Okay, this is far more than ridiculous. I have been experiencing large amounts of contamination in my welds consistently. I am getting porosity, sparks, spatter, and rust forming in rings around the welds. I will go out and buy a battery for my digital camera (don't trust ebay Li-Ions without warranties) if need be to demonstrate the contamination. I replaced the old torch, hose, and everything that goes with them other than the tungsten: collet body, collet, back cap, cup, nylon fittings, etc. I also replaced the gas-electrode fitting and went so far to retighten everything and add teflon tape to the fittings before where the torch hose comes to the electrode. When I turn the unit off and close the valve, the pressure holds absolutely constant, at least for the five minutes that I sat there with my head rested on something. My torch has one of those manual gas cut-off *****, and I set the post-flow to 60 seconds (maximum), closed the torch valve, hit the torch, closed the tank valve, and pressure still held constant! What The Frell? I'm all out of ideas. My steel is ground down bare, I have tried different pieces of steel, and I've tried different cup sizes. I've gone between 20 and 30 CFH with little or no difference. I also weld in some fairly still air and have tried pre-flowing for a few seconds over the piece.

Any ideas? Could there still be a leak causing a VERY minute vacuum? Would a gas lens do ANYTHING? Aaaahhhggghhhh... This problem can eat my plasma!!!

 

Is this all on the same piece of metal?

 

Is this the same tank of argon... it may be contaminated.

Ditto on the steel question above.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by parasonic &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I have tried different pieces of steel</TD></TR></TABLE>

 

And two tanks of argon from two different companies. Their suppliers are even different.

 

I would try lowering the gas flow. In stable air I don't need more than 10-12 cfh

 

i was experiencing the same problem with my welding and it turned out to be the lens causing the problem. i would look into that... also, are you getting the metal from a steel factory?

 

that happens sumtimes.. but proper maintance is critical..

 

try wire-wheeling the metal differently. dont go all the way bare...just give it a light touch all the way aorund the edge, enough to get the crap off..

also: are you purging?