I thought I would be complete and continue on this thread with my progress. I can start a new thread if need be.
I didn’t realize how iterative welding was until speaking with this forum and experiencing it first-hand. I picked up a spool gun, gas, wire, and aluminum to start practicing. After practicing for a couple of days, I don’t think I have the settings dialed correctly and am not as consistent as I would like. This could be more of a technique/form problem and just not getting enough practice too.
I used a Lincoln Easy MIG 180 welder with a Lincoln Magnum 100SG spool gun. The gas was 100% Argon and the wire was 0.035” 4043 super glaze by Lincoln. At least on this welder, Lincoln uses alpha/numeric designations for voltage and wire speed respectively. Unfortunately, there are no values associated with these designations in the manual or online. One person online had luck measuring these values with a voltmeter, stopwatch, and tape measure. I did this as well to get a rough idea (or estimate) of the values I was working with. Voltage was measured at each setting via voltmeter (one lead at the contact tip and another at the ground clamp) and pressing the trigger with wire speed off. I did this twice and averaged the numbers but there was little to no variance. The wire speed was calculated by holding the trigger of the spool gun for 6 seconds and measuring the delivered wire. Multiplying by 10 got me IPM. I realize this method isn’t super accurate and there are a bunch of variables to control, but it is something to work with. Here are my results:
Voltage |
Inches Per Minute |
Dial Setting |
Voltage |
Dail Setting |
IPM |
A |
18.73 |
1 |
0 |
B |
20.16 |
2 |
0 |
C |
22.15 |
3 |
105 |
D |
24.59 |
4 |
165 |
E |
33.94 |
5 |
258 |
|
|
6 |
335 |
|
|
7 |
410 |
|
|
8 |
515 |
|
|
9 |
558 |
|
|
10 |
680 |
To get a better idea on how voltage and wire speed affect welding aluminum, I tried every combination on a piece of scrap angle aluminum (series unknown, slightly thicker than 1/8”). It seems like voltages of C-D (22.15 to 24.49) and wire speeds of 6-7 (335-410) were where I had the most success. Some of the beads with these settings looked okay and had decent penetration.
Next, I practiced a variety of joints (lap, T, butt) on 6061 .0125”x 1” bar stock. My gas flow was between 35-40 cfh. Here was where I had problems. 10-20% of the welds would look decent. Some of the fillet welds would come out convex and others concave. I had a hard time getting the weld in the “corner” between the two pieces sometimes. It would mostly bead on the lower piece and It wouldn’t nicely fill/pool into the corner and penetrate both pieces evenly. I even trying welding more on the vertical piece. It felt hard to control the bead: I was either too fast and not welding exactly where I want or too slow and the work piece would heat up too much. I tried to mitigate this by cooling in water in between welds.
(The letter/number refer to the settings and the 1, 2 refer to the order of welds on that joint)
The other side of that joint. It produced a crack and penetration went to the other side.
Here are some other practice pieces that were not so good:
I would post more pictures but its only allowing me to attach 5 images.
I removed all of the aluminum oxide mainly with a circular wire brush attached to a drill. Once I wiped it down with acetone as well and another time, I used a fresh flap wheel on an angle grinder. Neither process made much of a difference.
Some things I learned:
· Too low of wire speed and the wire just balls off the end
· As voltage and wire speed increase, the work piece becomes too hot and the weld just blows through
· Seems like smaller pieces (2.5” to 3”) heat up too quickly and the weld harder to control
· Best luck with setting on C and D with wire speed at 5.5-7
· Have to move quickly
I’m trying to be consistent with the variables (i.e. cleaning aluminum, pushing, gun angle, welding speed) but having a hard time producing similar, consistent looking welds back to back. Any thoughts? Anything to change? Are my settings about what they should be?
I ran out of bar stock, but the plan is to order some more and keep practicing. I have some tubing that I can eventually start practicing on. I want to get more consistent first and am waiting for a dry cut saw blade to come in. Sorry for the long lead up to the questions, just wanted to be thorough and explain my thought process.