TFS: TIG Setup Simplified with LOTS of Detail

what's up everyone Justin with the fabrication series along with weld metals online.com with a quick guide of everything you need to know in order to set your TIG welding machine up and get welding season five now first things first before we even go into turning the machine on there's something we got to look at here this is my ever last hour take 255 ext it is the most powerful machine I have here in the shop currently it is a total beast of a welder meaning that it welds everything it's jacked full of features and it's a real pleasure to use I absolutely love it ever since the day that I bought it next to it we have the Everlast power TIG 185 DV it has a lot less features a few less amps and definitely has a much more affordable price tag but is there a difference between these two machines what about this one the a HP alpha TIG 200 X this is all analog control is delivered to your door for less than $800 and it's a very popular beginning welding machine now regardless of which machine you have regardless of the price tag regardless of the features regardless of the brand they all have one thing in common with each other the electrode polarity and orientation the electrode and TIG welding is the tungsten the tungsten is housed inside of the torch ergo the torch is what most people reference when we're talking about polarity and orientation which will be the exact same on every single TIG welding machine now certain metals like steel stainless steel titanium and even chromoly are welded using DC electrode negative or DC en direct current electrode negative that means the torch will always be installed into the negative port while there are hacks tricks and a whole lot of misinformation out there about welding a DC electrode positive there is no reason to use dcep when TIG welding the torch will always be installed in the negative port even when welding an AC the torch will still be in the negative port there is no reason to put the torch in the electrode positive port to weld DC or AC if you do install it in the positive port you'll see your tungsten melt away and disappear very violently and your balance settings on AC will be backwards again there is absolutely no reason to install the torch into the positive port the torch or the electrode goes in the negative port which means the ground clamp or the earth lead goes in the positive port now some machines won't even let you switch those tool around they're almost always static in the negative port for the electrode and maybe the the positive Ford or the ground leaders hardwired in the machine you can't even switch him if that's the case you don't even have to worry about that and it's always going to be an electrode negative orientation this right here is the electrode negative orientation and this will be the exact same across all TIG welding machines they never ever change now amperage is one of those kind of confusing topics for some people generally we follow the rule of one ampere thousandth of an inch of material thickness or 40 amps per millimeter as something like a scratch start a maybe a lift start TIG or if you're programming to T and for T operations the amperage you set on the machine is the average again now if you have something like a foot pedal for example you have a variable amperage controller which means you have complete control over the output of the machine it also starts and terminates your arc now the foot pedal is actually really simple the more you step on it the more amperage you get the less you step on it the less amperage you get but the confusing topic is about that maximum output at full pedal where do you actually set it now one common belief is that amperage on the machine is completely irrelevant since you have all that control in the foot pedal so might as well just max it out well that's actually kind of a bad idea especially in the beginning and to tell you the truth in all of the years that I've been TIG welding I still don't max out the machine unless I need maximum amperage the reason why is actually very simple the pedal will max out on whatever you set your amperage on the machine to so if you dial in 100 amps your full pedal output will be 100 amps if you set the machine to 200 amps your full pedal output will be 200 amps now if you only needed 100 amps from a maxed out 200 amp pedal to weld your part with you'll be operating within only the first 50% of that pedal and your accuracy is decreased it's literally a guessing game since you can't see the machine while you're welding just to remember that 5 amps will make or break a weld now if you have a pedal that is loaded with 200 amps and you're trying to hit that 5 amps sweet spot you're working in an area this big now on the opposite side of that one if you're working in your proper range let's say a hundred amps hitting that 5 amps sweet spot it's gonna be about this big that's a lot easier to hit than that one so make sure that you have your pedal dial to the actual rule or the maximum amperage that you want on there don't max the thing out remember you have all the control in the world so it's best to put it with the control at your foot so you get the best weld okay moving on heat this is something you've probably heard me say a handful of times and you're definitely going to hear me say it again heat has nothing to do with your amperage it is all relevant to time the more time you spend on your part regardless of the amperage the more likely you're going to cook your part but you will definitely be adding more heat if you are too low on your amperage or too high on your amperage with too low of a travel speed travel speed is your time right there are other factors that go into this thing like torch height and stuff like that but we're gonna get into all of that trust me