I think I might have gotten a bottle of bad gas. When I picked up the bottle my supplier said it had just returned from being tested. Here is what my welds look like. The ugly black ones. lol. 100Amps. 65% AC balance, 120hz and running 18cfh of gas. This is my first time welding Al with this welder by the way. the good welds were done over 1 year ago at school.
Any suggestions appreciated.

 

i HIGHLY doubt its a gas issue. i have been tig welding since i was 12 (now 31) never had 1 bad tank of gas EVER. kinda hard to tell but looks like dirty work material by product, bad ground, or maybe an equipment issue

 

I tried putting the ground on the Al plate and same thing happened. I welded on a clean prepped piece of Al and also had contamination. I welded some SS tubing and welds also look burnt. Don't know what it could be.

 

dirty tungsten? sharpened tungsten? gas leak at machine (seen it happen) were whip comes out of machine?

 

the tungsten were sitting for about a year in my backpack. Not sure if that can affect it. I will check for leaks although all fittings were snug. I did sharpen the tungsten with a brand new dedicated sanding belt. Unless there is a specific type of sanding belt for them that was not the cause. Thanks.

 

no real special sanding belt, but i was told always sharpen down to the point as that makes a finer arc. off chance do you know the welding cup size you are using? but in the end it looks like either a gas or ground issue to me.

 

Gas issue or maybe you are not waiting for the AL oxide to be removed.

or maybe.....I had the same problem.....you have a leak on the argon hose or maybe on the machine itself!

 

did you just buy this machine? when I sold my Lincoln and bought a htp 221 tig, I had the same issue. turned out the ck hose/torch assembly was faulty. apparently the hose assembly was contaminated causing the argon to be contaminated. the 12.5 hose was faulty. had them send me a 25 footer and all was well. htp shipped me out a new hose from ck and all is good now.

 

cup size 8

I will check for leaks soon. And will try to go very slow on the AL.

I bought it last December. I tried it once when I got it and has been sitting for 10 months. How did you determined to be your hose that was faulty?

 

Make sure the line hasn't had a hot ember land on it. Or a break anywhere along it. I've had that happen.

 

This video shows bad gas check your gas or for leaks , check your back cup for cracks too.

Is it throwing sparks on mild steel?

 

I forget who I talked to, but he was the owner of HTP. I spoke to him on the phone and we attempted to troubleshoot the problem. The line set ended up being the only logical problem. Apparently CK used a chemical when assembling their hoses about a year ago that was causing these problems. They have since fixed the problem. Call HTP, that's going to be your issue. They'll send you another torch assembly with hose for free

 

I'll check that.

no sparks

If I can't figure it out I will call them up. Thanks for the information. I did not know about that mishap with them.

 

Bad gas is a possibility. I bought a new tig a few months ago and was playing with some titanium and it looked awesome. Nice bright silver welds with a little straw color at the adge of the HAZ. No rainbow colors at all which is a good thing with titanium. Second bottle I had was playing with some more Ti and it looked horrible. All kinds of different colors. Dark purple all in the weld and blue and purple all in the HAZ. I took that bottle back and got one from a different lot number and my Ti welds went back to being bright silver with no discoloration.

So, only my second bottle through the machine and had one contaminated. Before I exchanged the bottle I tried everything to make sure I didn't have a leak or something stupid like that. Thought I was going crazy. Last thing it could be was the bottle and it was.

 

It's very possible it's a bad tank of gas. It's more common now that it has been in the past. Hell someone could of mis-labeled the tank.

Also as stated it could be the torch. Here are some things to try out:
Try to blow it out with compressed air.
Crank up the welder to 220 amps and get a THICK piece of aluminum. And do weld after weld after weld after weld and get that torch ridiculously hot. It will help burn up all the lubricant that was used to assemble the cable..
If that fails have someone else watch the flowmeter while you weld and if it changes all of a sudden or changes when the torch gets hot, you have a problem with the gas hose.

 

I went back to my supplier and he gave me a different bottle. welds are nice and crisp now. thanks for all the suggestions.

 

It's amazing how many issues can be resolved by swapping your gas out.

 

That is interesting. I am not a welder...but I employ several and I can say that in 15 years I've never seen a bad tank of gas and we go through a lot of gas. I'd be looking at a different supplier.