Butt Welding Aluminum Pipes

[Rugar]

Wondering if you could take a picture of the back of the quick connect for the gas line on the front of the machine. If not, could you tell me what kind of hose is connected to it, and how its connected? (Rubber hose, plastic, hose clamp. crimped...ect.) Thats if you can even get to it to see it. Wow, what a wiring nightmare inside there.
Thanks

[everlastsupport]

On the AC freq knob, moving it from 10 o'clock to 2 o'clock should change the arc sound a lot.

I can see in the pictures, a bend in the top rail. Looks like it was dropped and hopefully just popped the AC switch plug off like Wrenchtamer.

Call into support and we will check it out. Leave the cover off and the machine off for 2 hours before calling.

[Wrenchtamer]

From my conversations with mike have given me the impression that that high frequency spout shouldnt be tie strapped to the flyback transformer like that. It's oe of the first things he told me too look for. It's the red wire on the passenger side of the machine next to the inverted transformer you see with the l shaped bracket. that wire is the spark output to the high frequency points. I would check to see if it is arcing out there. and the plug that was off on mine is not easy to find. it's on the top board near the fron kind of in the center. a three wire plug sits transverse to the body of the unit. its kind of hidden up near the front. i had the cover off myself and didnt catch it until I took it to mark.

[Wrenchtamer]

here I took your pics and circled the problem areas I noticed. Minus the big bend in the suspension rail. check with mike or ark about the flyback transformer thing first tho. It might not be a problem unless it is arcing out.

[drifterific]

Wondering if you could take a picture of the back of the quick connect for the gas line on the front of the machine. If not, could you tell me what kind of hose is connected to it, and how its connected? (Rubber hose, plastic, hose clamp. crimped...ect.) Thats if you can even get to it to see it. Wow, what a wiring nightmare inside there.
Thanks

Here are some pictures of the gas fitting on the case. To me it looks like the black rubber hose is held on with a metal crimp to keep the line from blowing off. Hope these pics work for you. If not let me know and I can try to get different ones.

[drifterific]

So I went looking around the upper board of the welder and noticed that a connector did not look seated, so I made sure the connector was fully seated. Hopefully this was the issue with my AC not working correctly. I have some pics to show the area I am talking about.

[performance]

That's the one. It controls your AC switching (for a lack of better terminology). Without that plugged in, it will be stuck on DC positive. That was the loose plug on wrench tamer's unit as well. Not sure why we have seen it loose on two units like this close together. I know I haven't seen any, maybe Mike has, or Ray. Move the copper strip coming out the bottom over so it doesn't touch the wire of the transformer (black thing, red wire pic 4)

[drifterific]

I will try some aluminum later tonight after I get the welder all back together and post up if it made a difference. Thanks for all of your help.

[Rugar]

Here are some pictures of the gas fitting on the case. To me it looks like the black rubber hose is held on with a metal crimp to keep the line from blowing off. Hope these pics work for you. If not let me know and I can try to get different ones.

Perfect! Thanks for taking the time to take the photos and post them for me.

I hope you have found your problem. You will know right away when AC kicks in for sure.

[everlastsupport]

Hey Mark,

This is only the second one (shipping bounce maybe). The only one I had was when Brian (aka Wrenchtamer) came to you and I told you to trace that switch and you found the plug was off (I should have got that on the phone; sorry Brian). That is the only one I have had, so looks like two now.

And he liked the class in welding you offered so I hope it was worth his drive to you and I know I owe ya on that one.

It's "Christmas" time and shipping has always been rough on us, it looks like this year, it's not bad at all. Last year, cracked bezels, bent cases.... So I can not complain.

[drifterific]

Perfect! Thanks for taking the time to take the photos and post them for me.

I hope you have found your problem. You will know right away when AC kicks in for sure.

Yeah its no problem, Im glad that I could help you out. I will be putting the unit back together here shortly after I finish writting my paper for school. I will report back the findings after its all back together.

[drifterific]

So I finally got the chance today to put the welder back together and got a chance to test it out and now everything sounds like it does in Jody's videos. Thank you for all of your help. now I will get some correct practice welding aluminum after I get some more gas tomorrow. Also another question I have is should I use 2% ceriated tungsten for aluminum or just stick with the 2% thoriated tungsten.

[Rugar]

So I finally got the chance today to put the welder back together and got a chance to test it out and now everything sounds like it does in Jody's videos. Thank you for all of your help. now I will get some correct practice welding aluminum after I get some more gas tomorrow. Also another question I have is should I use 2% ceriated tungsten for aluminum or just stick with the 2% thoriated tungsten.

Awesome! Glad it was a simple fix.
I used 2% thoriated when I first got mine and didn't like it. But it was the cheap Radnor brand from Airgas (guess I should say expensive in price from Airgas, but cheap in the quality area), but it could have just been me just starting out. Since I have used Tri-mix (which is a hybrid mix) and 2% Lathonaided, both from Diamond Ground Products, and just recently Arctime from Arczone which is also a hybrid mix, and I cant really tell much difference between the last three. Once I get more experience I might, but for now they all seem fine. I'm going to try the 2% thoriated again now though just to compare it, since I'm welding more now then grinding electrodes like I was a month ago. LMAO

[sschefer]

Gerald, the turning point for me was what I found out about cleaning Al. Those cheap Radnors turned out to be not that bad after all.