Thread: My Chinese tig welder.

Originally Posted by gozz

How you going guys.
About a year ago I bought a Mac 200 ac/dc tig.
I've been using it with mixed results just playing around with the controls not knowing what half of them do.
The other day I sat down and spent about a hour watching you tube on setting tig's.

Wow my tig now runs like a dream with very professional welding finish.

My tungsten now balls up on AC and the stays nice and clean welding DC.

I found one control very important which was the cleaning width area knob,not sure what it's called on other welders.
This knob controls cleaning the area you are welding.
Mine was set on about 10% and I changed it to 70% like the you tube clip recommended.

So just goes to show how important it is to set the controls right.

Hi Gozz ,

On Tig welders it is also known as AC balance control. This controls the amount of positive or negative electrode time on the tungsten depending on which terminal you have your Tig Torch plugged into. If you are plugged in the positive terminal setting it to 30% gives exactly the same result as plugging your torch into the negative terminal and setting it to 70%. Make a note of where your torch is plugged into so you get used to using the balance the same way each time.

The reason for this control is that as you put more positive balance onto the electrode you have a longer period of time where the oxide is removed electrically from the weld zone. For this reason it is called "clean width", "clean %" or on some machines "clear with".

It is a good habit to always keep your tig torch in the negative because this is where you need it for DC applications. If you learn to use the balance setting correctly with the torch in the negative there will never be any setup issues when welding either in AC or DC modes. Let me know if you need any pictures to explain what I said above, hope the info helps.

Regards
Pete (Tokentools Welders)

Originally Posted by inverter_weld

Hi Gozz ,

On Tig welders it is also known as AC balance control. This controls the amount of positive or negative electrode time on the tungsten depending on which terminal you have your Tig Torch plugged into. If you are plugged in the positive terminal setting it to 30% gives exactly the same result as plugging your torch into the negative terminal and setting it to 70%. Make a note of where your torch is plugged into so you get used to using the balance the same way each time.

The reason for this control is that as you put more positive balance onto the electrode you have a longer period of time where the oxide is removed electrically from the weld zone. For this reason it is called "clean width", "clean %" or on some machines "clear with".

It is a good habit to always keep your tig torch in the negative because this is where you need it for DC applications. If you learn to use the balance setting correctly with the torch in the negative there will never be any setup issues when welding either in AC or DC modes. Let me know if you need any pictures to explain what I said above, hope the info helps.

Regards
Pete (Tokentools Welders)

Thanks mate it does make sense now but before all this it would have gone over my head.
I'll let you know how it goes.

I am in the process of learning to TIG and this was one of the best set of videos that I came across for explanation of the settings Tig Welder Settings Made Simpler

Cheers
James