but you have to put this into your head the very simple fact that if you spend more time on your part regardless of the amperage more time equals more period now one thing you have to understand is that amperage is what you're going to need to set just right in order to get through this now there are techniques that you can use to like modulate your foot pedal and work it one way or the other and stuff like that but without that initial skill or understanding of the amperage or being able to use your amperage to get through it yeah well it's not one of those things you really want to go chasing out in the beginning it's more of a developed skill something that you're going to want to have eventually but right now you need to focus on the fact that you need the amps in order to get through it so if you come in too low on your amperage or too high on your average with too low of speed well you're definitely gonna cook your part here is a very simple exercise that you can actually try it yourself this is one carbon steel coupon eighth inch thick from wild metals online.com they come in a pack of 10 I like to have them in the toolbox or at the ready whenever I want to practice on something before I get to actually welding it but let's looking close here I'm just going to make a couple of spot welds here one of them I'm going to go at the recommended 120 amps the second one I'm gonna drop it down to a hundred amps both of them are gonna be done with this number five cup the number five cup is pretty standard I have about twelve cfh running out of it and as soon as I make the first spot weld at 120 amps which is the recommended you know amperage for the thickness on this one then we'll let the post flow run the whole works I'm just gonna make a spot weld any size will do you can also do this at home what about there should be good okay now I'm gonna go turn the Machine down okay the machine has been set back down to 100 amps now we started with 120 now we're at 100 I'm gonna try and match the same size of spot-weld on this one full pedal the entire time the same way as I did the first way through say about there okay look at the both of these side-by-side notice one very important thing the lower amperage is hotter than the higher amperage how do I know that there's a lot more heat signature that's forming around this one than there is on this one the fact of it is we spent more time making this one do the same as this one that's what made it hotter the more time we have in it the hotter it's going again now you might just think in the beginning here that the best idea is just to add more gas to cover that so that way you won't get so much color well tell you the truth is that's one of the more confusing parts and definitely a problem in the beginning so let's talk about the gas and consumers once upon a time TIG welding used helium now we use 100 percent argon we do not use co2 we do not use argon co2 mixes like we do in MIG welding we do not use oxygen we do not use hydrogen we did not use acetylene we do not use any of that stuff we use 100 percent argon that's it now this is where it gets a little bit tricky here there are specialty gases there are things that will increase your deposition rates increase your efficiency increase the general appearance will make you well faster make you weld you know whatever there's there's things that the specialty gases will do but the fact that it is they will not increase your welding skill they will not make you weld better they will not make you weld prettier they will absolutely destroy your weld at the exact same as 100 percent argon if you don't have a skill to use that gas they are not there to make you well better they're just there to make better welders or establish welders with the skills weld more efficient or achieve a certain purpose so don't fall for that I need argh and helium or whatever to weld aluminum and stuff like that I can tell you straight up the only thing you're going to lose on that one is money and you're gonna gain a lot of frustration so remember 100 percent are gone that's all you need the rest is skill once you have the skill you can get going you can move on just like we're gonna do take torches and consumables let's talk about these for a moment there's a lot to be said about take torches and they're actually very confusing because not one bit at that numeric system that they use to you know note which one is which and what they do and what their amperage rating and larysa stuff makes absolutely no sense whatsoever but we have a dedicated video all about two torches in fact that's the name of the video all about TIG torches you can check the video card the description the whole works and you can see everything you need to know about take torches in order to get going but what we need to focus on right here is the consumables itself or specifically the lenses the cups the gas ones is all the rest of that good stuff now whatever torch you have flat out if you like it use it nothing's wrong with that but I'm gonna suggest that you stay away from those like $12 TIG torches you see unlike Amazon or Ebay or anything else like that I mean because they're they suck I mean just don't expect a lot out of them if you want a good torch probably one of the best brands out there I'm gonna suggest seek a world wide this is not a paid endorsement or anything else like that I have several seek a world wide torches that I use regularly and I absolutely love the product so you know use whatever you want but if you want to go for the the top there seek a world wide is the way to go now as far as consumables go you're gonna find a lot of people suggesting this you use gas lenses you're gonna find a lot of people suggest to use larger cups you're gonna find all kinds of other stuff but I might be the weirdo on this one that