Everything about Mig welding inductance control

[@Germanicworlds]

Hidden gem this channel. Thanks from a novice welder in the UK!

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

Glad the videos have helped you out 😀👍. You’re doing the right thing, learning as much as you can to become better 😃.

[@johnmacmillan627]

Thank you. This is an absolutely excellent explanation and demonstration of inductance. Very much appreciated

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

No problem 😀. Inductance isn’t a huge deal but it can definitely help dial in that last bit of perfection in welds. 😀

[@Cptnbond]

Hi Greg, when you say I have done a ton of investigations, you mean it. I seldom find any other channel that does this depth analysis and explains the process so well. Cheers.

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

Make sure to select high quality if possible. It may just be my phone but it wants to load in super low quality. KZbin seems to be acting weird for me today 😀

[@billsmith5166]

Finally! Thanks for the video. I'm finally starting to understand. It almost seems like it should be called conductance time.

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

No problem 😀. I am with you, I think it should be called something else so it is easier for people to grasp. When you understand what’s going on it makes total sense as to why you would want to have adjustability of it. It really allows you to fine tune your welder to the wire, gas shielding blend, and particular demands of the job. Very handy thing to have, not absolutely required, but it makes enough of a difference I definitely would want to be able to adjust it. I find 50-60% seems to work the best, but thick plate does seem to benefit more by 7-9 settings.

[@metalillness5951]

Thank you again. Great content, fast moving and without any hesitation. I admire your style of presenting! We need to get you more subscribers!!! I'll keep passing the word and hope others do as well.

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

Thanks for the kind words 😀. My channel is pretty new and I am not really concerned about subscribers as much as I am about making sure people are learning stuff. I feel very fortunate that I am able to help people out, and I find it fun making videos to upload. I’ve had a pretty lonely past few years so being able to talk with people and sharing knowledge has really made it worth while 😃.

[@borashid3371]

Very beautiful, detailed and clear words.. He went looking for the meaning of urging. I watched each person and their way of teaching me. I did not understand much, and here I understood in literal detail as if I were a student and the teacher was explaining to me... Thank you very much. I was immersed. We wish you progress and good health.. Please explain the rest of the settings of the MIG machine. I want to weld a metal plate of carbonacetyl less than 1 mm. I did not know that, and the spark went everywhere and scattered. It did not work for me, even though I have a semi-automatic machine. But I would like to learn it in normal mode.. Thank you

[@claudioboudakian4165]

Hi Greg, I finally understood how the inductance settings affect my welding. Thank you for this awesome video. Cheers

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

Glad it helped you out 😀. It really is quite confusing, but now that you understand a bit more it should help you dial things in better. Honestly for me I like to use it mostly to get better performance with MiG and with flux core. Both run better with different Inductance and if you’re not stuck with a fixed inductance you can run both run ideally.

[@markashlock9017]

Best instruction on “induction” that I’ve ever seen. I think I actually “understand” it now,…finally. You are an excellent teacher, and I can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate you continuing to share your knowledge. Do you do Patreon (sp)? You are the first Tuber period that I have even considered supporting, but I think I might like to support you. Thanks again Greg!!! PS…People out there just haven’t found you “yet”. I can’t imagine anyone not subscribing once they view one of your vids.

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

Thanks for the kind words 😀. I am glad the video helped you understand what’s going on. Inductance can really help you dial in welds and different wires, it pays to experiment, don’t be afraid to try it out. I don’t do Patreon as of right now, in the future I will consider it. You can pay me back by spending some time practicing trying to better your skills 😀.

[@markashlock9017]

@@makingmistakeswithgreg : That I will, and your thorough instruction makes that so much easier. Just when I was about to throw my hands up in defeat, you came along. My skills have improved at least 50% in just the last couple of months, and I’ve been working on it for 3 years. You don’t just say “do it like this”, you explain “why” we are “doing it like this”. And that makes all the deference.

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

I find it’s important to help teach people how to think rather than provide the answer. The answer might solve the problem for now, but teaching how to think critically will give the ability to solve many problems. I am really glad to hear your welding has improved significantly 😀. You made the best step towards that: researching knowledge and practicing that info. I am sure you’re well on your way to being able to weld anything you want 😀.

[@mao5990]

Excellent video thankyou. I just got a mig welder with this setting and had no idea what it was!

