VIDEO: How to Fix a Pulsed Weld

In this video I want to introduce you to another potential problem with a welder setting

and that leads to something I call a pulsed weld. And it happens when the voltage is too high relative to the feed rate of the wire coming out of the gun

So I'm just going to use a simple gasless 120 volt plug-in welder for this demonstration

And if you come over here you'll see that the voltage control is pretty well right up there

and the wire speed is near the bottom of its range. So what happens when something is set like this, or even less extreme

but the pulsed weld happens when the power of the arc is high enough

that it melts back the wire faster than the wire is advancing

So if you imagine you strike the arc, heat is generated, and the wire is vaporizing faster than it's coming out of the gun

So at some stage we get a gap that's too wide for the arc to be sustained

and the arc stops momentarily, very momentarily. You know, half second, maybe a quarter second

But the wire is continuing to feed so it gets closer to the metal and it reestablishes the arc

But the arc is too powerful for the wire speed, so it vaporizes back

the arc is broken, and so forth. So it's this pulsing, this kind of..

And I want to show you that now. We'll take a look at an actual weld using these kind of extreme settings

You're not going to have an imbalance this great unless you've just made a mistake

and haven't paid attention to the controls. But the whole concept of the pulsed weld comes down to this

And you will probably encounter that semi-frequently as you're setting up a welder

And you can tell at least as much by sound as you can by results

You'll get an uneven sound. What you really want with a properly set up welder is the sound of frying bacon and eggs

It's a kind of a... sound and it's consistent. If you get anything that's pulsed, you know you got an adjustment

So let's go and take a look. So did you notice how that electrode was kind of pulsing back and forth

You could hear it too. And this is the weld bead I laid down

And of course it's a non-gas shield and so there's some soot and things around

That's to be expected. But in addition to not being even, there's just not a lot of metal there

It's just not going to be all that strong. So if you see stuff like that and you hear the pulsing

you know you need less voltage and more wire feed speed