I am currently doing a SAS on my tacoma (yotataco.com) and I have a question about welding. I bought a little wussy lincoln 100 welder a few months ago, and have since become alright at welding with that thing. I went to my dad's machine shop and started messing around with his ThermalArc Ultra Flex 350 Pulse 3 phase MIG welder. I cannot seem to get any penentration. The only settings I can change are the volts (0-31), the wire speed (30-700+) and the AF/IND (arc force/inductance) (0-100) With 31 volts, and a wire speed of around 300, the bead is really fat (3/4") and it gets no penetration. The welder tells me how many amps I am pushing right after I run a bead, and it's reporting around 170 amps. I am generally working with 3/16" - 1/4" steel. I have been told that the wire speed and the amperage are directly related, so when I increase the wire speed I increase the amperage. I know that I must have the settings wrong. Can anyone please help me with the settings, I know i'm doing something wrong, this should be able to blow through 3/16", it can run up to 350 amps, and it's 3 phase! Thanks guys.

Brenton

btw, I messed around with the pulse welding... damn, it makes the coolest sound!

 

-170 amps is probably the minimum needed for 1/4 in a single pass. What do you have your arc force set to? Try turning it up all the way. If both pieces are 1/4 try turning your amps up to around 250 you should be able to get spray transfer, which should basically be the wire shooting off the gun in a liquid form.

-Also are your edges beveled, if you're butt welding that's the only way you'll get good penetration. If you're doing a filet weld (T) you don't need beveling.

-Is the machine set to electrode positive? Not sure if they run a spool gun or aluminum off it (which require electrode negative) but you want electrode positive.