will might give you the best piece of information you ever had on this and is I use the standard consumables in the beginning I always suggest using standard consumables those are things like small diameter cups those are things without gas lenses those are not things like unicorn fart makers of the 16 bbw Michael Furyk cup or even the number 12 fear cup or even a number 8 with gas lines these are specialty cups these are for increasing or enhancing your existing skill not for developing your skill because they will hide everything that you need things like trailing cups back perch fixtures and all kinds of other stuff they will do the exact same thing they are not to make you weld better in the beginning they are to increase your existing skill or to be used as a tool and not a crutch let's just move on to an example of that because I think I have exactly what you need to see I'm going to repeat this test the same one as I did before with the small consumables but this time I put it number twelve fupa cup on there with the proper amount of stick out 120 amps and now with 30 cfh of gas flowing out of this with a ton of coverage so let's just see what it does 120 amps full-throttle spot-weld alright let's turn the machine down this is a hundred amps full throttle I'm gonna match that spot weld the same as I did before that's not right that's fine but you know is one very important fact on this one neither one of these has any color whatsoever I'm going to make three welds on two different coupons the first one I'm going to do is a number 5 Cup that number 5 Cup will be run at 120 amps which is the proper setting for the thickness that we're welding with all correct settings all skill ii weld I'm going to make with just a little bit less skill too high of a torch height but still 120 amps the third weld I'm gonna make is with too low of amperage 100 amps then I'm going to repeat the same test with a number 12 Cup and lots of gas coverage 120 amps in the first weld 120 amps in the second weld with a high torch height or improper skill and 100 amps on the final weld now let's take a look at the results you notice that the first weld on each one of them 120 amps proper skill good torch high good travel speed both of them netted nearly the same result now the termination of our weld on the number 12 cup netted a much better result as in less color but at the same time there is no difference between this world and this weld both of them were welded proper and both of them will pass one of them just has less color but the heat affected zones everything else that we're looking at is dead on that's what we need however if we run over to an improper skill just a little bit too high of a torch height notice that the number five cups showed us that we are way too friggin hot it also has a not the greatest reveal on it it's a little grainy looking it's a little hazy and our heat signature is dramatically increased it's massive in fact the color blend all the way out to the edge whereas we look at the number 12 cup well guess what it's a little more contained it was the exact same weld for the most part as much as I could do to match it but even though this looks like a passing weld take a look at the leading edge of that puddle you can see right here we have a bit of a hole a pinhole that goes into the end of it and on the number-5 cup we have a pinhole and it shows us a lot of heat the number 12 hid the problem that we have too much heat which is associated with torch height this looks like a just perfectly fine weld now finally we run too low on the amperage look at the number 5 cup it definitely shows us that we're too low on the amperage look at all of that heat affected zone that's a little bit too much that was a hundred amp weld too low too slow not a number 12 cup it doesn't look too bad looks like it'll do obviously we have excessive heat but you know what it looks a little bit prettier it looks like it'll do the job it looks like it'll be good but hidden underneath is the problem now apply that to stainless steel [Music] now hopefully that makes enough sense to you guys that you can understand that standard consumables are probably the best thing that you could ever start with running this is a number 5 Cup you can use number five number seven but again no fancy gas lens no big giant cups and all the rest of that stuff now I'll be honest with you they are gratifying it is really nice to see some great rainbow puke all over your welds no color and all the rest of that good stuff but you can see that they will definitely hide the problem they will not show you what you need in order to improve upon your skill remember we used cups like this for decades absolute forever until the gasps lenses came out and all arrests that good stuff and while I absolutely love the whole Furyk lineup it's really important that you avoid it in the beginning because they will not show you what you need to know in order to improve on your skill so in the beginning stick to the discipline when you can weld it without the fancy consumables then and only then can you switch to the fancy consumables when it comes to argon flow rates people tend to get a little confused now I only suggest that based on posts that I've seen on social media groups and the questions and stuff that people have submitted to TFS you know needing help on stuff there's a very simple formula you can follow actually it's ridiculously simple you don't even need a cocktail napkin to do it take the diameter or the number of the cup multiply it by two there is your minimum flow rate in CF H same thing works with a large cup like in number twelve multiplied by two that's twenty-four CF H at minimum required to run this Cup now Michael Furyk recommends that you actually run this at 25 to 35 cfh per the instructions that come with this