| The Craftmans Shop > New from Old |
| Resurrection of a CFEI 100 KVA Induction Furnace |
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| mattinker:
Andrew, I sort of understood your worry, I would have needed to see more to under stand it easily! The ohm meter is your friend! All the best! Matthew. |
| awemawson:
No point in procrastinating any further - get it connected up and try it ! . . . . so I did, but firstly I connected up the low power local mains feed - can't really start the big generator as the cottages are full of guests - and made sure all was working on the inverting furnace body before disconnecting it. Yes - all OK - so I removed the four hose / cable assemblies. Proved continuity where it should be, and connected up the Tilting body. First test - does the coolant flow? Argh - NO :bang: Oh heck NOW what's up? Intensive investigation and what do I find - those pair of flexible pipes that go to the centre of the coil do a little jig round the back and come out REVERSED ! So what appears to be the top of the lower half of the coil is in fact the bottom of the upper coil, and vice versa. So Russell you pretty well put your finger on the problem in you post where you said "unless there was something strange going on at the connections on the side of the coil". This has been the issue all along - the pipes I moved were in fact in the correct places - there WASN'T a problem - it was actually correct in the first place. OK, get over it, swap the pipes back, prove coolant flow - YES flowing in both circuits. So, next test - put (low) power on the driver, let it come ready - yes it does - 'ping' the furnace body - whoopee yes we get a good result at 2.25 kHz - as expected a lower frequency than the other body as this one is a physically bigger coil so presumably markedly different inductance. Now until I can get the place to myself and hence fire up the big generator that's about as far as I can go for the time being apart from tidying up and sorting out the safety shields etc for the pipe / cable assemblies. . . . phew it seems to be working . . . thank goodness . . . it took long enough ! |
| RussellT:
:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: Russell |
| edward:
Andrew, I've enjoyed immensely following this trouble shooting and you getting to where you are now. Its the same with all your threads for me, the detail, analysis and skill in solving problems is brilliant to see. I have a question, to which the answer might well be'because I can/want to/its there', but what will you do with it once its up and running? Do you do casting a some kind of business, for fun or just enjoy fixing up old machinery. Its not a criticism at all, I'm just curious :) I get asked a similar type of question as to why if I have 4 bikes I need to build myself a 5th one, to which the answer is that I like bikes! P |
| awemawson:
Edward, it's a bit like the 'why do you climb mountains' question - it's not logical but I enjoy it - that's fixing problems by the way not climbing mountains! No there is no commercial thing here, and I really no longer need to make castings, but at my last place I'd set my self up and was determined to re-create the facilities that I'd lost in moving. It's only taken 13 years :bugeye: It all began when, many many years ago I was driving home from work through Peckham in SE London and spotted something 'interesting' in the far corner of a Taxi repair garage. After several days of rubber necking to see what it was I stopped to have a good look. It turned out to be a "Hoverair Hoverhawke" three engined hover craft in 'basket case' condition. Chap said that I could have it for peanuts if I took it away. Back then I had no workshop or machine tools. Well it ended up on the back lawn on tressels needing comprehensive repair to parts of the box section chassis, and the engines and propellers re-assembling and missing parts sourced. One missing part was an aluminium casting shaped a bit like a pudding basin, that bolted onto an engine flywheel and coupled it to the propeller. This got me involved with a local (to me then) foundry and a machine shop, and this kindled my interest in casting and machining. The rest is history - my workshop has developed from that project over the decades. I got the hovercraft back together and hovering on the lawn - it was pretty big with a three man enclosed cabin - but I never finished the cosmetics. I'd put a bid on an entire redundant computer network infrastructure in the city and my bid won. The kit was in a warehouse in Kew at a vast rent so had to be moved pronto into my dining room (floor to over the picture rail), three removal lorry fulls - about 7 tons ! and the powers that be put her foot down and said she wanted either the lawn or the dining room back - most unreasonable. I sold the Hoverhawke to a chap in Essex, but now it is in the hovercraft museum: https://www.hovercraft-museum.org/collections/ The network kit - that financed buying my next house and ultimately the farm where we are today :clap: Now I'm sitting here willing my cottage guests to go out for the day so I can start up the big genny - I've sort of decided that if they'e not gone out by 11:00 I'm doing it anyway !!!!!!! |
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