The Craftmans Shop > New from Old
Resurrection of a CFEI 100 KVA Induction Furnace
awemawson:
Total loss probably would be OK, (especially as after that burst water main a few years back I have a private fire hydrant !) but my concern as I mentioned earlier is furring up of the internals.
One solution would be a heat exchanger immersed in a tank of water such as an IBC, where the tank is constantly being refreshed on a total loss system so the the water circulating in the furnace itself is always the same water
russ57:
Seems like that could be enough for a proof of concept to prove that the rest of the system is functional.
Even direct flow for an hour or two would be ok?
-Russ
WeldingRod:
When I played with a big induction heater, having low conductivity liquid is the heater internals was important. Gallons of DI water... there were hose spirals that isolated the hot, high voltage bits from the grounded pump and cooler. My levitation coils were on a separate cooling loop, and much less critical.
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awemawson:
Yes this one has an odd four terminal feed arrangement to balance the coils to ground. I remember that when I installed new crucibles in each of the furnace bodies I had to make internal water connections to flexible tubing, but I couldn't use normal jubilee clips as the strong AC field induced currents in them that heated them up enough to melt the pipe ! I had to source special plastic clips to avoid the issue.
Today's objective was to clear enough 'stuff' from the foundry to allow me to choose one of the two furnace bodies, and get it close enough to the furnace driver for the hose / cable assemblies to reach.
Much 'stuff' was re-distributed causing havoc elsewhere but I did actually manage to achieve the objective AND leave enough space arround it and the driver unit to investigate further.
My two 'bodies' are:
a/ A tilting one that pours into a ladle or direct to a mould
b/ An inverting one where the mould clamps on top, and when the charge is molten can be inverted into the mould
I chose the inverting one simply as it was sitting on a base with castors and could be moved for inspection more easily - the other one is parked in the stable and no doubt will raise a few comments.
On a roll I decided to investigate the inverting body a bit. It has a clamping pneumatic cylinder that retains the mould on top, and another one that presses on a rack and rotates the entire body upside down - this later motion needs a bit of clearance around it and would easily remove stray fingers.
Amazingly the pneumatics still seem to basically work albeit with a bit of hissing and wheezing!
Sea.dog:
My word, that is a tidy shed :clap:
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