9:00 pm
March 26, 2010
Hey I can do some modest swearing on this site. Yee ****ing Ha, I finally got my hands on my induction heater today. Big shout out To Grant and John N; many many thanks.
The plumbing at the back is a bit fussy, 2 inlets and 3 outlets instead of one of each ?????????? and the power connection needs improving so I've only quickly lashed it up and had a quick play around ..... WOW
It's rated as a 25KVA machine, most of the videos on you tube are for the 15KVA machine but even bearing that in mind it's still absolutely amazing. I kept dragging people in from neighbouring workshops saying "do you want to see some magic"
The photo shows a piece of 30mm being heated. I'll suss how to use my phone as a video + Youtube and post some videos next week but the picture give you some idea. The firsst one shows the bar after 5 seconds and the rest are roughly 5 seconds apart (counting one elephant, two elephant, th....)
A piece of 40mm round didn't take an awfull lot longer. 50mm round and 40mm square wouldn't fit in the coils supplied with it. I'll make some new coils next week.
Amazingly quick on 1/2" round stainless, quite good on 12mm silicon bronze, little effect on 1/2 copper (too good a heat and electricity conductor ????). Boy will it be useful being able to see the colour directly when working bronze.
Every full time smith simply has to get one. I've been raving over these for a year or so just watching them on you tube but they are even more impressive now I've got my hands on one.
The bar got stuck on the last picture, the steel started to melt, a sagging bit meant I couldn't pull it out of the coils (I had to unscrew it!!!)
Thanks again Grant and John N
9:44 pm
August 5, 2010
9:52 pm
March 26, 2010
I'll probably keep moaning until I've got a workshop big enough to get a 2cwt (maybe 5cwt) Massey in (as well as my other power hammers in)
11:28 pm
April 21, 2010
11:47 pm
March 26, 2010
Bill Cottrell;2063 wrote: Here's a quick tip for you. If you pop a hole in a coil you can do a quick repair using JB Weld Quik.
Thanks for the tip
Heres a page I found that gives quite a good account of coil design, parameters etc
What we need now is for Grant to come up with a "quick clamp" coil design, rather like an electricians ammeter clamp but water cooled and with multiple coils
1:08 am
March 22, 2010
Quick change air fittings should work with water.
An afterthought, I checked contunity with my meter and the fittings are conductive.
1:28 am
May 14, 2010
2:14 am
May 13, 2010
3:55 am
March 22, 2010
9:19 am
March 26, 2010
Gene thanks for the tip on air connectors. It's going to live on a plate on top of my coal forge and I guess once in a blue moon it will need to be pulled out of the way to get at last millenium's forge Quick connectors for the water at the back will be good. I'll play around with tehm at the front but they'll need to be quite good electriocal condutors. At full tilt it's putting 1000Amps through the coil !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
John, I think you do bigger sort of work with your 5cwt. You'd probably need a bigger (and lower frequency) machine for bars over about 2". From the little I know these get very expensive. I haven't found the time for a holiday this year so this was my treat to myself 🙂 but having just used it for a hour I can see it as an investment that will pay for itself quite soon. I got it more because I can't stand the heat from my gas forge but from what I can tell there should be pretty impressive savings on the cost of propane.
I can see it changing my "flow" of work. Before, I'd always try and keep the heat in a piece of work and so would often do one operation after an other on a bar. I can now see me doing a batch of one operations on a number of bars, swapping the coil over for the best shape for the next operation and doing a batch of these operations .... a bit like Grant does with his tongs. Leaves will be great with this new toy.
11:18 am
March 22, 2010
When I install quick disconnects for shop air, I use teflon tape for sealent on the threaded male fittings. My thoughts are to only put the tape on perhaps 3 threads, it may be enough and the remaining threads to be in contact for passing current in the induction fittings.
This is speculation on my part, I don't have a induction heater, just some thoughts from an old electronic/electric retired industrial worker.
I reread your post and the 1000 amps got me to thinking, the steel quick disconnedt fittings might offer too much resistance verses copper fittings, anyway a real neat man toy.
2:00 pm
August 14, 2010
david hyde;2073 wrote:
I can see it changing my "flow" of work. Before, I'd always try and keep the heat in a piece of work and so would often do one operation after an other on a bar. I can now see me doing a batch of one operations on a number of bars, swapping the coil over for the best shape for the next operation and doing a batch of these operations .... a bit like Grant does with his tongs. Leaves will be great with this new toy.
That's interersting. I understand the logic of conserving the heat in the bar, but I also feel that if the gas forge is running the whole time, and I am working the whole time then the energy consumption doesn't change. I tend to run a bunch of bars through one operation, then change tooling and run them through the next. I put multiple bars in the forge so that one is at temperature just as I finish the operation. As long as there is a hot bar ready to be worked it doesn't matter if the previous part goes back in the forge or onto a rack. (I have a couple of shelves on my forge stand to hold parts in progress.)
