Push Pull Mig for AL. Better choice than tig for me?

[jeepinerdeep]

I'm thinking ahead to next year/maybe 2, and I'll probably be updating my welding machine lineup.

Right now I have a Lincoln Wirematic 255 with .035 hard wire plus a spool gun, an ESAB Rebel EM 215 with .030 hard wire and a Lincoln SW Tig 200.

I'm not in love with tig. I don't really have the patience to put into making it look great. I don't really desire it's presence for other than AL. I don't do thin AL. I don't want to weld turbo piping. I don't do obscure repair work.

I really just want to weld things fabricated from new clean .100-.250 Al sheet. Maybe structural shapes. Boxes, trays, shelves, things bent on a brake etc.

I'm starting to think a medium sized push pull setup might be more my speed. I see Miller has one out now in a 255 size, and Lincoln is supposed to have one for the 260 Mig.( I'd buy the Lincoln.)

Thoughts? Don't just suggest a bunch of Miller stuff please, it'll be red or yellow 100%. I'm looking for feedback on the concept of push pull mig for AL

 

[lis2323]

I would look into the newer migs with twin pulse if you are doing lighter gauge aluminum.

You would be able to create tig looking welds at mig speeds.

I'm not familiar with that Lincoln but if it has a 4 roll drive system and you can get buy with a shorter whip you won't even need the push pull.






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[zkling]

How good are you now with the spool gun on that material range?

Mig aluminum is FAST, designed for production. It will require quite a bit of skill especially with outside corner joints on the lower end of your stated thickness range.

 

[jeepinerdeep]

I would look into the newer migs with twin pulse if you are doing lighter gauge aluminum.

You would be able to create tig looking welds at mig speeds.

I'm not familiar with that Lincoln but if it has a 4 roll drive system and you can get buy with a shorter whip you won't even need the push pull.


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I thought about that. The old ESAB Caddy mig had a 10' whip and apparently would push AL wire if everything was perfect.

How good are you now with the spool gun on that material range?

Mig aluminum is FAST, designed for production. It will require quite a bit of skill especially with outside corner joints on the lower end of your stated thickness range.

Moderate skill. I have not been down to .100 yet. I DO want to do outside corners on .100/.125 AL. I thought the pulse mig may be slower, so I could not have to haul so much ***. So, thanks for that idea to consider.

 

[theoldwizard1]

If you have the money (and it IS a lot of money) you can not beat HTP Pulse. You will lay amazing beads in a short time. Watch Zila on YouTube.

 

[jeepinerdeep]

If you have the money (and it IS a lot of money) you can not beat HTP Pulse. You will lay amazing beads in a short time. Watch Zila on YouTube.

I've been reading up on the PP 220, that's a possibility.

 

[royce]

Jeep,
For what it's worth, it has been my experience that mig welding light gauge aluminum is inherently fast.
For me, having pulse gives an advantage to welding the lighter gauges, but doesn't slow it down much, if at all.

Royce

 

[Farmer888]

Dad used to fabricate mostly aluminum, Started with a old cobramig 250 with push pull, he loved that setup. Then went to a lincoln powermig 300( same as a pm 350 minus some programming) It was good too, still have it but just use a reg gun for steel now that's not welding anymore.

I never used the push pull, but I know you have to move quick, I like going slow lol. I'm learning tig right now, definitely a big learning curve but I love the control. I wouldn't sell your tig. You could probably do most of what your wanting with a push pull with some practice.

 

[jeepinerdeep]

Jeep,
For what it's worth, it has been my experience that mig welding light gauge aluminum is inherently fast.
For me, having pulse gives an advantage to welding the lighter gauges, but doesn't slow it down much, if at all.

Royce

Dad used to fabricate mostly aluminum, Started with a old cobramig 250 with push pull, he loved that setup. Then went to a lincoln powermig 300( same as a pm 350 minus some programming) It was good too, still have it but just use a reg gun for steel now that's not welding anymore.

I never used the push pull, but I know you have to move quick, I like going slow lol. I'm learning tig right now, definitely a big learning curve but I love the control. I wouldn't sell your tig. You could probably do most of what your wanting with a push pull with some practice.

Thanks guys, I think I am OK with the speed of pulse mig, based on what I can find it seems like an improvement over my existing spool gun. I can plan around it I believe. Maybe I don't need the push pull and setting up a pulse machine like the HTP with .045 Al wire, would do me. I think I might have to try to find a pulse mig demo to do this winter.

Just for reference, are you guys calling 1/8" ( .100-.125") AL "Light Gauge"?

 

[dr_clyde]

Aluminum wire welding is tricky on a good day.

What's your budget on this? A good push-pull setup can cost in excess of $1500 for just the gun. A good industrial gun will probably run you over 2k. My Alumapro guns MSRP for over $2200 ea. And you will want a dedicated machine for this, the hassle of threading the wire through the liner and into the gun is a pain, and you won't want to do it for just a couple welds. Or at least a dual feeder so you can leave one set up.

I know you're not a Miller fan, so I can't recommend anything specific. I run all Miller in my shop.

I wouldn't want to run aluminum MIG without pulse. It is possible, but not near as user friendly, especially on thin metal. Aluminum really likes to be welded in spray transfer. Not as friendly on short circuit. That inherently makes it run hot. And fast. And when it goes bad, it goes bad in a hurry.

