CHECK THIS OUT.

"Pure Tungsten is Pure crap! dont use it. I dont use it at all. Even on transformer machines like the syncrowave 250. But when using Inverter type tig machines ..definitely do not ever use pure tungsten. Miller Electrics Customer support Department routinely get calls from customers who bought a Dynasty inverter and are having poor arc starts. 9 times out of 10 they are using pure tungsten and simply switching to ceriated or lanthanated fixes it."

from here. 

http://www.weldingtipsandtricks.com/gas-tungsten-arc-welding-video-clips.html

Isn't the 200dx and inverter machine? I thought you didn't want to use pure tungsten on an inverter? though everyone was using 1.5% or 2% lanthanated for the majority of stuff. I use 2% lanthanated on my 250ex for everything an the only time i get black stuff in my aluminum is when the material is dirty or I touch tungsten to the puddle.

did some more aluminum drills since i haven't in awhile, progress feels good, I'm up to over 140amps on 1/8th aluminum now which even feels more natural. I probably did 10 tee joints today and never dipped my tungsten once, which is a miracle to me since i was doing it once or twice a joint when i first started. then i did some multipass+ weave free hand on 1/8th steel. It's amazing the difference in bead width and rod feed from steel to aluminum. when i do the aluminum i probably ram a good 1/2in of 3/32 rod in every dip, on steel it's just a tap of the rod. the first pass on the 1/8th steel is about 3/16, so not much more wider then the material itself. second pass is just a zig zag dipping action. i'm still not comfortable walking the cup or doing laywire yet, but i suppose that will take some serious hood time. doing the t joints on aluminum really helps you get good faster since it forces you to adapt to heat changes, you can see some grain in the end of the aluminum, since the shit heats up quick as hell. do a shit ton of aluminum then switch to steel= cake walk.

yeah painted with some duplicolor prism clearcoat over black, and the hose came with the coolant surge tank from powered by max so it's like the super jdm spec version of US hose. imma be nice and not post anymore stuff in this thread though unless it's relevant to strut tower bars though lol.

like a year ago.

Already posted this in the welding pic thread, but i got some more pics. all cut/ bent/ and tigged by me. took about a week.

so once i get my caster situation figured out, i'm going to triangulate this to the firewall.  didn't even clean off the leaves.

Finally got to try some 1/4in aluminum! took about 6hrs total to cut these bad boys out by hand, drill all the holes, and make'm look pretty. I think i welded at like 189amps, which is cold for 1/4in aluminum but i had some preheat with a torch. The inside was an absolute bitch, make sure to turn down the gas by about half or bad shit happens. lets just say the first one wasn't as pretty lol. I'm  happy how they turned out with my first try at 1/4in. and just got my tubing roller in just waiting on tubing for the rest. my ripple spacing consistency has gone up a shit ton, as well as controlling the puddle in general. now i just got to work on my dip hand a little so they all fill out shiny.