Welding copper question

[clay9_24]

Sadly I have lost my tig welding cheat sheet and am having trouble getting my settings back. I stick weld alot but tig is something new. I am not a pro welder but I did buy a tig machine to play with for brewing. I have welder friends who tell me how to set up my machine and I just run the beads. I had a guy give me his settings that he had some success with for tight welding eighth inch copper plate. I never got to try these settings and now have lost the note altogether. I have a miller dynasty 200 dx for reference. Any help greatly appreciated.

 

[Welderbydaybrewerbynight]

If your machine has an AC setting with HF use it otherwise as you most likely know tig is DCEN positive to ground negative to torch and if u have a foot control it will help out a lot. You will need massive heat at first and then once the copper gets hot you will need to drop your heat or move like hell. A heat sink also helps with tig copper, anys start with very very clean copper and good luck.

 

[clay9_24]

How high of a frequency? And about what pulse balance? He suggested some 14 gauge solid copper wire stripped for filler if needed. Does that sound about right?

 

[Berniep]

I weld copper with DC. Just used some copper ground wire from some romex for filler. It works pretty well.

 

[Welderbydaybrewerbynight]

You can weld copper with DCEN settings, the only reason why I would suggest AC is it switches back and forth from a cleaning wave lenght to a penatrating wave lenght giving you a better weld. Most people don't have an AC alternating current machine in there garage though I know I dont. The most important thing with welding copper is just to get it clean and it will take a lot of heat to begain to melt due to the fact it conducts heat so well, but when its hot you got to move good luck.

 

[Welderbydaybrewerbynight]

And the stripped wire will work fine just hit it with some soch brite to clean off the oxidation on it before you use it. Sorry I suck at speeling.

 

[Welderbydaybrewerbynight]

Spelling lol, get my point

 

[Berniep]

You can weld copper with DCEN settings, the only reason why I would suggest AC is it switches back and forth from a cleaning wave lenght to a penatrating wave lenght giving you a better weld. Most people don't have an AC alternating current machine in there garage though I know I dont. The most important thing with welding copper is just to get it clean and it will take a lot of heat to begain to melt due to the fact it conducts heat so well, but when its hot you got to move good luck.

Hmm I will have to try AC next time. I can set freq, balance, HF start, the whole works, and I am pretty sure the Clay9_24s machine can do this as well. Any recommendations on settings?