i used to do a lot of carbon arc gouging when i worked in the steel mill, i used a miller big blue 500 with 1/2" rods turned all the way up and just went to town, i would air arc for 12 hours a night for about a week on some of the bigger weld jobs. so when i saw a lot of welds that need fixed on my backhoe it seemed like carbon arcing would be the way to go. i bought a used stinger off ebay and a box of 1/4 inch rods and am useing my hobart champion 230 amp welder. it is not working at all. it will start to arc then just lose it and the rod will touch and sputter. i tried cleaning all the connections and switching to reverse polarity and striaght polarity and it is still sucking.:Banghead it seems to wok better at around 150-180 amps than at max amps. my compressor is struggling to keep up but it is holding about 60-80# constant and if i actually get an arc i can go right along. but that only happens about 1 out of 100 attempts. i feel like i need a stiffer arc but i don't think i can change it on my machine. any ideas?
I think your machine might not be big enough. When I have trouble it's because machine is not turned up .
I reckon the air is blowing the arc out... I tried arc gouging with my small Miller and it would barely strike an arc... You need the likes of 400 or more amps...
We have XMT 350 Miller and the biggest rod we use is 1/8!
I used to have 280 amp Kemmpi and 1/4 inch carbons was its limit. I reckon you need a bit more amperage
Agree with others, 1/4" rod is too big for a 230 welder, to have any consistency anyway. But that's the least of your problems, plenty of cfm of air is a must with a gouger. The reason you're dropping in the 60 psi range is lack of cfm output, you're going to start carburizing the metal in the cut. When that happens, gouger won't cut the steel at all.
Found some good guidance here, http://http://victortechnologies.com/IM_Uploads/DocLib_6782_Arcair%20Air%20Carbon-Arc%20Gouging%20Guide_(89250008)_Dec2008.pdf they recommend 90-150amps for 5/32 rods”, 300-400 amps for ¼” rods, and 800-1000 for ½” rods. Not sure how I was doing it with the big blue but it was hard to get it going sometimes and I definitely got in the habit of taking many light passes across the surface in a cross hatch pattern. The miller was a cc/cv machine and my Hobart is only a cc. so that explains why as I strike an arc and the load comes on and the current comes up and my voltage drops and I lose my arc. Where as the miller would keep going better being cv. Thanks for the replies guys, merry Christmas everybody.
you need more power.
dualie, all i can think is "I'm givin her all she's got captain!"...............theironoracle
I hook my 250 and 225 Millers together and they gouge great.
partsandservice, i did that with couple old 300 amp lincoln "buzz boxes" in the shop, paid 300 each for them, i didn't have three phase to run my 600 amp welder, worked great could run like 5/8 flat for a while 1/2" flat longer, when the 30 amp fuses blew it was time to quit for an hour to get cooled off, still nothing like running that 600 amp 3 phase machine it would work way harder than i wanted to!..................theironoracle
I'm only saying that gus can do gouging with that 230, just not a 1/4" rod, need much smaller diameter rod. May not be able to make the big cut a 1/4" rod can, but can cut nevertheless. But one thing I do know about gouging is you have to have plenty of air. When compressor can't keep up, and air delivery drops, you will carburize the metal. It gets tough to work with then, and the gouger will not remove the carburized metal.
Got a box of 5/32 rods. Running about 135 amps which is probably better because it gets me down into my 100% duty cycle. They work well. They sure are delicate though. Just look at them wrong and they are broken. I can hardly handle them with a pair of welder’s gloves on. There is an old 300 amp airco hornet in the scrap heap at work I may ask about. It sat for like 15 years then they tried to use it and it of course didn't work so they are tossing it. Maybe it just needs the field flashed. If I paralleled it with mine I could burn the bigger rods.
tried to work on it some after work today. 22*F in my garage. i didn't really have time to light the wood (stove but it only gets me up into the 30's anyway). so i ground and arced and ground for about 1.5 hours then my air lines iced up. my compressor runs steady but it does make enough air. i wouldn't have thought the air would have enought moisture in it to make ice at this temp. i wonder if i would blow myself up if i put a can of de-icer for truck brakes into my compressor? i think it's just alcohol
I air arch with my bobcat all the time, I use the smallest rod I can get, crank up the welder as high as it goes, and give it as much air as I've got, do short stretches of weld at a time and wait till my air compressor is caught back up. Willie has the right advice, too little cfm's of air and it'll carbonize the weld then your screwed. As for starting the arch with a smaller welder, the smaller rod should cure that problem.