Tungsten Electrodes - 2% lanthanated vs the rest...pure,ceriated,thoriated, and zirconiated

hi and thanks for watching another video from welding tips and tricks calm this week's video is about all the different kinds of tungsten electrodes and which one is better and why they make so many different kinds and all that and I'm really not sure but we tested them all out as far as their ability to carry amperage and there's a lot of other things you might consider as far as arc starting stability and all that kind of stuff but we tested them on how well they would carry 200 amps 330 second electrode so the first thing we did is sharpen them all evenly and we started off with a sharp point using a tungsten grinder so they're all consistent and we use a Miller Dynasty 200 DX set at 200 amps started offering them on AC and 200 amps set the balance at 65 on all of them and a hundred Hertz on the AC frequency and just just to compare apples and apples we left it all the same and then we went went through and tested them all on DC at 200 amps after we resharpen them so let's see what happened alright the first ones we tested did this in alphabetical order so the first one we tested was a serie a de de lectroid and again we use 200 amps pretty much once we got the arc initiated pretty much bottom down the foot pedal and you can see the little oil dripping off the side rails have didn't really carry amperage all that well or at least it didn't ball evenly in and started to act up a little bit in the arc started to wander with that knob sticking off the end all right from the Serie a day we went to the one and a half percent lanthanide 'add did a little bit better but we still got a little uneven ball on the end that melted a little bit more than I would have liked or seen it next two percent laminated now this is more like it 200 amps start off with a sharp electrode barely melted the tip and it balled evenly that carried amperage better than a whole lot better than the first two alright after the two percent lanthanide we went to pure we're doing this in alphabetical order just to make sure we kept straight now nothing really wrong with pure electro though the fact that I hate them but a pure electro at 200 amps balled up like a Tootsie Roll pop on the end which if you're welding on quarter inch aluminum on a flat surface that's not a big problem but trying to weld on an edge or something next something thinner right next to a bushing you don't want to arc out on it's a problem to direct the arc when you've got a big monkey fist on the end so pure does not handle the current very well old-school guys might still like pure I've never liked it for anything but that's just me and I am old-school all right after the pure we went through the good old 2% for eiated which they say will kill you because of all the radioactivity as if all the rest of the stuff we well did ten times it's bad for us but you know I can't in good conscience recommend the 2% thoriated all I can tell you is I still use it but it does handle the current really well and then last here we use the 0.8% zirconia 'td which did not handle the current very well at all did not ball evenly either and arc wandered a lot so again Serie A today to present lanthanide pure 2% thoriated and zirconia 'td 8% zirconia tit and those are your results on the tip after we got done welding first who got nodules on them the 2% lanthanide had held up really well the pure didn't hold up well at all the 2% thoriated held up well to the amperage but didn't ball as evenly as the lanthanide it did and the zirconia 'td just kind of balled crooked and was kind of unstable didn't handle the current well if I if I'd have been a lower amperage the pure and their coney aided probably would have fared a whole lot better but I'm testing the ability to carry amperage on this test that's really all so the 2% latha nated clear winter clear winter on the AC set at 100 Hertz and 65% electrode negative on the AC balance just barely rounded that sharp tip which is a good thing if you're trying to pinpoint your heat for an edge weld or welding something a little bit thinner than you normally would use a certain size electrode for so now we went to DC and for DC we only tested the Serie A today 5 lanten ated 2% lanthanide and 2% thoriated these are the only ones really recommended for using on DC and all I did here is I still I stayed on the same piece of aluminum just black gave it a blast of 200 amps just to see what it would do to that sharp tip and I walked all the way through them the Serie A today one and a half percent lambton ated 2% lanthanide and 2% thoriated one two three four and when I got through we're going to look at the tips and there's really not a tremendous amount of difference so all four of these would fare really well for welding on DC now I didn't test them 300 arc starts each to test the tip erosion or anything like that with a bit really extensive test I just wanted to see how well they carried 200 amps for a 3/32 diameter electrode so let's get a look at the tips now of of these four electrodes and see which one of these fared better as you can see there's not a whole lot of difference most of them maintain their sharp tip what was kind of surprising was the 2% thoriated melted that sharp tip a little bit more than the rest of them did so even the even the ciated and the 1.5 lanthanide it held up a little bit better than the thoriated and the 2% lanthanide 'add again just fine the first three pretty pretty much no difference the thoriated actually actually eroded a little bit melted to tip a little bit of 200 amps with it with a shock of 200 amp blast so anyway if you wanted a one purpose electrode welded well on AC and on DC the 2% lanthanide will hold up DC applications for all kinds of multi pass welds 2% lambton ated is fine as well as 2% thoriated does a good job always has if you want to go down to really you know aircraft and sheet metal thicknesses or edge welds or something tedious where you really need a crisp start the lanthanide adore the thoriated works really well with what really works well on that is just sharpening them to a needle point with a fine sanding disk you know they tell you not to sharpen too too much of a taper but for welding razor blade type thicknesses or or even below about forty thousand thickness sharpen it to a needle don't put a flat spot on the end on those kind of thicknesses just leave a needle point if you're concerned about dropping a little bit in the well just light up on a piece of copper first for thicker metal have a taper like this for your thick three-eighths metal or multi pass welds you don't want to needle needle point all right well thanks for watching a lot of you have asked about the t-shirt with the down-and-dirty hog on them they are available now at my website I have a limited quantity and depending on how many orders I get I'll order a bunch more we'll see what happens I appreciate you watching visit welding tips and tricks com

Channel: weldingtipsandtricks

Views: 266,822

Rating: 4.9442511 out of 5

Keywords: tungsten electrodes, gtaw, gas tungsten arc welding, ceriated, lanthanated, zirconiated, thoriated

Id: bpanERwagaU

Length: 7min 39sec (459 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 10 2010