Maintenance, Troubleshooting and Housekeeping
Preventive maintenance
Routine checks keep equipment safe and consistent: inspect leads and holders for damage, check earth clamp condition, clean and replace contact tips and nozzles, check liner and drive rolls, verify gas flow with a flowmeter, inspect regulators and hoses for leaks, and check water cooling on torches. Keep a maintenance log and tag out faulty equipment.
Troubleshooting
Link symptoms to causes. Porosity: gas flow, moisture, contamination, draft. Poor wire feed: kinked liner, worn drive rolls, wrong tension, spatter in nozzle. Unstable arc: poor earth, damp electrodes, incorrect polarity, low open-circuit voltage. Excessive spatter: current too high, wrong gas, long arc. Burn-through: too much current or slow travel on thin material. Underbead cracking: hydrogen, restraint, preheat.
Housekeeping and environment
Keep the work area clear, leads off the floor where possible, and combustibles away from hot work. Store cylinders upright and secured, separate fuel and oxidiser. Manage waste: spent electrodes, flux, grinding dust, and contaminated rags go to correct waste streams. Clean up spills and keep walkways clear.
Traps
- Adjusting wire tension too high, causing bird-nesting.
- Assuming porosity is always gas flow; moisture and draft matter.
- Ignoring a damaged earth clamp as a cause of arc instability.
- Storing fuel and oxygen cylinders together.
Rule of thumb
Change one variable at a time when troubleshooting, and record what you changed. If the fix is not obvious within a few checks, stop and tag out rather than guess.