How to weld with an electrode if the voltage in the network is weak

  • Jul 31, 2021

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There is such a massive problem as insufficient voltage in the network. With low voltages, welding becomes a big problem. There is simply not enough energy to produce a normal welding arc.

This arc cannot make a good weld pool that will bond the parts to be welded and penetrate to a sufficient depth. Instead, we get slagging of the seam and frequent lack of fusion. What is there to do? There are several solutions for how to weld 2 pieces of iron with low voltage.

For an illustrative example-experiment, I will set a welding current of 60 amperes on the inverter, and I will not touch the twist anymore. Allegedly, this is the maximum that the device can give out at a low voltage in the circuit. And you need to brew, see what we are doing.

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The first step is to reverse polarity. This means we connect the holder with the electrode to the positive terminal of the inverter. Accordingly, we connect the weight pin to the minus of the device.

Reverse polarity will give additional deeper penetration of the metal. Let's complicate the experiment and find thicker pieces of iron.

I dug in the scraps of metal in the garage and found these thick pieces of metal. These are shelves from channels, they have a decent thickness - about 8 mm will be exactly. Here we need to weld these 2 pieces of iron with an inverter with a current of 60 amperes.

We make a serious chamfer for the entire thickness of the metal. Both pieces of iron will be cut. We are not lazy, we grind down from top to bottom, we will get a chamfer in the form of a smooth descent.

Reducing the diameter of the electrode. The most popular in everyday life are electrodes with a diameter of 3 mm. Let's say you can't cook by 3 mm, take 2.5 or 2 mm electrode diameter. A thin rod requires less energy for normal combustion.

Let's take a training plate of about the same thickness that we need to cook and try how electrodes of different diameters burn.

I picked up a plate, though 5 millimeters thick and quite rusty. But I cleaned it up a little with a grinder. We cook alternately with diameters from the largest to the smallest, see how the arc burns and decide on the diameter of which we will cook.

Diameter 3 mm.

Diameter 2.5 mm

Diameter 2 mm, this is the diameter we will weld. The arc here is quite good, there is enough energy to blow the slag back. Welding is stable.

The first seam was welded. Here we will weld in several seams of passes. The seam was not perfect, but we welded the pieces of iron quite tightly. Now we go through the other seams on top of the first.

Brewed in 3 passes. Yes, even if the seams are far from beauty, we have fulfilled our task. We welded 2 pieces of iron of large thickness at a rather low current. This was an experiment that emitted a weak voltage in the network. For their everyday purposes, such actions are quite suitable.

So let's consolidate our actions. We put the reverse polarity - we will melt the metal deeper. We make the maximum section of the edges, we remove the chamfer. We take the diameters of the smaller electrodes. Cook in several passes. That's all if you need to weld thick pieces of iron. For a professional pipe or thin metals, simply reduce the diameters of the electrodes.