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

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 😀

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. 👍

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 😃.

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.

Thanks 😀.

No problem 😀.

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 😀.

@@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.

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 😀.

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.

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.

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

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 😂.

Nice formula Greg. Thanks😊

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 😀.

@@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.

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.

@@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

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 😀

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.

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

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.

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 😀

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.

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.

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 😀