ABICOR BINZEL UK | PRODUCT CATALOGUE V1.0 - Catalog - Page 105
CONTACT TIPS
MIG/MAG TORCHES
Material & Properties
A contact tip is a consumable in MIG/MAG welding
and has become a mass-produced article today. Accordingly, there is a wide range of welding accessories and wear parts on the market.
For welding the contact tip materials E-Cu (electrolytic copper), CuCrZr (copper-chrome-zirconium) and
HDS (Heavy Duty Silver tip, a special variant with an
inner core of particularly hardened copper and thus
very high hardness and a cover of E-Cu) are used.
Their properties and advantages at a glance:
The contact tip is certainly the smallest, but also the
most important wear part needed for MAG welding.
The quality of the material and processing has a significant influence on the entire welding process as
well as the service life and thus the machine uptime
or availability of the welding torch. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to the quality of the contact
tip when choosing. ABICOR BINZEL contact tips fulfil
the criteria required for the respective welding process and ensure long service life and machine uptime.
Contact tip and welding wire
Are there any recommendations regarding which contact tip should be used with which wire? In general,
all three contact tip types (E-Cu, CuCrZr and ABITIP®)
can be welded with any wire. However, it is important
to be familiar with the materials and their properties.
For example, an aluminum wire conducts less well
than a copper-plated wire, therefore, aluminum can
be welded better with an E-Cu contact tip because
of better current transmission. However, as aluminum
expands more thermally, a slightly larger inner bore
diameter must be considered when choosing the contact tip.
The welded wires can consist of the following materials:
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E-Cu (Standard)
Manufactured from pure electrolytic copper, this contact tip
has a Vickers hardness (HV) of approx. 110 to 115. The
purity of its copper ensures very good current transfer, heat
transfer and thermal conductivity. As it softens already at a
temperature of approx. 260° C, it is more suitable for the
low ampere range.
CuCrZr (Heavy Duty)
This line is an
indication that
the contact tip
is a heavy duty
(CuCrZr) contact tip.
The alloying elements chrome and zirconium of this contact
tip are suitable for higher thermal loads, because they are
very hard. Compared to the E-Cu contact tip, their electrical
conductivity is slightly lower, but this is not a significant factor for most processes. The CuCrZr contact tip has a hardness of approx. 168 HV and can withstand temperatures
up to approx. 500° C. It has established as the standard
contact tip for the medium to high ampere range with low
wear as well as high process load capacity and is mainly
used for liquid cooled applications and robot welding.
Silver Plated (ABITIP®)
Copper-plated and non-copper-plated carbon steel
Stainless steel in any alloy
Aluminium alloys
Copper brazing alloys (CuSi and similar)
Special materials e.g. nickel and titanium alloys
Cored wires
Where the CuCrZr contact tip reaches its load limit, the
ABITIP® is used. The inner core of this contact tip around
the bore consists of dispersion-hardened copper with a mineral component. Through this combination, the core of the
ABITIP® is extremely hard and very resistant to heat. In addition, the silver coating ensures very low spatter adhesion.
Depending on the quality of their surface, these welding wires wear differently. All wires with a rough surface, such as cored wires and some non-coppered
wires, wear off quickly or are highly abrasive. When
using such wires, contact tips made of harder material
should be used, such as CuCrZr contact tips.
The ABITIP® contact tip from ABICOR BINZEL is ideally
suited for robotic and automation welding technology, as
it meets the high demands of continuously optimised processes.
105
MIG/MAG
Contact tips for MIG/MAG torches