Burning blue lights...

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I've just started to get the hang of tig welding steel, and I've noticed that after I cleaned the soot off of my mask lense I am getting blue spots in my vision after welding.  The soot is not from the tig welding, but rather from plasma cutting.  The lense I'm using is an auto-darkening variable lense #9 -> #13, and I have it set to #13.  It gets so bad that I can't even inspect my weld afterward, but clears up in less than 2 hours.Is this supposed to happen?  Do I need to find a darker lense?  Is my lense not working correctly?Thanks for any help!!--Evan
Reply:what brand is your helmet??, It sounds like it might be having some problemsStangnetShop Full Of Stuff. Joey
Reply:It is the $100 Kameleon from HF...
Reply:My guess is eye strain.  13 is way too dark, IMHO, for TIG'ing mild steel.  What kind of amps are you running?I'm also somewhat confused by the "soot" thing.  I'd understand spatter, but if you're making smoke, something is amiss.Hank
Reply:try a normal helmit to see if you still have a problem. Dont care for the autodarks used my buddies once and it never came on you can keep that, I use a #10 for all my welding. Now the only time I get flashed is when I screw up and hit the pedal by accident .
Reply:Most recently I've been using around 90 amps for 1/8" steel.  I will try a #10 static shade then to see if that works, those run pretty cheap.And the soot was coming from plasma cutting, I wasn't wearing the mask for plasma cutting put it was in the vacinity.  And the steel I'm cutting is mostly dumpster treasures, which sometimes has oils and other random stuff on it that burns off when cut...Thanks for all the replies!!!--Evan
Reply:Are you cleaning your weldment before welding?  If you are, and still are getting soot on your lens, you have a prcoess problem.  Junk/scrap needs to be CLEANED before you can weld it with any process.Hank
Reply:I went ahead and got a $30 Lincoln static #10 shade helmet and it works fine!  I talked with a guy at Lowe's who just happen to be a 20 year welding veteran and he brought up a good point, he said that no matter how fast the lense darkens, you will still get some light through.  And after the welding is finished the glow from the tungsten might also cause some of the burn, and not be caught by the auto-darkening lense.  But, the #10 shade works great!  Better then the previous helmet ever did!I don't usually do too much in the way of cleaning the metal before I weld.  What is a good method of cleaning the metal?  I was going to ask this in another topic, I just got some new steel from the mill and it is coated in grease.  What is the best way to get the grease off before I start welding and then later apply a primer and paint?Thanks for all the help guys!--Evan
Reply:Well I'm no scientist but light travels pretty fast, it takes about 1/100,000,000th of a second to reach you eyes when you start welding and if the mask darkens in 1/20,000 of a sec what does that leave for your eyes in exposure. If you weld for a hobbie you can get away with the limited exposure but I know guys that weld 8-10 hours a day and use just a standard helmit with their own preference of shade.