Which is not to say I don't want an induction heater. I am just a little surprised at your process.
7:28 pm
March 18, 2010
Spending the week on Mt. Hood for "Blacksmith week". I'll be back Sunday.
Glad you're cooking David, Ya havin' fun yet?
DO NOT use any non-copper/brass fittings on the output side of the machine! With 1000 amps you also need very secure connections or you will get an education in resistance welding and maybe even in the basic theory of arc welding!
Cost of operation is often about 10% of using gas. I used to do my tongs and other tools in gas with multiple parts in the fire. I went from around $250.00 - 300.00 per month in gas to about a $30.00 - 40.00 increase in my electric bill. There is no exhaust heat and it's only using electricity when it's heating parts.
“There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot,
but then there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence,
transform a yellow spot into the sun.” ~ Pablo Picasso ~
11:34 pm
March 26, 2010
Lewis;2076 wrote: That's interersting. I understand the logic of conserving the heat in the bar, but I also feel that if the gas forge is running the whole time, and I am working the whole time then the energy consumption doesn't change. I tend to run a bunch of bars through one operation, then change tooling and run them through the next. I put multiple bars in the forge so that one is at temperature just as I finish the operation. As long as there is a hot bar ready to be worked it doesn't matter if the previous part goes back in the forge or onto a rack. (I have a couple of shelves on my forge stand to hold parts in progress.)
Which is not to say I don't want an induction heater. I am just a little surprised at your process.
Pretty much with your there Lewis. I'm lucky enough to have three 25-40kg power hammers right next to each other. (Anyang, Kinyon and KA75(ish)) I'll rotate work through the forge as you do but I'll often do three (or more with quick change tooling) operations on one heat on one bar. I won't be able to this as easy on the induction heater if one of the operations changes the cross section too much (ie a lot of spread) because you need good "coupling" to get the a fast energy transfer. Ie the coil shuld hug the work as much as possible. Athough it's only two nuts to change over to another shape coil, it will probably disrupt the flow constantly changing them.
Thing with a gas forge is that when you're at the hammer it is still burning gas and a lot of this energy is being lost with the exhaust gas into making my workshop almost unbearably hot.
John N came round to the workshop today to have play. I think he was as impressed as I was. We took a video of it heating up a piece of 40mm upto the point where it was starting to spark and burn ..... from cold in about 60 second!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Once it's up to temp you slide the coil back and forwards through the coil, it quickly heats a longer length. I'll put this up on You tube in a day or so (after I've got to grips with all that computer stuff)
I can't see it replacing my gas forge but I can't see me using my coal forge again for quite a while. From an hour or so of playing, my gut reaction is I'll use it about 40% of the time, the rest being the gas forge or occasionally the oxy-propnae torch. 0.0000001% of the time for the coal forge.
12:04 am
March 26, 2010
Hey Grant, you were right about that Tweco cooler being "marginal". I just pushed water from the tap through it when experimenting, about an hour at around a 50% duty cycle; no problem. I they ran it for about 10-15 minutes at around a 50% duty cycle using the cooler. It was amazing how hot and how quickly the water got, it triggered the "overheat" protection and took about 5 minutes before the water was cool enough again.
Looks like I'm gonna be doing some playing around with truck radiatoirs and fans in the near future ..... why oh why didn't I get the 35KVA machine. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb
1:11 am
August 14, 2010
1:16 am
August 14, 2010
9:35 am
March 26, 2010
Lewis;2089 wrote: Multiple hammers with multiple setups all in one heat. That would certainly encourage getting as much work out of each heat as possible. I can see how the induction heater will mean a change in habits.
Gonna write a column about it?
Yeah, will be taking plenty of picture and do an article .... tight for time at the moment but will do.
Re the "total loss" cooler, I'll do that for a few months until I build a bigger one .... and before winter comes. Not very often, but about a few days a year, domestic water pipes will freeze up. Not being able to use antifreeze this way, it could be a disaster if the pipes in the box burst (a lot of the electronics inside is water cooled)
12:25 pm
June 24, 2010
12:59 pm
June 24, 2010
Sorry for the consecutive posts, but just had a thought on quick connectors for the heating coils. Maybe each connector could be something like a pair of heavy copper flanges locked together with a quick disconnect bolt from a bicycle wheel. The plumbing connection could be off to the side of the bolt -- maybe have a male flange with a short piece of copper tube extending from the mating surface, and a female with an O-ring groove inside the hole.
Making the flanges would be a lot more work than just bending a coil from copper tube. But you could attach the coils to the flanges with the ordinary compression fittings. Then you'd only need three or four sets of flanges, which you could set up with the coils you need for a particular job.
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