it for gas chromatography and your baseline goes to crap. We’ve received hydrogen that was also contaminated, so I’d imagine the same could be said for welding gases. Just seems really weird it all started with swapping bottles.

 

The problem is 100% the gas, I dont suck anymore with the other bottle

 

Interesting. Glad you got it narrowed down.

 

Now the next step - will your shop simply exchange it for you?

Wonder if when you go back, if they say something like "a few of them came back" or something

 

I hope so, we will see