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kws

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Man, I have no idea how people use those adjustable hand pieces.

I always advised that people try 4t (4 touch, the name makes no sense to me) when learning. This means one button press to start the arc, one button press to extinguish the arc. 

I found that for me personally it made keeping the correct angle  (EG when welding around a pipe) and staying smooth and consistent a whole lot easier. using the dial to control amps takes things too far in the other more difficult direction (just my opinion)

Your arms mechanics are not conducive to holding that button down and having smooth wrist control. This is made worse as many newcomers hold down the button too firmly (or the button on cheap handsets is that shit rubber dome that you have to press quite firmly)

You can try it yourself with a pen or dildo/whatever (Seriously though, try it), hold a pen and move your wrist and pen around in varying arcs. Then hold the pen but this time push a finger into the side of the pen as if you were holding down the tig button. Often you'll find that the second time will be a whole lot less fluid and often will be a little jerky or shaky in your movement. I can do it right now and my wrist kinda shudders through some angles if im also pressing the button (Though it has recently been broken lol). 

 

 

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1 hour ago, flyingbrick said:

Man, I have no idea how people use those adjustable hand pieces.

I always advised that people try 4t (4 touch, the name makes no sense to me) when learning. This means one button press to start the arc, one button press to extinguish the arc. 

I found that for me personally it made keeping the correct angle  (EG when welding around a pipe) and staying smooth and consistent a whole lot easier. using the dial to control amps takes things too far in the other more difficult direction (just my opinion)

Your arms mechanics are not conducive to holding that button down and having smooth wrist control. This is made worse as many newcomers hold down the button too firmly (or the button on cheap handsets is that shit rubber dome that you have to press quite firmly)

You can try it yourself with a pen or dildo/whatever (Seriously though, try it), hold a pen and move your wrist and pen around in varying arcs. Then hold the pen but this time push a finger into the side of the pen as if you were holding down the tig button. Often you'll find that the second time will be a whole lot less fluid and often will be a little jerky or shaky in your movement. I can do it right now and my wrist kinda shudders through some angles if im also pressing the button (Though it has recently been broken lol). 

 

 

I must try this!!

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First Ali project nearing completion, gullwing windows for the back of the truck

I finding 4t to be an absolute gem, set start current high, dial back on main current then taper off to bare minimum on finish, with many similar welds I managed to get the settings just right that I never had to mess with the torch dial. 

IMG_0131.jpeg.b096461fc4ca51be8cf64cafffd525e5.jpegIMG_0132.jpeg.1d03a2d187ba5f13f82bbf3908cd3ce9.jpeg\

By no means an expert and the dremel will get a work out to finish up, but happy to get this frame together without making a real mess.

Conclusion - The cheap tig is legit, hopefully I'll get a few years from it!

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Finally found some time to have another play with the Raptor tig, starting to get somewhat okay results now I've changed it from the factory 50% start current setting and turned the post gas up from .5 to 5.5 seconds lol

IMG_20220130_164521.jpg.52e8a4efa7e29c1828b148f694785e3c.jpg

Issue I've been having is that in 2t (haven't tried 4t yet) I having been able to finish a bead nicely

IMG_20220130_164421.jpg.9cb811ca76d4bba879b8e4ef0092b7f9.jpg

It was set to downslope to 50% current over 2 seconds when the button is let go.
I realized that whenever I let go of the button it seemed to increase amps by a huge amount and then taper down but it was blowing out before it started dropping.
Set it to 0 downslope and yeah it seems to stop nicely now but is leaving a little hole in the end of the bead.

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After trying a wide range of downslope settings I just couldn't get anywhere with it, so I took it back.

The manager at BOC gave it a good 45 minute test trying out a lot of things, in the end it turned out just to be a case of cheap welder things, issue was only in pulse and it turns out it'd start dropping the amps like it's meant to, but then it'd still pulse at full current!

 

Ended up with either keeping it and not using pulse at the same time as downslope or...

IMG_20220201_183035.jpg.5792dde76ffefebae0fbe64b67a56a19.jpg

IMG_20220201_183114.jpg.aae4b7a7e60eb29fb062cdb0899e4ae5.jpg

...pay the difference and get what I should have in the first place!

Will likely get a pedal at some point in the near future.

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On 23/01/2022 at 13:17, NickJ said:

I plan on getting a pedal in a few months

I've got a pedal and started out with it but it was annoying. Then a local hot rod builder friend (who's a very talented welder) told me to ditch it and learn to weld using filler speed etc. Took a little while but it's way better for car stuff and awkward welding jobs where your upside down welding box section furniture together etc etc. You can't use a pedal in any of those situations. 

I reckon keep practising and master the welding without extra amp control. Then when the time comes to do really neat Instagram spec tarty welds at the bench you'll find it a breeze if you decide to use a pedal. 

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12 minutes ago, yoeddynz said:

I've got a pedal and started out with it but it was annoying. Then a local hot rod builder friend (who's a very talented welder) told me to ditch it and learn to weld using filler speed etc. Took a little while but it's way better for car stuff and awkward welding jobs where your upside down welding box section furniture together etc etc. You can't use a pedal in any of those situations. 

