What happens with Pulse + AC on PP256?

[acannell]

If I turn on pulse while in AC mode, what exactly is happening?

If the AC is lower frequency than the pulse, does the pulse chop up the AC waveform?

And if this is all fine and dandy, how can I take advantage of pulse AC? I can't find ANYTHING about it on google, except people saying it doesnt exist.

[performance]

It does exist.

You are pulsing between two amperage values. It has nothing to do with frequency. AC amps or DC amps, the pulse is the same. Although you can on some models set independent values for each half cycle, the pulse assumes that the amps on each half cycle are essentially the same, or it can take the two independent amperage values of the half cycles and create a second set of amperage values of the two polarities by using a percent of peak (pulse) amps. Enough confusing double talk for you? Even I can't keep it straight...and Mike is smarter than me about these things, but I'd say it makes his head hurt sometimes too.

I have made a chart of what is going on during the welding cycle, particularly if you are using the remote function instead of the foot pedal. Its really hard to make a chart that visually explains the things going on while welding, but here is the best shot I can give it for now. Click on it, click on the englarged picture again, and it will open in a separate browser window and click on it again to englarge it so you can see it. Keep in Mind that the baseline representation changes somewhat when dealing with AC, but the color of the dots indicate what is going on.