I went ahead and just stuck with the thoriated tungsten. Now that my AC switch is working I am getting good result. I was able to but weld some aluminum pipe together.

I did have a question though, will I eventually beable to tack weld aluminum together without filler rod? I saw my friend do it on his syncrowave but it would break easily when we would move the pipes to fully weld them.

But everything is working great and I hope the pictures of the connector will help anyone else that may have this problem in the future.