comparing short-arc, pulse and spray

[Munkul]

Some tests I did last night, to satisfy my own curiosity.

I ran three steel fillet plates, 6mm thick, all in the flat 2F position. Afterwards cut, polished with 120G then 320G. Etched with S/S passivating fluid and a few seconds of heat w/ blowtorch.
- One in short-circuit, one in synergic pulse, one in spray.

93/5/2 Ar/CO2/O2 shielding gas, 1mm solid G3Si1 wire, on Miller XMT 304, Optima pulser, S64 wire feeder.



First, I ran 380IPM, 22 volts short arc, it was in the transitional globular transfer so I ramped up to 410IPM, 24V on the other side. (not a fair test since it was hot, but as you can see, not much difference). Cursive 'e's.



Secondly, I ran the pulser on program 9, adaptive, 410IPM, arc length 52, giving a slight crackle to the pulsed arc. Ever so slight manipulaton, very small 'e's.




I wanted to try a bend test on this, since I've had and read mixed results with older pulse programs on steel. It bended just fine:



Lastly, I ran a spray setting that felt good to me - 28V and 480IPM, again a slight crackle but I wanted a good hot weld. Barely any manipulation - just a slight move-pause.

[Pete.S.]

Looks interesting. Spray looks the best overall I think. Did you use the same gas for all three?

[ttoks]

the pulse and spray transfer modes don't surprise me at all, however the dip transfer welds to me look excellent, not as much fusion into the root as the others, but no lack of fusion either.

I've actually recently been playing around at work, we use 20% Co2, 2%O2 remainder argon gas which is pretty hard to spray transfer with, using .035 wire I can get it to spray at around 35 volts and around 600-650 IPM, at 28 volts its well into the globular transfer mode and produces an ungodly amount of spatter.

the gas is very good for welding at what some would call "insanely hot" levels though, we recently did some box beams made with 1" plate , each beam had 170 feet of pull pen 1" butt weld, I was running 42 volts with 1100 IPM of .045 giving about 460-500 amps and it went is beautifully, even passed UT.

[Munkul]

Pete - yes, basically what we call "argoshield light" which is 93/5/2 AR/CO2/O2, it works fine on thicker stuff but you have to go good and hot to get the penetration.
I've always used this gas, but I'll go to a"universal" mix next time i change the bottle - probably 15% CO2, 2% O2. Most of what I weld is in the 5-8mm range.

ttoks -For some reason this Miller set works nicer on dip transfer than any other machine I've used - maybe because on other machines I'll fine tune with wire speed, whereas on the inverter I adjust both WFS and voltage. It just seems so much easier to dial in to get minimal spatter and excellent sidewall wetting.

Somehow at work we use the same "light" gas for everything upto 10 ton lifting equipment, which is always tested by a notified body and passes ok, we've done it this way for the last 20 years, long before I was on the scene. It's only recently that I've realised this and got "heavy" gas in stock for structural work - 20% CO2, 2%O2, we have never used it before so it will be interesting to see what it welds like with in the same machines. If like you say, it spatters everywhere at 28-30V, I suspect the fabrication lads will complain bitterly

[ttoks]

Pete - yes, basically what we call "argoshield light" which is 93/5/2 AR/CO2/O2, it works fine on thicker stuff but you have to go good and hot to get the penetration.
I've always used this gas, but I'll go to a"universal" mix next time i change the bottle - probably 15% CO2, 2% O2. Most of what I weld is in the 5-8mm range.

ttoks -For some reason this Miller set works nicer on dip transfer than any other machine I've used - maybe because on other machines I'll fine tune with wire speed, whereas on the inverter I adjust both WFS and voltage. It just seems so much easier to dial in to get minimal spatter and excellent sidewall wetting.

Somehow at work we use the same "light" gas for everything upto 10 ton lifting equipment, which is always tested by a notified body and passes ok, we've done it this way for the last 20 years, long before I was on the scene. It's only recently that I've realised this and got "heavy" gas in stock for structural work - 20% CO2, 2%O2, we have never used it before so it will be interesting to see what it welds like with in the same machines. If like you say, it spatters everywhere at 28-30V, I suspect the fabrication lads will complain bitterly

I'm in Australia as well, the gas I'm using is "argoshield universal" the bottles I have from BOC atm state 10-20% Co2, 2% O2 balance argon, but from asking the rep he's said it's always 18-20% Co2 despite what the label says, the argoshield heavy bottles state 20-30% Co2, but rep says they're 25%, I find the universal to be very hard to spray with no matter what machine I use always requirement over 32-33 volts with .9mm wire on clean steel , tried with a Fronius TPS 500i, ESAB 500 amp, WIA weldmatic 500, Kempi 500 amp MIG and a few others, the argoshield Light I find to be far better for spray transfer, sometimes I feel the names should be swapped around with BOC's bottles.

