MM 350p issues

[feva]

I recently purchased a new 350p, the same machine I used for years in a fab shop. I am now set up on my own and having an issue. I am welding pulse aluminum, something I am very used to and normally very good at. It is blowing holes right through the material, really gouging into 1/2" plate, leaving black ugly blobs all over the place, toes are not wetting out, it almost seems like there's arc blow or something similar. On 1/8" plate it welds OK, not super but passable. Running at 310, like the manual advises, although I used to run at 360-380 for the same material. As soon as I crank it up to weld anything thicker than 1/4" those problems start happening. I have switched gas bottles in case it was contaminated (wasn't), have changed to a new plugin, fiddled around with all settings and gas flow, nothing's working. Would the fact I am running 230v single phase but am plugged in to 240v be an issue? Any other ideas? Using 100%argon, 4043 0.35 wire (also tried 5356, no better), material is always clean.

[ja baudin]

Are you using a spool gun or pushpull? Did you pull a reset? I reset mine if I notice some glitches.

[cruizer]

Well, are you preheating the plate, 1/2" is pretty heavy not to preheat, added to it that your wire speed is way slow, gotta crank that unit to near the max around the 750 in/min mark. Not realy sure why your even running with pulse, simple spray would be much better, as well as changing your wire to a 045.

Never the less, your not going to be welding much over 3/8" with no preheat.

[feva]

I'm using a 30a spoolgun. I've tried taking it off pulse. And I'm not only welding heavy stuff, I'm trying to lay a decent bead on anything. In the past I've always kept it on pulse no matter what thickness I was welding, and have never had a problem like this.

[cruizer]

Your not being goofy and have the spoolgun in the wrong polarity are you

[feva]

Your not being goofy and have the spoolgun in the wrong polarity are you

That's exactly what it seems like the problem would be. I wish that was all it was!

[cruizer]

Anyways, usually out of the box, pull a reset on the machine.

[feva]

Anyways, usually out of the box, pull a reset on the machine.

Reset done, no luck.

[cruizer]

The only thing I can think of is operator error, as these machines are very error sensitive and will pull an error code on the slightest internal problem. Maybe wrong gas?