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

No problem 😀. It’s really more of a fine tuning control but it pays to experiment with it. It definitely helps if you switch between flux core and gas shielded wire, you can get ideal performance with both of those 😀

[@DG-fn7qg]

You are EXCELLENT at explaining things! Much appreciate your time and thanks for sharing!

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

No problem and thanks for the kind words😀. Pretty soon I am going to hook an oscilloscope on a mig welder to see if I can capture the actual output to show the differences with inductance. It’s not a huge benefit to have inductance control, but it does help dial things in better.

[@DG-fn7qg]

@@makingmistakeswithgreg That will be cool. Looking forward to it!

[@petar443]

Very well explained. I had trouble understanding the principle in the beginning. A welding book by Larry Jeffus helped me a lot to understand welding, even im just an amateur with weak Mig machine for my auto body sheet metal hobby and inverter stick machine for fab work.

[@xGamingAutLPx]

you sir, are the reason apprentices like me wanna keep on learning

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

Thanks for the kind words 😀. If you continue to gather knowledge on your own you will be an excellent welder, or really anything you put your mind to. The extra effort makes all the difference in the world. 👍

[@IT_Dinosaur]

Good information, as always

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

Thanks 😀.

[@mkearn724]

Excellent video Greg. The information that you share is priceless. I’ve never really dug into inductance settings too much. Most of the machines that I’ve ran were either transformers or suitcase feeders. I’ll dig into it and experiment when I have time to run my firepower

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

I am in the same boat, I just ran a machine (which never had inductance control) and dialed it in the best I could. I see it mostly as a good feature on very thin or as a production weld control. For myself (and most hobbyists) adding a additional control won’t be hugely beneficial when every weld done is different than the last. So you know on the fp200 just hold down the button near the inductance symbol and it will pop up a secondary menu control, I believe it says “ind” and goes from 1-9. You also want to fool around with run in control and burn back, under different menus. Both of those really help clean up rough/cold starts and rough stops. Definitely useful settings.

[@mkearn724]

@@makingmistakeswithgreg the first time that I ran my fp200 I had to mess with the run in because I definitely had very cold starts. It was sputtering for a half second or so before it would run smooth. For having the machine since February I should have already dug into all of this. Time is pretty hard to come by these days. Oh btw, my drive wheel showed up yesterday finally. Thanks for that info

[@shaneisaac1184]

Valueable! Have to rewatch later though. Got to grasp the lows and highs....inductance vs wire reaction 😅

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

It’s complex for sure. All you really need to know is low inductance = more spatter and faster solidifying weld, high inductance = less spatter, more fluid weld pool. Lower inductance is favored with flux core wire, higher for gas shielding. When it doubt leave it at the middle of the range and call it good lol 😂.

[@shaneisaac1184]

Nice formula Greg. Thanks😊

[@sackvilleweldingservices]

Very interesting, according to the seller of the Hobart Beta 4000 3phase Mig welder I bought almost three years ago in little used, second hand condition neither he nor his staff could make a good weld with the machine. I came along having bought it on eBay and tried it on their settings and it didn't perform well. So I set the inductance to 250 from 350 it was set to, set the voltage on the coarse and fine dials to what I thought was about right for 3/8 (10mm) plate and set about welding with only wire speed to set to get a beautiful weld. I wonder if they had the wrong voltage and wire speed settings then? Anyway, they couldn't make it work them but It worked for me so I bagged a great deal (£800) for a powerful welder that is in great condition for twenty year old machine! Having seen this video, I am going to set aside some time to learn more on this topic. Cheers young man!

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

You wouldn’t believe the number of welders that get written off as not working properly or people think something is wrong with it. I have seen/heard everything from wrong/bad gun liners, wrong polarity, wrong shielding gas, improper contact tip size, wrong rollers, and even flat out ignorance on settings. Sounds to me like the people just didn’t know what they had or how to dial it in. Thats a total score for you 😀.

[@sackvilleweldingservices]

@@makingmistakeswithgreg Indeed. Like many things in life one mans ignorance is another man's opportunity. I recently bought a Jaguar XJ8. The owner was selling for spares as "totally rotten". I went along and could see the wheel arches were indeed rotten. The rest of the car structurally, mechanically and internally was sound, l gave them scrap money for it and now have another easy cosmetic repair Jag to play with. Will be doing a video for wheel arch repairs. The BIG Hobart though is too powerful. I shall use my other bargain welder instead. I bought an Oerlikon Citoarc M260C off a posh farmers son who couldn't weld. His dad bought the welder in 2002 and barely used it because he got badly ill. He died in 2020 and bought a virtually new twenty year old welder in 2022 for £350, complete with the original but rusty old reel of wire and the full size gas bottle with gas in it. That welder has earned its money back thirty times over at least.

