Hi everyone
Where I work in a fab. shop, most welds are hori-vert T-fillets. Typically adding end-plates to beams to make steel structurals. Thicknesses - 6mm to 12mm in the web and flanges.
Showing on the machine's meters:
The "heavy beams" condition I see my workmates use is 260A, 22V. Which is a high-amps dip-transfer condition.
I go to spray at typically 240A, 33V - get a nice small arc cone giving good fusion and a very smooth bead.
(just found out the machine is 500A - yet to try higher power).
As power is Amps x Volts, my conditions give 50% extra fusing power...
So what does anyone reckon to these conditions?
For all partial pentration butt welds, etc, my conditions are plainly the business.
But for T-fillets? Do you need the penetrating power? I've never cut open a 260A 22V weld, but I suspect there is fusion between the fillet and the bead. I can actually see with my spray conditions the terminating plate edge melting - but is that fusion really needed? A T-fillet weld is about the only one where you unavoidably rely on filler metal. For butt welds and the like, with more fusing power you narrow the weld and ultimately with the likes of electron-beam can do without filler.
So what I am getting at - so long as the fillet is fused to the base plates, is there advantage in actually keeping the heat input down and just seeing it as maximal metal deposition by forcing dip transfer at the conditions like 260A, 22V?
Rich S