- Joined
- Jun 27, 2016
- Messages
- 388
IMHO just get a HTP and be done with it, they are great machines. I think that they will even let you try them out.
IMHO just get a HTP and be done with it, they are great machines. I think that they will even let you try them out.
I have a used Miller Dialarc HF which I use for stick welding.Well as soon as I get my truck back I'll head over and get the tombstone. Sounds like it might be some "fun" to get it loaded in the back of the truck - 400lbs+ of welder and cart up to a 1 ton truck bed/tailgate. I have a hoist idea with a winch to to do the hard part - just hope I can lift it high enough to clear the tailgate and have enough space above to hoist from.
Thanks for all the input - lots of stuff there in your posts @Tim9.
I agree with the foot pedal on TIG. One of the courses I took in college was 1 quarter dedicated to metallurgy and welding. We started with forging and went through every mainstream process up to TIG (did not do gas welding, but we did gas heating/bending, cutting, and brazing). That course was the only period of time I've TIG welded - and it was with a foot pedal.
If I could have spent more time on any process in that class it would have been TIG, followed by stick. I recall we ran several different types of rods and one of the rods (don't recall the code) had to be pre-heated in an oven to work. We ran the rods cold and left out and right out of the oven to see the difference. What I don't recall is if the oven trick was just to dry out the rods/keep the coating from absorbing moisture from the air alone (I know that was part of it), or if the rod temperature actually was important. It seems to me that the temperature of the rod was important (like the filler metal and coating had to be held at a constant 400 degrees or something to get the coating to the right state to work right when burned?) Either way, I do recall the difference in arc performance and weld-ability between a cold rod and one out of the oven was night and day different.
In any event, yea - lots to brush up on thats for sure. Without the ability to do it - how does one brush up? For now I'll be set on stick - but TIG is a whole other ball game. There isn't a more controllable and precise process. But it takes the right gear to do it.
On the subject of the Arc Pig and capacitors - I am curious what that circuit looks like. There are guys that are setting up transformer machines with thyristors controlled with a pot (think foot switch here - the rocking of the foot switch rotates the pot) that, in turn, varies the output of the transformer to give some control to the arc current. I would be curious to study that circuitry some more.
Another thought I had is that of inverter technology. Take the output of a transformer machine, rectify it, filter it, then supply that DC to a controlled set of IGBT's. The input to the IGBT's can be set up pretty easy. If you want a triangle wave just make a circuit that provides the triangle wave as a proper input control signal level to the IGBT's then you have triangle wave welding output. Same thing for pulsed DC - what pulse width and frequency do you want? Make a control circuit that will set that input signal in motion, send it to the IGBT's, and you have a pulsed DC output. That's getting pretty deep - but I'm sure that kind of circuitry can be built. And if I build it then I am not relying on a company's trade-marked design and control over how the circuit works, therefore if something burns out I can fix it, or if something burns out and the parts are no longer available, I can find a substitute set of parts and/or make a design change to accommodate a new part that has different characteristics than what might be available. Breaking it down to control boards for different functions makes that easier - one function won't kill the whole set up.
Lots to think about.
Just on a side note. I went down this road. And I was an avid reader on Welding Web. I really wanted to learn it better. So...long story short, the Liberal Arts Program of the local Loyola University was moving and selling all of their older tools. I was just getting started and I purchased an old Keller power hacksaw and a massive Airco Bumblebee 250 welder. The price was right, but it’s a damned beast. Must be a few hundred pounds of copper inside. Anyway, I had plans for building a bigger workshop but they never evolved. Still have it in storage covered with a tarp. Damned thing must weigh 550 pounds. It’s huge.A good friend of mine sails on Lake Erie. We were talking about sailing one year and he said he would put his sailboat in a race against any speed boat on the lake in a trip to Cleveland, OH (from Port Clinton).
How is a sailboat going to have any chance of beating a speed boat you think?
Easy. The speed boat will run out of fuel. A speed boat won't go with no fuel. At which point it runs out it will be dead in the water.
As for welders - when things go down - how do you "raise the sails" to keep on keepin' on? Thats where the old school stuff comes in to play.
Speaking of which... there are a couple inexpensive Lincolns around here. One is a round top Idealarc 250 - AC/DC version - that looks to be in decent shape for its age. I'll let ya know what I come up with there.