[@chriszucker7500]

Excellent!

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

Glad you liked it 😀

[@jimcaf57]

great info thanks for the video,, some of the other upsides iv found is how well it can be adjusted to running straight co2 very well also being to be able to dial in different brands of wire to your liking. Something i haven't tried is running flux core with it should be interesting to see how capable it would be at calming down the harshness and spatter of that process

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

You are right, you can definitely use it to tailor it to what you’re working on and what wire. I have ran a bunch of flux core wire through the machine without screwing with the inductance, it’s always been at 4 or 5. The interesting thing with flux core is it operates on a different mode of metal transfer than short arc. I can’t seem to find a absolute but it seems to be between globular and spray arc. Inductance will definitely have a effect on it, I will have to test that out to see what it does 😀

[@fitch8363]

In simple terms, an inductor is an electrical device that tends to oppose change in current flow. High inductance will tend to smooth the current flow, low inductance won't. I would expect low inductance to act like fast freeze electrodes (6010,6011), medium inductance more like sorta slow freeze electrodes (7014, 7018), high inductance like slower freeze (7024 though not as extreme). That's based on my electrical engineering background, I've never used a welder that had variable inductance. My only MIG welder, a Lincoln SP100 is an old simple transformer machine purchased complete with regulator and c25 tank. It's reliable as gravity, but just basic controls. I've thought about getting a Titanium 170 MIG machine but I've no need for it. The SP100 does all I need for metal too thin for an old man to stick weld.

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

You are correct on your expectations on how it would weld based on inductance. The difference is not hugely significant when actually welding, which might be due to how fast everything happens. Many times a second the wire shorts out allowing the current to rise. In practical use it is more like a fine tuning mechanism that allows you to dial in things a bit better. You’re probably not missing a whole lot without having it.

[@psilocin6739]

Another great video. Do you know why flux core requires less inductance?

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

So inductance is an odd thing on flux core. Flux core technically doesn’t operate on short circuit mode of transfer (like normal gas shielded mig) but a form of globular or even spray transfer. Short circuit (where the wire actually touches the molten metal as a solid) is affected by inductance. With Spray mode of transfer inductance does very little because the wire is liquid soon after it leaves the contact tip. Inductance does seem to have a slight effect on flux core. Inductance likely works best at low levels simply because the higher you go the less change it’s going to make, since the wire is not touching the molten pool as a solid. Setting it low makes sure that the wire blows apart right away if it does contact the plate, generally more useful when welding very thin materials (higher settings will liquify the wire more reliably). Also, flux core produces a fair amount of spatter, and the puddle freezes fast. Low inductance doesn’t make it produce more spatter like with normal mig, so the drawbacks of low inductance aren’t a concern 😀

[@tommykiser5299]

Very informative video! Would this apply to self shielded flux core?

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

Inductance does have and effect on gasless flux core wire. Generally you want to run less inductance with it than Mig (so 2-3 out of 10). Inductance has less of an effect though, mostly because Gasless flux core functions more as a “globular” transfer. Basically the wire is somewhat liquid before it hits the puddle unlike short arc mig which the wire is solid. How slow/fast the current rise doing change much because there isn’t much of a dead short. Spray arc is the same way, inductance has very little effect on spray.

[@kitethailand]

Very good Video! Made me finally understand the differences. Is it possible to get a copy of your Mig Weld Parameter Chart? Thank you!

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

That chart came with the machine. It seems to closely follow Esabs phone application for settings. I use esab and miller electrics phone app all the time for settings. The online version of millers can be found here: www.millerwelds.com/resources/weld-setting-calculators

[@kitethailand]

@@makingmistakeswithgreg Awesome! Thank you so much for your help.

[@18erik]

Hi Greg , love your videos and explanations . Learned a ton from you . Would you be kind to reply or explain what effect does inductance have in spray arc ( if any ) ? And can't wait to see some videos of your fronius welding machine . Greetings from Germany. Keep safe

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

With spray, inductance will have virtually no effect. Since there is a steady state voltage due to a full time arc existing, and there is no shorting of the wire or drop in voltage during welding. To help demonstrate this I should be able to put an oscilloscope on the output and see the effect, I will do this in a future video. With that said the arc start will be better with lower inductance and spray. You can get some rough starts if you have really high inductance set.

