- One of the questions I get a lot as an educator is
how do I set up my machine?
So today we're gonna talk about
shielded metal arch welding
specifically with the low hydrogen electrodes
and we'll just go over the basics.
I'm gonna show you how to dial in the correct amperage
or a good place to start regardless of diameter
and position that you're gonna be running in
with low hydrogen electrodes.
So for example we're gonna start off
with this 3/32 7018 rod.
So we can do that by figuring out
the decimal equivalent to the electrode.
So for a 3/32 electrode we just take the three,
divide it by the 32, and wind up with 93, .093.
It's about a good place to start is 93 amps
for the flat position.
Now if I wanted to go into vertical let's say
good rule of thumb is to reduce that starting amperage
and flat position by ten percent.
So if I take that 93 amps and I multiply it by .90,
I end up with 84.
So it's a good place to start is 84 amps for vertical.
Same thing with overhead
but I only wanna reduce overhead by about five percent.
So same values, at 93 starting amps, multiplied by .95,
that's gonna give me 88 amps.
And that's a good start for overhead.
And we're gonna demonstrate and show you guys
we're gonna put these exact values
of the Everlast over here
and we're gonna produce these welds.
We'll do a horizontal, vertical, and a overhead
with the 3/32 as well as the 1/8 inch electrode.
So same thing when we figure out the diameter
or the starting amperage for the 1/8 inch,
start with the decimal equivalent so that 1/8
so one divided by eight,
it gives me .125.
Just get rid of the decimal.
I have a 125 amps of starting amperage,
a good place to start for flat and horizontal.
Same thing if I go into vertical.
Remember that 10 percent rule.
I'm gonna reduce it by 10 percent.
Set 125 times, you know, times .90.
It's gonna give me 90 percent so
it's about 113 amps for the vertical position
on an 1/8 inch electrode.
Same thing with overhead,
just reduce that by five percent
of your original flat position amperage.
125 times .95
is gonna give me 122 amps.
So we're gonna go ahead and show you guys.
We'll start off with the 3/32, flat, vertical, and overhead
or horizontal, vertical, and overhead,
and then we're gonna do the 1/8 inch,
horizontal, vertical, and overhead.
So we're gonna start off with a 3/32 electrode
in the horizontal or 2F position.
If you remember our calculations from a second ago,
we discovered that that was about 93 amps.
I've got my work piece clamp plugged into the negative side
which is gonna give me about thirty percent of my heat
to my base plate.
The electrode is plugged into the positive side
where the remaining seventy percent of that heat
is gonna go into my electrode.
Right off the bat I can tell you
we've got a smooth start there.
It's tying in good to the top and the bottom plate.
This 93 amps seems about right.
There's no sticking I don't have excessive spatter,
Overall it's pretty smooth.
I'd say 93 amps for 3/32 diameter electrodes
is the way to go.
Keep and nice tight arc length in there.
Once we get to the end you wanna make sure
you know you take a second to pause
and fill in any crater.
All right.
So we just completed that 3/32 weld in the flat position.
We got a nice even bead profile.
50 percent coverage on the horizontal joint
as well as the vertical joint,
which is what we're looking for.
Good tie in.
No undercut.
No excessive spatter.
I'd say overall it's a pretty decent weld
and 93 amps work really well for us.
So now we're gonna test this theory again.
We're gonna go into the vertical position
where we're gonna reduce our amperage by 10 percent.
So we started off with that 93,
we're gonna reduce that down.
I got about 84.
You can round up a little bit,
it's not gonna hurt, an amp or two.
We're gonna run it over to 84 and hit this vertical
and see what we come up with.
We get a smooth arc start.
Seems like it's digging in there pretty good.
Went in on the sides really well.
Not blowing anything out.
Rod's not sticking.
84 amps seems to be the ticket.
Keeping that tight arc gap.
We got it really nice.
He's gonna run a little tie in here.
We ran a little short with that first rod.
Make sure we get to the top.
It's gonna wanna blow out.
Pause a second,
fill that crater in.
So from the beginning we had a good arc start,
very limited undercut,
virtually no spatter.
I'd say overall it did pretty decent at that 93 amps.
I'm pretty impressed with this Everlast over here.
Once again make sure that crater's filled out.
We got a tie in right about in this area here.
That turned out pretty well too so
good arc start overall,
good tie in, so let's go ahead
and we'll swap it to the overhead settings,
88 amps, and we'll run some overhead.
So again
coming from the
your right to left this time 'cause I ran in upside down,
good arc initiation,
good weld,
not a lot of undercut,
I mean not any undercut,
very minimal spatter,
I think I got two little BBs on here
I could probably get rid of, take out.
And good crater fill but
rod wasn't sticking
wasn't, didn't have any excessive heat
so I wasn't blowing any holes in here
or having any undercuts.
So it looks like 88 is
a decent starting amperage for overhead.
So now we're gonna switch over.
We're gonna try out the 1/8 inch rods.
If you remember before we listed that as about 125 amps.
So we'll go ahead and dial in the Everlast
and let's see what we can do with it.
All right so we got
good arch initiation,
no undercut once again,
good crater fill at the end,
and overall I'd say it performed pretty well at 125 amps.
All right guys so
we went ahead and we made a goof.
Left the machine setting at 125 amps
from flat position and went ahead
and welded the weld joint up in the vertical position
assuming we had the correct amperage dialed in.
And I ended up with some undercut
on both the left and right hand side.
Not too bad, but more than I like to have on there.
I don't like to have any undercut at all.
Also when we got to the top we went ahead and blew about
3/16 crater in the top there.
That's also something you're gonna want to avoid.
So had we dropped down to that
112 amp range that we discussed previously
I don't believe that any of this would've happened.
So now what we're gonna do is
we're gonna set the machine to the appropriate amperage
we discussed earlier
and we're gonna go ahead and rerun this coupon
and show you guys the difference.
It's lying in there pretty smooth.
About the way I like it.
A little side to side action.
Hold the sides, give it time to cut,
give it time to fill.
It's about a 10 degree travel angle.
Tip of the electrode's elevated about one inch
above the end of the electrode.
That's how you know you got a good angle.
All right so we just got done running it
at the appropriate 112 amps.
Once again, no undercut,
good arch initiation.
Started over here, this is at the very bottom of the plate,
this is the top.
I could've done a little bit better job
of filling in that crater up at the top,
keep that edge from blowing out.
Run off tabs usually help
if you're in that situation.
But we're just doing a little bit of practice
and some demonstrations here.
But other than that, no
no weld BBs
so no buck shot on here.
Everything overall looks pretty good.
All right so now we're gonna run our overhead
on 1/8 inch diameter 7018
with the 122 amps we discussed previously.
So let's go ahead and get that started.
Right off really well.
You need to be getting good penetration.
I can see how it's digging in there.
I don't have a whole lot of sag.
Keeping that tight arc gap.
Not sticking so that's always a good sign.
I think this 122 amps is about the way to go.
So this crater in here at the end,
slight little pause.
All right so overall
we got a pretty good bead appearance on here.
Melted in nicely to both sides of the material.
I got one spot over here
where I get a bit of lack of fusion and that's
I think that's more my fault than it is the amperage
at what I was selected.
It's all in technique.
But overall good weld,
nice bead appearance.
I'd say that 122 amps is a pretty good
starting average for your amperage.
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and until next time,
make every weld better than your last.
Also I gotta say I'm pretty impressed
with these furred brushes.
Keep you looking good out there on the job site.