Torch gets HOT! Questions

[Gamble]

What part of the torch does a water cooled torch keep cool? Is it the cup?

I was doing some practice last night, some aluminum and some steel (whatever was around) and I have my thumb touching the cup with my tillman gloves on. Welding at about 60-70amps and after say 10-15minutes the cup gets EXTREMELY hot so i have to hold the torch a different way. This normal?

Does the argon help cool the torch at all?

Anyway to go to a water cooled torch on the diversion 180?

I was using a gas lens if that matters at all.

[ExpatWelder]

The cup will get HOT no matter what kind of cooler you use or what you do, that's what it does, gets hot.

[DSW]

A water cooled torch keeps the torch body and power cables cooled. The cup will always get hot.

Try running 180 amps thru that torch for several minutes nonstop and you'll quickly find the torch body itself gets very warm and too hot to handle.


As far as converting the Diversion to water cooled, it can be done, but it's no where near as easy as with other machines. The machine was never designed to run a water cooled torch, so you will have to jury rig the connections.

Your 17 series torch is "air cooled". In reality that means the Argon in the line flowing thru the lead and torch body helps to dissipate some of the heat, sort of like standing in front of a fan. The larger size body also is designed to have more surface area to also radiate away the heat. At 70 amps that torch should be 100% duty cycle if everything is running right. You should never have to stop because the torch will overheat and melt. Note if you wear thin gloves and stick your finger where they shouldn't be, no big surprise if things get warm...

[Gamble]

Yep never had the torch get warm just the cup. Oh well then.

[kustomizingkid]

Welding long enough at high amps you can get the cups glowing, pretty awesome

[chimmike]

I've had my torch get warm. Just blow on it! that'll cool it down!

lol. Spit shine it!

[fdcmiami]

here is one person's solution to a hot torch; big cup. strange but true, this would not work for me because i rarely work with a glove. lol

Tig is not hard although I did read about Tig welding for like 6 years before actually getting money and knowledge enough to try.

#12 probably too huge for normal welding, but I wanted good shield coverage and its really easy to hold. I grab the torch by the cup not sure if this is bad practice but I feel like I have more control. Sure if it was smaller it get really hot but this big A 12 cup stayed cool the whole time. Reminds me of using that really really big pencil when your a kid, but that was just about useless! All I know is that if the cup is bigger you can get the electrode to stick out super far. I am going to weld in between some stuff so I wanted to be able to maximize that. Not sure what other benefits it has besides better cooling?

i'm not making fun here, just pointing out another way of doing things. i didn't post the link so as to maintain the anonymity of the poster.

[chadcooper55]

Grab the torch by the handle, that is why it is there. The cup is not a handle.

[Gamble]

I don't hold it by the cup nor do I hold it by the handle. I hold it inbetween the two.

[rlitman]

Originally Posted by Gamble

I don't hold it by the cup nor do I hold it by the handle. I hold it inbetween the two.

Unless you consider anything other than the cup, to be part of the handle. It's all fair game, to get a comfortable position. The back cap, the body, the "handle", anything BUT the cup.
There's a reason that cups are made from things like lava. They get hot. As in way too hot to hold with a gloved hand.
The body will get hot too (the argon flow does a little to cool it). On my 17 torch, the body gets uncomfortable to hold with my thing TIG gloves when welding at 125A, after maybe 5 minutes or so, although technically, it's rated to run at 150A continuous. I've run it up to 200A, but not long enough to see how hot it can get.

[SundownIII]

Reading some posts is better than reading the "funny papers".

The cup gets "really hot". Yepper.

[zapster]

I can get mine red hot in minutes!

Lasts all day! (If I let it)

...zap!

[fran...k.]

Originally Posted by Gamble

I don't hold it by the cup nor do I hold it by the handle. I hold it inbetween the two.

That is where the water cooling is directed. I guess you can have it run through the power cable first or have the coldest water hit the torch first.

[Kelvin]

How is a water cooled torch supposed to cool a ceramic cup???

Question: Does the tungsten get hot too?

[Zca4]

An electric arc hot? No way! Only 6-11 thousand degrees!

[jakeru]

The main reason to hold a TIG torch by the handle, is that the handle won't get hot. And then, your welding won't get interrupted, and your digits won't get uncomfortable or burned. Learn to hold the TIG torch by the handle, unless you need extreme precision on a very low amp welding job. (Consider that the "exception" - to get that last bit of manual control over the torch, and you won't be able to use it on high-amp jobs, so don't get too used to it.)

You bet that the heat in the cup conducts into the collet body that the cup usually threads onto, which in turn, conducts probably the bulk of its heat into the threaded, metal portion of the TIG torch head.

Argon is not very effective for thermal transfer; as it has a very low thermal transfer coefficient. After you weld, try blowing the post-glow gas over your skin. It's warm/hot, but not as hot as you might think it would be. Probably a good amount of heat is lost to the atmosphere through things like the backcap and the torch head and neck conducting heat to the surrounding air.

Helium, on the other hand, transfers heat like crazy. I find I can use a smaller tungsten diameter with a Helium mix for a given amperage than I can with pure Argon; and Helium's high thermal transfer coefficient is a good possible explanation of why that is. You also don't need as much amps in the first place to produce the same amount of "metal melting power" as you would with argon. Too bad it's relatively expensive.