Owly055
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A friend of mine sent me photos of his most current project, which is to break down a 3500 watt induction cooker, and use the guts to drive an induction melting furnace for melting aluminum. A cool project to say the least.
Here are photos of his project:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/81715047/Induction_furnace/01_the_unit.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/81715047/Induction_furnace/04_range_internals.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/81715047/Induction_furnace/18_range_connected_to_10_lb_crucible.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/81715047/Induction_furnace/19_10_lb_crucible_at_temperature.jpg
Note that while this project does not directly apply to brewing, the technology is of interest to all of us. Of particular interest is the second link showing the unit with the top off. These induction units, at least the guts of them are said to ALL come from the same Chinese manufacturer. In the center of the coil is what is obviously a thermal sensor of some sort....note the white thermal grease. There has been talk about running an induction cooktop from a PID controller, and it has been said to be extremely difficult.... Where right there is the key. That sensor... whatever it actually is, apparently turns the heat of and on in response to pan temperature. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that this switches the induction unit from standby to on, and would be the circuit that is key to controlling the unit externally. Needless to say, I don't know what it is or what kind of signal it sends out..... presumably it's a thermocouple, or more likely some sort of infra red temp sensor, and it probably sends out a signal in millivolts which is compared to the set temperature........ a reference voltage, to determine if the unit should be energized or not. Or perhaps it operates on a variable resistance. In any case the way to control the unit externally would be to mimic the sensor with an external circuit controlled by your PID.
Note that the coil in the last two photos that is used for melting metal is 21 turns of 10 gauge wire around whatever size core he has, which is steel pipe wrapped with ceramic fiber.
H.W.
Here are photos of his project:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/81715047/Induction_furnace/01_the_unit.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/81715047/Induction_furnace/04_range_internals.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/81715047/Induction_furnace/18_range_connected_to_10_lb_crucible.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/81715047/Induction_furnace/19_10_lb_crucible_at_temperature.jpg
Note that while this project does not directly apply to brewing, the technology is of interest to all of us. Of particular interest is the second link showing the unit with the top off. These induction units, at least the guts of them are said to ALL come from the same Chinese manufacturer. In the center of the coil is what is obviously a thermal sensor of some sort....note the white thermal grease. There has been talk about running an induction cooktop from a PID controller, and it has been said to be extremely difficult.... Where right there is the key. That sensor... whatever it actually is, apparently turns the heat of and on in response to pan temperature. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that this switches the induction unit from standby to on, and would be the circuit that is key to controlling the unit externally. Needless to say, I don't know what it is or what kind of signal it sends out..... presumably it's a thermocouple, or more likely some sort of infra red temp sensor, and it probably sends out a signal in millivolts which is compared to the set temperature........ a reference voltage, to determine if the unit should be energized or not. Or perhaps it operates on a variable resistance. In any case the way to control the unit externally would be to mimic the sensor with an external circuit controlled by your PID.
Note that the coil in the last two photos that is used for melting metal is 21 turns of 10 gauge wire around whatever size core he has, which is steel pipe wrapped with ceramic fiber.
H.W.
