Resurrection of a CFEI 100 KVA Induction Furnace

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modeng200023:
Andrew, I have not noticed you saying how much melt you can produce at a time.
I'm following your progress with much interest.

John

awemawson:
John,

It's an odd thing but I was sure that I'd replaced crucibles in both furnace bodies with new ones both of the same size, however in trying to answer your question I see that in fact the tilting one has a much larger crucible than the inverting one. I have the original box on the shelf from 2006 in which they were delivered (to my place in Bromley) as I had to order several at the time. I will have to open it up and see if in fact I ordered two sizes, or if my memory is playing up and perhaps I only replaced one :scratch:

. . . . old age is a dreadful thing :lol:

awemawson:
Well I'm not cracking up after all, I DID replace both crucibles. I obviously bought four of each size and still have three of each size remaining.

See pictures for sizes

awemawson:
Yesterday I managed to get the cast concrete slab onto the Pump House as a roof. This has been cast with a 1" fall from front to rear to shed the rain. Sadly I managed to chip one corner but never mind, it's no great issue.

Having the lid on allowed me to fit the 80 watt tubular heater that on it's lowest thermostat setting is supposed to be proof against frost - handily this had just been delivered so could go straight in. I knew when I ordered it that is was going to be a tight fit - it's the same length as the inner rear wall to within a millimetre and JUST fits - phew !

awemawson:
Today's task was to complete the ring main in the foundry. The roof leak is still present and will be until the weather improves and we can work on it, so I took the cowards way out and re-located the final double socket out of the drip zone :clap: This involved threading cables and fitting girder cable clips in odd inaccessible places and took longer than it should have, but come lunch time it was finished and tested, allowing me to finally close up the sub-panel and label it's various ways.

Conveniently over lunch Hermes delivered a 125 amp three phase 'free socket' that I won on eBay. I wanted this so as to be able to power up the furnace driver (at low power) off local mains for testing rather than rolling out the long heavy cables and starting the generator. I had worked on the two issues I've had preventing it going 'Pret' (ready) and wanted to prove that I'd fixed them - I had :ddb:

So now is the time to pull everything apart for painting. The paint (hammer finish light blue) is the same paint that I sprayed the generator with, and also the electrical enclosure for the new chiller unit. Although obviously it's not an exact match for the original, it's actually not a million miles off. I will try to spray it in such a way as to form minimal hammer effect (high pressure, light coats, don't wet out surfaces fully). It's a pretty tough forgiving paint that covers many blemishes and oh boy will it have to ! (paint and thinners also arrived yesterday)

I now need to devise the easiest way to drain down and disconnect the four hose / cables to the furnace body and two hose to the chiller, and also the inner passageways of the Furnace Driver with minimum loss onto the floor and maximum retention of the expensive glycol solution. I have in mind to sacrifice my 'Clean' wet & dry vac to this purpose. It's supposed to be reserved for vacuum hold down fixtures on the CNC mill - I supopose if it suffers they are not THAT expensive. My (identical) workshop vac is disgustingly filthy and any liquid recovered using it wouldn't be worth saving !

Doing an inventory of the rusty bits just now and making a photographic record they are quite extensive - all external surfaces need doing but amazingly the internal surfaces have faired far better - the door and panel seals must have done a good job of keeping the moisture out.

I must admit I'm not looking forward to this bit of the project. It wasn't worth doing before I'd proved that the unit worked, and now I know that it does I'm loath to take it apart, but if it's not done now it never will be, and those rust spots will become far more of a problem to deal with.

The plan is to remove the six castors from the base frame, sit it on it's adjustable feet and move it about with the pallet jack. (I fitted the six castors at my last place as there was no room to get the pallet jack at it, and four castor weren't rated for the weight !)

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