So silly question how long should a 15 L tank of argon last?
my settings are about 2sec pre flow, 10 ish post flow 25ish cfh with a # 8 aluma cup with gas lense…
I have been practice welding and welded a bmx frame. just wondering is this normal or am I leaking?
around where i live we need to lease larger " T tanks" I feel silly paying a yearly fee to just have it… or do i just get 2x 15 L tanks so I can swap when I am in the zone… seem like more gas the better but what do I know… still a gorby at this…
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A 336 CU.ft tank gets me 6-8 frames depending on how many are ti vs steel and how many times I walk away from a purged frame.
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10m3 argon bottle ( same as a 336 cu.ft) usually do 6 or 7 frames, no backpurge. I’m a slow welder and probably waste a lot of gas, and I weld some small stuff outside of frames over that too.
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I’m not an expert, but I have talked to an expert about the argon settings. If you are welding steel (not Ti or Aluminum), the preflow only needs to be 0.5 sec, post flow about 5.0 secs. 10-15 cfh. If you adjust to those settings and they work well you will use less gas. I have an 80 cf tank (small tank) and doing the math I should have about 6-7 hours worth of “flow”. I think that’s about what I got on the last tank I filled.
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I agree that pre flow only needs to be long enough to evacuate the weld area of atmosphere. Post flow is more complicated. You want gas coverage until the material is cool enough that the reintroduction of atmosphere will not cause excessive oxidation in the weld. Travel speed, material thickness, welder settings and the type of material all have an impact on that. If your welds are turning grey and hazy then the material was still too hot when gas flow stopped.
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Thanks every one for the advice. Will throttle my settings down a bit , looks like I might lease the big dawg bottle eventually