I also wouldn't run aluminum MIG on less than 1/8" material unless I had a lot of it to do, or had a machine that had enough settings and parameters I could really dial it in.

I have one of the nicer MIG aluminum setups available, an Invision 450 with Aluma-pro guns and the fancy feeder, and I still run TIG for 90% of our aluminum jobs. TIG welding really is faster and more efficient on a lot of aluminum jobs, especially smaller ones. The time you save running the actual weld you waste with all the setup and inevitable goofing around with birdnests, broken wire, bad liners, and the occasional blown up tip for no reason.

Even with some of the nicest equipment on the market, you'll still have issues with feeding. Sometimes the tip shorts out due to a bad ground and you bunch up the wire in the gun. Happens often. Sometimes you accidently have the drive roll tension set too high on the feeder and it birdnests in the feeder, despite the gun rollers pulling. No matter what, you'll need to feed that wire though the gun pushing only when you put in a fresh spool. Kink that wire before you get it to the gun and its all over. Pull it out and start again. It's fussy. Without a doubt, at least triple the pain in the *** to load wire and get a job setup.

That said, once you get a pulsed mig with a push/pull gun dialed, you're really cooking with gas. If you're running thick metals, or a lot of parts, there isn't much better than a properly setup aluminum MIG machine. They can haul *** and weld a LOT of parts in a short period.

We ran this job about a year ago, and this is one of the parts we needed for the assembly. We did the prototypes with the TIG, then I bought the Invision to speed things up. We ran these on a positioner. Just load the part, push the pedal to start it spinning, then pull the trigger on the gun and wait for it to do 360°. Next!

The first picture was done with a Syncrowave 350, I want to say we ran this at about 280 or 300 amps with a touch of helium in the gas blend. The second part is done with MIG. Profile pulsed with the Invision. Lincoln calls this "pulse on pulse". We did hundreds of these brackets, and the MIG really made us money, even though the TIG looks a bit smoother. The MIG part was like, 1/4 the time and it required almost no operator skill, vs the TIG which is high skill and a lot slower.





Not trying to dissuade you from a good aluminum MIG setup, but unless you're doing a lot of aluminum, I'd stick with a spoolgun or a TIG machine. They're just more efficient for 90% of aluminum jobs out there.

 

[jeepinerdeep]

Aluminum wire welding is tricky on a good day.

What's your budget on this? A good push-pull setup can cost in excess of $1500 for just the gun. A good industrial gun will probably run you over 2k. My Alumapro guns MSRP for over $2200 ea. And you will want a dedicated machine for this, the hassle of threading the wire through the liner and into the gun is a pain, and you won't want to do it for just a couple welds. Or at least a dual feeder so you can leave one set up.

Not trying to dissuade you from a good aluminum MIG setup, but unless you're doing a lot of aluminum, I'd stick with a spoolgun or a TIG machine. They're just more efficient for 90% of aluminum jobs out there.

Thanks for all that Doc. It's understood and appreciated. What you said is fairly consistent with what I've read so far, and that's all good with me. I don't mind dialing it in, I don't do any real AL repair work. Right now the HTP ProPulse as a dedicate AL machine is really sounding good. I think I'll cut some 1/8 coupons and see if I can get behind one to see if it's do-able. My budget would be $1500-2500 ish.

Do you think 1/8 ish inch workpiece, is the lower useful limit of a wire feed setup? Maybe .045 wire?

 

[koditten]

I use 030 in my spool gun and had no trouble welding 1/8" sheet. Like said above, you will be hauling ***.

 

[On-Wheel]

Nice write up @dr_clyde !

 

[lis2323]

Nice write up @dr_clyde !

Good info as always. Based on experience[emoji481]


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[king nero]

Why do you think you need a spoolgun? Do you need a long wirefeeder to torch cable?
If you can work with a relatively short (3 m or 10 ft max), a normal torch will work just fine, provided you use 1.2 mm AlMg wire (5xxx wire) (AlSi or 4043/4047 is much softer) and either a 4 drive roll system or a well dialed in 2 wheel drive.

Fully agree on the pulse being a necessity.

 

[dr_clyde]

Thanks for all that Doc. It's understood and appreciated. What you said is fairly consistent with what I've read so far, and that's all good with me. I don't mind dialing it in, I don't do any real AL repair work. Right now the HTP ProPulse as a dedicate AL machine is really sounding good. I think I'll cut some 1/8 coupons and see if I can get behind one to see if it's do-able. My budget would be $1500-2500 ish.

Do you think 1/8 ish inch workpiece, is the lower useful limit of a wire feed setup? Maybe .045 wire?

I personally try to avoid aluminum wire welding anything less than 1/8" mostly due to the hassle.

It certainly is possible, but I just TIG those parts.

 

[sberry]

.065 tubing to 1/8 casting, Hobart 210 spool 030. I weld 065 regular with it but I am not selling these parts.

 

[sberry]

dr, I can see the advantage for speed on that job. Ron (shade) from SFT show me some pulse way back done on light sheet look as good as tig, was really impressive and would have been great for a dealer in the alum pipe biz back in the day. They welded thousands of joints with tig but they had a guy who had done it a lot and was a real speed demon.
I like spool cause its fast, those hydrants took a minute if that.
All this is a bit different when its a pay deal and when a guy is paying men. The upgrades pay for themselves in a hurry often in a single job or event.