[@18erik]

@makingmistakeswithgreg Thank you Greg for the fast and informative reply . Now it makes sense .

[@AXNJXN1]

Greg, with respect to Bob and Jodi who are fantastic Welders on other Channels, both, unfortunately, weren't able to discernibly and intricately explain this process - or anyone ELSE I've found on YT to the finite level you have here in this video. I mean zero disrespect to those other Welders and the plethora of valuable information they have conveyed to the public, but no one has broken down the language of this specific ability (Inductance) on welding machines better than this video. Period. So with that, In my Welding Class, I mutually haven't been able to have a Professor explain it ' in this way' other than subtle descriptive terms, but clearly non-defining parameters with the electrical points you detailed. I question then, what purpose does 'Inductance' technically serve? If the penetration is negligeable and imperceptible in reality and the only benevolence is a slightly wetted bead head and a microbic amount of reduced spatter; what purpose does is have otherwise? I feel like it's a slight gimmick at this point with very little advantage other than a topical, visual point. Am I missing anything? Again, wow, thank you for the incredibly detailed breakdown. Happy Thanksgiving!!

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

So inductance is a funny thing. It was mostly irrelevant when it came to control, until the invention of inverters. Inverters gave the ability to more easily adjust it. What it gives the ability to do is make a modern welder weld closer to an older transformer machine. It also gives the ability to tailor the arc to work better for flux core. From a 100% honest opinion, it isn’t super useful unless you’re doing a lot of a particular wire/process and you want to dial it in 100%. Its difference is not hugely significant. Yes, 100% inductance is far different than 0%, but running it at 30-70% is not super different on many machines. Keep in mind that it mostly only affects short circuit mig and flux core which is only used to weld sheet metal to 1/4inch in most cases. Spray and dual shield aren’t affected much because the wire is basically not solid when it leaves the contact tip. Unless you’re welding super thin and blowing holes or super thick and want a more liquid weld pool, leave it at 40-70% and you will be fine 😀👍

[@Aesopsnavel]

Did you control for interpass temperature on your test?

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

Great question and thanks for asking that. Generally speaking make a weld, and then cool it between passes. The first pass the plate definitely wasn’t cold, it’s 90+ outside so it has some heat in it, same after each pass. I try to be as consistent as possible with that. The difference not cooling it down would make would be staggering lol.

[@miguelangelsimonfernandez5498]

Inductance prevents the sudden change in current intensity

[@bruced1429]

Great video Greg, so now a question, how is inductance going to effect spray and pulse spray. I do lots of pulse spray and just left the factory inductance setting. Now I wonder if I was to change it would it be worth in on pulse spray.

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

In the case of spray I have never tried it. I would imagine at the values spray runs at changing the inductance wouldn’t change much of anything. Since it has to do with the time it takes to the amperage to rise from the direct short of the wire, it would only affect that. Spray arc doesn’t have a direct short, and more or less the wire becomes (and stays) liquid as it leaves the contact tip. If it did affect anything it would probably be hardly noticeable, and would be just at the start of the weld would be my guess 😀

[@LavyaGoel-08-284]

I am a student and want to learn welding as my profession. Could you please tell me how much time its takes to learn welding. How much duration course should I go with?

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

That’s a good question. So if you were to work one on one with someone like me, in 4-5 months you would likely be able to get a decent paying job and be able to weld decently. With conventional school normally a 1 year certificate program could be enough schooling to get a decent job. As far as time invested, it depends on a number of circumstances. To get functionally good in any specific welding process it would be about 300 hours of practice for the first one and less for subsequent processes. Some people catch on faster than others but that’s a good general guideline.

[@georgiojansen7758]

where to aquire that chart

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

So both esab and miller have free online calculators and miller has a paper one you can buy. They are awesome to work as a general guideline and well worth downloading (on the phone or computer) or to buy 😀👍

[@melgross]

I find this hard to explain to people without showing them, and even then, some insist it’s just a setting to change voltage. But then, they don’t have any understanding of electronics, so it can be hard to change their minds.

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

It definitely has a effect. To me it works better for having the ideal arc between flux core and hardwire. Both of those processes prefer different inductance. Within just one particular wire it’s one of those things that you find what you like and leave it. Definitely is a nice feature to have for fine tuning things.