Ac Or Dc For Welding Sheet Metal

Disadvantages of ac welding.

Ac or dc for welding sheet metal.

For many people ac dc gets them reminiscing about a certain era of rock music but for welders it means polarity. Everyone is different but those settings will get you in the right ballpark to weld sheet metal. The 7018 welding rods are used for pipe welding and structural steel welding and repair welding. For thin sheet metal tig mig and gas welding will be easier than arc welding.

Other ac welding rods include 6013 7018 and 7024. In most cases dc is the preferred welding polarity. A good heat setting for 1 8 6011 rods on thin material is about 80 90 amps. Using ac or dc has a hugh impact on your weld results.

Whether it is dc electrode positive or reverse polarity or dc electrode negative or straight polarity dc produces smoother welding output than ac. Most of all metals and metal alloys except aluminum and magnesium are welded with dc especially when wedding higher strength and low alloy steels. Ac machines are small in size. First let s talk about size.

Figure 1 is a graph of dc welding output vs. Distinct contrasts between ac vs dc welding. Your question leads to a more general discussion of dc vs. Ac vs dc welding.

Forget the larger 1 8 inch tungsten electrode and use a smaller one. To weld sheet metal with solid wires use electrode positive ep or reverse polarity. Tig welding sheet metal. Just grab a piece of sheet metal to get the heat set correctly and go to town.

When you start tig welding the first major setting you have to set up is the current. Welding involves creating an electric arc between an electrode and the metal that is being welded. Tig welding can be done with both alternating current ac or direct current dc. The 6013 rods are all position ac or dc polarity for welding new clean sheet metal applications because they penetrate less but don t burn through the metal.

In addition to that arc welding creates lots of heat and will in almost all cases create heat distortion. For example welding visible car panels will be quite difficult. Don t attempt to weld thin materials like sheet metal with flux cored wires which put more heat into the base metal. For 3 32 7018 s it s about the same.

When it comes to welding most high powered machines are run on dc or have the ability to change from dc to ac current like some professional tig welders. In this article i will give you a best practice guideline that should help you make the right choice for your welding tasks in the future.