I reckon keep practising and master the welding without extra amp control. Then when the time comes to do really neat Instagram spec tarty welds at the bench you'll find it a breeze if you decide to use a pedal. 

Its been a massive learning curve recently and I suspect there is even more to come but for now the urgency to get a pedal has diminished from learning more about the 4t settings (and is one less body part to coordinate!)

I can totally see the filler speed being the way, but holy shit there is some muscle memory to learn before I can get near to laying out more than 100mm at a time!

Messing around has rapidly chewed through the first bottle of Argon, will need to pick up another next week.

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On 03/02/2022 at 19:32, NickJ said:

Messing around has rapidly chewed through the first bottle of Argon, will need to pick up another next week.

You're running the Bunnings/Coregas too yeah?

Dunno if there's anyone down there doing it, but one of the industrial places here supply Coregas and have E size cylinders, thinking about going that way when I run out.

 

Oh and if you don't already have one, have found a proper flow meter seems to save a lot of gas compared to just using the LPM gauge on the reg.

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38 minutes ago, NickJ said:

Its been a massive learning curve recently and I suspect there is even more to come but for now the urgency to get a pedal has diminished from learning more about the 4t settings (and is one less body part to coordinate!)

I can totally see the filler speed being the way, but holy shit there is some muscle memory to learn before I can get near to laying out more than 100mm at a time!

Messing around has rapidly chewed through the first bottle of Argon, will need to pick up another next week.

Is your gas turned up too high? Have you tried turning it down?

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38 minutes ago, Raizer said:

a proper flow meter seems to save a lot of gas

yeah and this. One of the ones with the little ball.

Plus check the regulator diaphragm is backed off enough so it works but without releasing a massive splurge of air each time the welder opens its gas valve. Hard to explain what I mean but mine was set really high so the flow meter had too much pressure against it.

If that makes sense.

 

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59 minutes ago, Adoom said:

Is your gas turned up too high? Have you tried turning it down?

Yep had it at 10lpm on the gauge and noticed that it seemed to flow way more than works under similar set up, tried turning it down and the shielding was crap, settled to about 8 on the gauge with a #7 cup seems to give nice results. the reg is only a cheapy, who knows what its actually up to.


I don't think its wasting too much gas, I have done a shit load of unproductive welding, turned most of my scrap bin into a single lump trying new stuff.

26 minutes ago, yoeddynz said:

yeah and this. One of the ones with the little ball.

Plus check the regulator diaphragm is backed off enough so it works but without releasing a massive splurge of air each time the welder opens its gas valve. Hard to explain what I mean but mine was set really high so the flow meter had too much pressure against it.

If that makes sense.

 

Thanks for the tip! It was doing something weird like that with starts, like a big burst followed by a lull that didn't do much for shielding if it fired in the lull, had to extend the pre-flow to get a nice start, i'll look closer cos man that long pre-flow aggravates my inner Yorkshireman.

1 hour ago, Raizer said:

You're running the Bunnings/Coregas too yeah?

Dunno if there's anyone down there doing it, but one of the industrial places here supply Coregas and have E size cylinders, thinking about going that way when I run out.

 

Oh and if you don't already have one, have found a proper flow meter seems to save a lot of gas compared to just using the LMP gauge on the reg.

Saw the flow gauges on Ali but I can't bring myself to buy a calibration tool from there, is there anything local that not just the same thing with markup and trustworthy?

On Bunnings bottles but tbh its a fuck around, the nearest never has any in stock and I end up driving across town anyway. West side of chch has BOC, Air Liquide and all the usual engineering supplies so there are many options. I just need to look, with the amount of welding i've done in the last year, i'd almost justify an account bottle, also found the air liquide mig gas is way nicer to use than core which is pushing me in that direction.

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@NickJ I've got a BOC one they chucked in when I got the Raptor tig, I can't say if it's any better than one from Ali as I've only ever used this one, but it seems decent quality and has def saved me a bit of gas already.

https://www.boc.co.nz/shop/en/nz/industrial-gas-equipment/flowmeters/boc-flowmeters

 

@sentra said you have to break at least one and all reg gauges at least yearly to be a good welder too.

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Trying to get my head around the AC balance on the new BOC tig, seems they've used what I'm seeing referred to online as the Everlast style control.

Rather than basic % adjustment like the Raptor had and looks like Miller and Lincoln etc use this goes from -50 to 50 and I'm struggling to figure it out tbh.

Although I did learn that if I turn it up to about 30 it'll splatter balls of tungsten everywhere :oops:

 

The manual is pretty useless, this is all it says about it

Screenshot_2022-02-08-19-05-33-290_com.google.android_apps_docs.jpg.33d6028b92a84318fa5301bc6f331b2b.jpg

 

Oh lol and if anybody knows how to use the save/recall function for different settings I'd love to know how, all the manual says about it is that's what the light is for...

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Apparently some machines call 30% positive 70% or some tucked up shit - like whole backasswards to the other manufacturers and yeah it makes tungsten not happy if you set wrong way 

So yours may be minus 30 ?

Been watching a lot of this guy like his plain fucking English approach and covers from simple to in-depth as possible 

 

 

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