TIG Machine setting for aluminum

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I have a Miller Syncrowave 350, want to try to brush up on my aluminum welding.  What little bit i tried the other day looked like shu shu.  I can adjust my arc balance, post flow, and high freq. strength.  I have much practice to do but wanted to make sure I atleast had it set up correctly.Tack It!!
Reply:http://www.millerwelds.com/resources/TIGhandbook/there is a chapter in there with Charts for AL, Mild Steel and SSEd Conleyhttp://www.screamingbroccoli.com/MM252MM211 (Sold)Passport Plus & Spool gunLincoln SP135 Plus- (Gone to a good home)Klutch 120v Plasma cutterSO 2020 benderBeer in the fridge
Reply:Brush up on your Al welding, yep that is the key, wire brushing the oxide off befroe welding.Before welding is cleaning.  Remove all trace of any possible oils with acetone, then remove surface oxide with a clean stainless steel wire brush.  Manual wire brushing takes some elbow grease, and light power brushing may be ok, but heavy agressive power brushing can form oxide from the excessive friction heating.For balance, you want the majority of the cycle on DCEN for good penetration, and just enough DCEP for a narrow band of cleaning along the weld toes.High frequency adjustment is not important.  If the AC arc is stable during welding, the HF is doing it's job.  Without HF, a conventional power supply cannot sustain an arc as AC cycles from DCEN to DCEP and passes through zero amps.Some things to think about.Aluminum transfers heat so rapidly, that you need to hit it hard with high current, get some melt on both pieces, jab some filler in to get a puddle, and go, go, go.  If you piddle around in forming a puddle, a bunch of heat just spreads out though the workpiece, and when you finally get a melt on the joint edges, they ball up away from each other, and leave you with a big hole.A tight arc and a torch angle close to perpendicular help to deliver the maximum concentration of the arc power to the workpiece.   Excessive arc length or torch angle reduce the efficiency of arc energy transfer and can cause loss of shield gas coverage.Keeping the filler within the torch shield gas envelope, that is not pulling the filler back too much during the dip/retract motion, will help reduce oxidation of the filler and introduction of that oxide into the puddle.
Reply:awesome pointers man. thank you. i'm buying a brand new TIG rig here in about a week.. i'll be experimenting for sure.. haha.. at this time, i know enough to be dangerous.. "proper" torch positions dependant on work angle, gas applications for thick and thin metal (like using helium on thick stuff..) and i've tigged some al before.. going to have to learn about the slope control and all that tho!! should be interesting. thanks to both broccoli and pulser. goos stuff.http://kawispeed.com/ -moderator and tech deluxewww.myspace.com/trickortrack -cuz i have no life
Reply:Good advise Pulser.  I like a foot controler for aluminum to put the pedal to the metal then back off to puddle and pulse.Good pair of clean tig gloves,wipe your tig rods with a clean cloth with acetone, no breeze, gas lense instead of collet body to save on argon and makes a good ozone around the weld to keep nitrogen and oxygen out of the weld area.Last edited by cmartman46; 07-24-2009 at 12:42 AM.
Reply:yep all of the above and I use a pc-300 pulser.... seems to help concentrate the heat......BradnonLincoln Tombstone 225 A/C Steel StickerOld Victor O2/Acetylene setupMiller Syncrowave 250 Tig/PC-300 PulserMiller Millermatic 212 Mig HTP Invertatig 201 Giant Teck D50 Plasma cutterLots of HF grinders
Reply:Thanks fellas.  I'll put all that into account next time and see what happens.Tack It!!