Pulser MIG Add-On

Another thread got me to thinking about this. Somebody implied that most of the MFGs just want to sell you a new power supply rather than tell you how to do with what you have.

I've got a Miller 212 and I can weld aluminum with it (spool gun), but it's a struggle. Short welds that I can do in one quick pass (1" bead in 1/8" sheet for example) aren't too bad, but more than that is difficult at best for me. I have to stitch and fill back and forth. For thin steel I can often just make little short quick welds and get a nice bead that looks like a TIG weld to the uninitiated. Kind of a really really slow pulse weld. LOL. For aluminum that doesn't seem to be practical due to wire tip globbing and the resulting flash back. Its best to make continuous welds where I can and clip the tip of the wire before I pull the trigger nearly every time.

So, is there a pulse welder adaptor of some kind I could use with my 212 power supply. Its my understanding that most pulsers use a variation of a VFD inverter.

How about something that shorts the gas and feed relays inputs, and pulses the trigger button input? I know. I know. It's a shade tree hack, but could it work?

Reply to
Bob La Londe
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MIG pulsers are much more complicated than TIG pulsers. It is why most commercial MIG pulse systems are "black box". With Miller's Optima pulser and Lincoln's PowerMIGs , you tell the machine wire alloy, wire diameter, and shielding gas. Then all you do is vary your voltage based on the thickness of your metal. The machine controls wire speed and everything else.

I got into the programming mode on a Lincoln PowerMIG 300 and got lost very fast.

Reply to
Ernie Leimkuhler

So what are my options other than spending 3 grand on another welder?

Reply to
Bob La Londe

Miller made a pulsed version of their Millermatic 212 for people doing small aluminum projects. You might find one used. It's the only low cost pulsed MIG I can think of.

This is sitting on ebay

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Reply to
Ernie Leimkuhler

I saw that, but I don't know how I would tie it into my 212 or I would have already bought it.

Reply to
Bob La Londe

Long ago in another universe, I bought a new Millermatic 200, and boy, howdy, what a sweet machine. Then I thought I'd get into some aluminum work, and bought the Spool-Matic gun, I think it was. I never did get it to work right. The characteristics of the base metal was so different from going from ambient temperture to when the metal had heated up from welding. The only thing I really fixed with it was the bow of my aluminum boat, which got crunched pretty good, and I managed to repair nicely with some 1/4" x 3" Al FB. But for the rest of the work, mostly thin, it would burn through, or the work collapse, or it would birdsnest, or burnback into the tip, or whatever. I finally gave up on it.

Now, light years later, and a galaxie apart, there is new stuff, and it is the cat's meow from what I am hearing. Still, like everyone else, if I choose to go on my new venture, the welder will be about #3k, and the pulser about the same, considering all the ancillary stuff and consumables. A pretty hefty chunk on the if-come.

But, if you are going to do Al, there are some tradeoffs.

Steve

Reply to
SteveB

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