pic: All light originates from the welders arc.

[M4 Sherman]

Its the over all penetration for aluminum MIG welding kinda poor?

(Then again Im only familiar with Hobart Handlers)

[King Duke]

the penetration is up to 1/8th an inch with the 110v system that we have. It gets the job done.

[Kat Kononov]

i'm an amateur photographer, and i think this is a beautiful photo.

[mbeardsworth]

Unfortunately our MIG is only set up for steel. It makes me sad.
Oh how I wish we could weld our chassis, instead of those ugly bolts.

[King Duke]

Originally Posted by Kat Kononov

i'm an amateur photographer, and i think this is a beautiful photo.

Thank you, I'm amateur photographer as well. Always looking for hints and tips to make it better though.

Originally Posted by spazdemon548

Is there no spool gun is it just out of the picture. I had always thought with aluminum wire, you had to use a remote spool because the weak wire can not push through the line.

hmmmm interesting point.

We've had problems with the wire breaking off inside of the line, though most of the time it seems to be alright.

[Nick02]

i'am the welder
I used .030 aluminum wire in the stock lincon electric 120v welder.
I was able to get a couple beads but the wire does not want to feed and it splashes.
lincon sells a kit to make it spool perfectly, it includes aluminum wire rollers and aluminum wire line sheath to go inside the gun cable to prevent the soft Al wire from binding.
you will also need 100% argon gas to weld Al

[spinmunky]

watch out! I hear if you use a digital camera to take pictures of welding or the sun you can fry the CCD or lens.

[Blue_Mist]

We used to MIG weld our aluminum at home in the shop. We now send two people to the TechShop to TIG weld. I love welding so much I just had to write this:

"Short-Circuit Magic"
A blaze of light behind the welding screen
A cry of "Welding!" and sparks flare up green
Flying shreds abound
Metal powder all around
A wire brush reveals the aluminum sheen.

I miss our temperamental MIG. It now spends its days sleeping in The Closet where we store all our tools. I hope it will soon be revived...

[Mike Hendricks]

We use a Lincoln MIG with a spool gun. I don't know the wire size off the top of my head though. We bought the spool gun in 2005, after trying to weld aluminum without it. The smallest wire we could get was just too large to work with, and we kept having problems with the feed. 100% Argon in the tank.

The spool gun is much easier to work with, and much easier to learn than a TIG. The welds aren't as clean, but with enough practice, they work just fine. TIGs are great, but take a lot of skill and practice to do correctly. All of 1388's robots have been MIG welded on site at our school. Here's an example of our MIG'd 2008 frame.

[=Martin=Taylor=]

We've always used a MIG spool gun. We have a TIG too, but its kinda annoying and difficult to use. A good MIG weld is about as good as a TIG weld. Some say it is weaker, but we've never broken any MIGs (We have broken 1 TIG )

Glad to hear someone else is working at the Tech Shop. Did you know they're going national?

[Blue_Mist]

Originally Posted by Hachiban VIII

...Glad to hear someone else is working at the Tech Shop. Did you know they're going national?

Yea! We heard that you guys were working there, but they wouldn't tell us what you made...

[DarkFlame145]

Originally Posted by M4 Sherman

Its the over all penetration for aluminum MIG welding kinda poor?

(Then again Im only familiar with Hobart Handlers)

when i was welding 3/16 plate alum i had good penetration.

[Martino]

MIG alum's are nice... i have done a bit of work with one... not on a bot tho... we don't a welder at all!!! i wish we did... maybe next year...

[spazdemon548]

Is there no spool gun is it just out of the picture. I had always thought with aluminum wire, you had to use a remote spool because the weak wire can not push through the line.