Heat manipulation and seam tracking of weaved welds

An electric arc welder for producing a weave pattern along a weld seam between aligned workpieces with a succession of individual weld runs across the weld seam, each run comprising a center portion including a joining region between the aligned workpieces and welding edge regions of each of the aligned workpieces spaced apart from the joining region, the welder comprising:

• a power source that provides an AC welding waveform to a welding electrode to generate an arc to achieve a desired heat for welding during a submerged arc welding operation;
• a welding torch;
• an oscillator configured to oscillate the welding torch to generate the weave pattern along the weld seam and between the welding edge regions;
• and
• at least one controller that causes the power source to operate in at least a first mode utilizing a first portion of the AC welding waveform during welding within the joining region, and in a second mode using a second portion of the AC welding waveform, having a greater positive component than the first portion of the AC welding waveform used in the first mode, during welding within the welding edge regions, wherein both of the first portion of the AC welding waveform and the second portion of the AC welding waveform have a positive and a negative component,
• wherein the at least one controller determines a stickout value based on the first portion of the AC welding waveform, used while welding in the joining region, but not based on the second portion of the AC welding waveform,
• wherein the at least one controller determines torch location for seam tracking of the weld seam based the second portion of the AC welding waveform, used while welding in the welding edge regions, but not based on the first portion of the AC welding waveform,
• wherein the at least one controller is configured to perform seam tracking by affording greater weight to all of the positive component of the second portion of the AC welding waveform relative to weight afforded to all of the negative component of the second portion of the AC welding waveform, and
• wherein the at least one controller is configured to determine the stickout value by affording greater weight to all of the negative component of the first portion of the AC welding waveform relative to weight afforded to all of the positive component of the first portion of the AC welding waveform.