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TIG torch started arcing through the cable mid-pass on a stainless tank, what am I missing
Last Thursday I was welding out the inside seams on a 304 stainless tank we built for a dairy outfit outside Fresno, and about two feet into a pass the torch started arcing through the cable sheath instead of the tungsten. Scared the hell out of me, popped the breaker, and left a nice little burn mark on my glove. I checked the cable and there's a spot near the strain relief where the outer jacket is worn through to the copper, probably from the way it rubs on the edge of the tank opening. The weird part is the machine showed good gas flow and the tungsten looked fine, so I'm not sure if the cable is the whole story or if something else is going on. I taped it up just to finish the shift, which I know is dumb, but we were on a deadline. Now I'm wondering if I should just replace the whole torch or if there's a cheaper fix I'm not thinking of. Any of you had a torch fail like this and did you trace it back to something besides the cable itself?
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