[Munkul]

well I got two of our guys to give the Heavy mix a try last night, and other than being a bit dirtier and a bit more spatter, it didn't seem to affect the looks of the weld much.

We have two 400 amp Kemppi Kempomat 4200 transformer machines and we had one on light, the other on heavy, at exactly the same settings, to compare. We noticed for a given wire speed and voltage, the heavy gas ran maybe 10 amps lower, it could have just been down to the wire speed difference though because it's a bit coarse on these machines.

- The light gas is definitely more tolerant of settings. It's easier to find that "sweet spot" for a given voltage (wrong way I know... but we set rough WFS, voltage to suit, then fine tune the wire speed)

- The heavy gas does not like that 28volt range! Nice looking weld, but sounds horrible and spatters everywhere, no matter the WFS. It runs much better on higher settings.

We will do some cut and etches to prove the results and see how much benefit the Heavy gas gives us.

I find it interesting how the UK seems to be geared towards lower CO2 % gas mixes compared to Australia and America. I have never seen C25 or any mix over 25% for sale. Also, most people have never heard of dualshield, we buy solid wire almost exclusively. Maybe just the circles I move in.

[Pete.S.]

More CO2 requires more voltage. So the "heavy" should have 2 volts or so more than the "light" if everything else is the same.

[Bonzoo]

Take a shot at some short arcwith 85/15 one day....you can spray with it too, with a heavy machine

[Munkul]

More CO2 requires more voltage. So the "heavy" should have 2 volts or so more than the "light" if everything else is the same.

this was my explanation as well. I.e. it would require more voltage to keep the amperage the same, but as the voltage is fixed on the transformer tap, the current drops slightly as a result.

The wire feed control is very coarse though - 0-18m/min (0-700 IPM) in less than a single revolution of the knob, so there may be slight differences in WFS between our two machines. I didn't want to assume, though.

[xryan]

Take a shot at some short arcwith 85/15 one day....you can spray with it too, with a heavy machine

That's basically what I run in my 350P
88/12 specifically. Spray, pulse, good stuff.

[duaneb55]

Nice documentation.

Might want to consider using the forum's Attachment feature when posting photos so when you delete them from your Photochuckit account they'll still be visible in your thread for others to see in the future.

[arcflash]

All the transfers look good. I guess it comes down to which one works best in off position welds

[Bonzoo]

That's basically what I run in my 350P
88/12 specifically. Spray, pulse, good stuff.

It['s just common sense. Especially if you have other "weldrorzzzz" around. They can short arc columns, gates, shelves, brackets and anglez and other crap all day long. When shiit gets REAL. You can tel them step aside----and get at it.

[xryan]

It['s just common sense. Especially if you have other "weldrorzzzz" around. They can short arc columns, gates, shelves, brackets and anglez and other crap all day long. When shiit gets REAL. You can tel them step aside----and get at it.

EXACTLY. As long as you have the machine to run it.

[MetalMan23]

My machine can run spray arc ok, but my torch can't take more than 5-10 minutes of it at a time. I need to upgrade

[Bonzoo]

Mine too Phil but with all the out of position that goes with ornamental Iron you have to question an $800 torch to spray, unless you do more heavy stuff than i do ?
I do use my pulse on the MM200 on auto stuff a little.Not enough to be particularly good at it. I have a steady trigger finger tho(LOL)

[Munkul]

$800 torch!
I think we are lucky in the UK since pretty much 99.9% of welding machines have a Euro torch connection. Binzel (or binzel style) torches in various sizes are cheap, great quality and available everywhere. I paid £100 for a 320 amp gun. Only thing I'd miss a 200amp gun for is for maybe car bodywork, which I never ever do any more.

I think you can get adapters from Miller to Euro connections since that's what was fitted to my 64 wire feeder.

[SlowBlues]

They definitely all had nice penetration and weld nuggets, I'd have been confident in any of those welds. No lack of root on any of those. Great job on the etching/pictures too, I know what a pain those can be to get to show up! Spray is definitely great for the heavy stuff but has it's place, like everything. Spray is awesome when you can do it, mostly due to positioning. I've seen a whole lot of heavy duty "REAL" welding with processes other than mig/mag spray transfer, lol, but sure we'll step aside! All kidding aside I think dual shield is used more than spray for mig/mag outside of factories, in the real "real" world. Either way if you're gonna go big you'll need equipment that can handle it, from gun to welder to shield

[Munkul]

I'd like to see dualshield and flux core used more in the UK. Most people haven't heard of dualshield here. Looks so much easier for positional welding.

[Bonzoo]

I'd like to see dualshield and flux core used more in the UK. Most people haven't heard of dualshield here. Looks so much easier for positional welding.

Womb Broom ( JD) and Collier (Jody) sure swear by the stuff but you'd better be on a real job and not some stupid bumpers and columns and chump change junk like my shop does. $$$$$$ to run that stuff