Cup now that's fantastic that'll definitely get you the ballpark and if you need to bump it up a couple of points bump it up a couple of points but let's see if that rule holds true here is a number five cup at 10 C FH here's one at 12 C FH and here's another at 15 C F H the only difference you're going to find is the amount of time you spend welding in between cylinder swaps we'll look at these in a second but let's actually do something kind of extreme here let's push a number five cup with way too much gas and see what happens here's that same number five cup at twenty CFH and here it is again at thirty CFH but just for fun here let's take a number twelve cup and run it at twelve cfh a little bit to know now I should remind you this was all done with skill we're working with super-tight torch height twenty dabs each every single weld and we were combating anything that we would normally combat that we would learn how to do now if you don't have that skill you're probably gonna see some differences in the higher number ratings and of course the the 12 on twelve here which even with skill I encountered a problem yeah puddle was just a little bit wide there and it was a little bit bit of a trouble to work with and of course we got some great hazy areas on here however the five on thirty and there's five at twenty both of those would probably give you some fits because there's a lot of turbulence and stuff like that that could flow and introduce atmospheric gases so I was really scooting through that but I mean listen to this thing actually flow here this is ridiculous [Applause] now you notice at the end of the day that the five the 12 the 15 the 20 and the 30 look exactly the same which means this one costs more to run than this one and this one at 10 CFH runs just fine that means that the rule of the diameter x 2 or the cup number x 2 absolutely holds true don't waste your argon don't waste your argon finally let's talk about some tungsten real quick now this is a super sensitive subject for whatever reason people don't seem to get along when it comes to tungsten right we'll just put it that way now let me just make it as very clear as possible tungsten will not make or break your weld there is no such thing as a tungsten that will make the the weld all perfect and it's the one that everybody has to have it's literally preference it is a super sensitive topic so tell you what whatever tungsten is that you think you weld best with use it stick with it try some different ones to make sure that you know one's good one one you like one you don't whatever the case is try a bunch of them but here's some other little cool things about this one in the beginning you're going to eat up a lot of tungsten you're gonna go through it regularly religiously if you will but if you want to save yourself in between you know times that you have to sharpen or whatever the case is take one piece of tungsten chop it down into threes sharpen one side and one side only now one pack of ten turns into 30 and guess what you can weld for a lot longer and spoil up all the rest of them and then sharpen them all at once this gives you time to kind of cool down relax because in the beginning of course welding is extremely frustrating so take one piece chop it into threes you get thirty pieces of tungsten to actually make a run with or a session and you're good to go nothing additionally that I'm going to mention about tungsten here is very very simple we have an episode all about tungsten stick out how it works best in all the rest that good stuff but in the event that you decide you don't want to run with that one or actually check that one out take the number of the cup this is a number 16 Cup which is 16 16 7 inch or 1 inch that number of the Cup is the maximum allowable stick out that you can operate on with the typical CFH around a little bit more you can run a little bit less you don't always wonder one less because you can't always see it but at the same time one inch of stick out on a number 16 cup 3/4 is a number 12 cup that's 3/4 of interest stick out 5 is 5/16 which means 5/16 of an inch of stick out it's very very simple so that's something you need to check out I encourage you to look at that video and all the rest that good stuff as far as tungsten goes let me just bring it to you simple if your machine was made before like 1995 and it just happens to be like an old transformer machine then you can actually stick with like the green pure tungsten for aluminum and whatever other color you want to use for DC and you know go from there so that is gonna wrap it up for this episode I want to thank you guys for watching as always also a very special thanks to weld metals online.com for providing the metal used in this episode definitely go check them out really appreciate it now if you need to get in contact with us hit us up on the fabrication series.com website Instagram at the doc fabricator or facebook.com slash the fabricator series if you got any questions or comments go ahead and drop them down in the comments box below we'll definitely try to get back to you but please do check out the other videos if you have a question that we didn't necessarily cover in this one we've got a lot more coming up on the future episode list about every single metal and how to weld in that great detail and all the rest that good stuff it's already in the works we're just waiting to get them out there so I'll catch you guys on the next episode thank you as always for watching

Channel: The Fabrication Series

Views: 834,298

Rating: 4.9555011 out of 5

Keywords: TIG Setup, setup a TIG welder, gas flow settings, TIG welding basics, detailed TIG setup, DC TIG, AC TIG, how to start TIG welding, The Fabricator, The Fabrication Series

Id: IfJG4cMhIOc

Length: 22min 8sec (1328 seconds)

Published: Mon May 27 2019