Wow!
DC pulsed MMA / stick welding is pretty impressive!
Had a go with that function today on the scrap metal side of this scruffy welding cart I'm building.
Normally welding thin sheet metal with an arc welder is at best "tricky" - involves very accurately nicely cut bits of steel and more often than not a big lump of copper underneath that acts as a heat sink.
Today with 6013 1.6mm rods 28 amps peak and 20 amps in the trough of the pulses (unknown pulse frequency - will have to look it up) =>
^^^Wasn't the best aligned gap but in the big scheme of things not bad (!)
^^^^First attempt - most of the spot welds in the right place if you ignore the top one...
^^^^ Joining up the dots - kind of OK
Not as nice as a carefully TIG welded butt joint but with arc welding you've got the inherent problem that you're always adding material to the joint whereas with TIG you can add in filler as needed.
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I'm actually really impressed with it - I think the welds I made were a bit cold - the weld penetration wasn't as good as I would like (could see a line on the underside in some places where the original butt metal was) so I've got a bit more fiddling and fine tuning / getting used to / etc etc to be done
I'm stuck with 1.6mm rods which for 1mm sheet steel are a bit on the thick side but thinner welding rods these days are hard to come by.
I reckon that if you're not keen on using bottles of CO2 (for either financial reasons or environmental reasons) this pulsed MMA technology is a pretty good alternative for MIG welding. Perhaps a little bit more development and all thin metal welding could / should be done this way?
Does anyone know if this pulsed DC technology is already being incorporated into MIG welders? I mean gas-less MIG welding is essentially arc welding (and is rumored to be pretty haphazard on sheet metal) but with this gucci pulsing could be way better and cheaper than using inert gas shielding.
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Anyway other than that the gash welding has continued - one more side for the welding trolley is about to go on =>