The Craftmans Shop > New from Old
Resurrection of a CFEI 100 KVA Induction Furnace
edward:
One thing that comes out of these rather excellent threads is that I find out about things I never knew I needed - I've had one of those rain gauges since you mentioned it, alongside my existing 'weather station' on my bedside table.
Now I don't even need to get out of bed to see if it is raining or not :-)
awemawson:
We've had a lot of rain recently with winds from odd directions, and I was pleased to find on my 'rounds' that although a little had blown into the foundry the major points of previous water entry were dry. Particularly pleasing that the extensive 'french drain' along the side wall has proved to be effective with no water penetrating at the base as it had previously.
However less pleasing was a fault I now seem to have with the CEIF 'furnace driver'. I start the 110kW diesel generator every couple of weeks or so just to blow the cobwebs out, and occassionally run up the induction furnace it self with a bar in it as a 'load' just to keep capacitors polarised and introduce a bit of warmth to keep the damp at bay.
This time all started OK, I ran it up to 30 kW producing a nice red hot bar in the pot, but rhen odd things started to happen. Various errors displayed and the main breaker tripped out. Power cycling it again it started off OK but then all sorts of fault indications mainly round the input voltage and current monitoring.
Now I can't even get the main breaker to latch 'ON'. There is a tripping device - solenoid sort of thing - and I'm not sure in which sense it is supposed to work. I suspect that it needs power to the beast (where two phases are stepped down to 24v AC to power this device which is in series with the emergancy stop button) and this latches it.
Not easy for fault finding as being 415v and HUGE amps everything is well shrouded. I'll resume fault finding tomorrow and power it from my local (low power 16a) 3 phase supply so at least there will be a 30mA RCD trying to keep me alive as I do it. Obviously I can't run at much of a level with that supply but I did once (by mistake!) run it up to 12 KW :bugeye:
Never mind - I ran the ceramic chip propane hearth up to glowing white heat to burn off a few cobwebs and at least THAT did work :thumbup:
Sea.dog:
That must be rather frustrating, Andrew. At least you're aware of the problem and didn't come up against it when you wanted to use the beast in anger.
Good luck!
awemawson:
Yes Graham, it's a bit of a pain !
This morning I've wired it up with a low power 16a 415v feed for testing. 3 phase comes in to a blooming great manual isolator switch QS1 which is a SOCOMEC 35043025 rated at 250 amps equipped with a 24 volt 'manque de tension' (lack of volts) coil (SOCOMEC 39913024) that should trip it and prevent connection if mains isn't present.
After several attempts to manually latch the isolator I did on one occasion manage it and the system was showing loss of lots of DC supplies despite the PSU's tell tale leds being on.
The 'manque de tension' coil is fed from a transformer (TC3) a fuse in the 415 feed (FU4) and a fuse (FU5) in the 24volt AC line. The transformer is permanently across two phases before the isolator.
I can hear a 'click' as I remotely apply power which is probably the 'manque de tension' solenoid, but may be the relay K1 pulling is, as very oddly the circuit shows K1 coil in series with the 'manque de tension' coil but both are rated at 24 volts and the series chain is fed from 24v AC :scratch:
However I can't manage now to latch the isolator - it's possibly a mechanical fault with it but that doesn't tie up with the onset symptoms of yesterday when the furnace was initially working.
Testing suspended due to other commitments :(
https://www.socomec.com/files/live/sites/systemsite/files/SCP/pdf_catalogue/GB/cat_sidermat_en.pdf
mattinker:
Andrew,
As you say, it doesn't make sense to have 2 24volt coils in series. Is the TC3 actually 24volts or there about?
Cheers, Matthew
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