BoDiddly thanks for your interest,

I think it would not be unreasonable to say that stock of around 30-40mm dia
could be worked.
This could be placed in a small removable crucible of which the work coil
surrounds Eddie currents will then be induced into the workpiece which acts
as a primary single coil (high amps) this causes friction that heats the
piece and eventually melts it.

This setup would be ideal for working on smallish pieces using centrifugal
lost wax casting.
In fact one of the reasons I got interested in induction stemmed from my
interest in micro gas turbines and the wish to cast inconnel turbine blades.
But I am still a little way from this, but moving in the right direction I
hope ;-)

Regards
Steve


"BoDiddly" wrote in message
...
I'd be interested - what capacity?

"sme" wrote in message
...
Eric, thanks for the encouragement.

Currently the system can heat 20mm tool steel to yellow / white in about
six
seconds.
I am currently working on the cooling aspect using a closed loop water
supply that flows around the work coil.
The system is running at approx. a third of full power so melting of
steel
should be achievable.
Additional testing and fine tuning of variable frequency is also in the
process.
All circuitry is solid state and is currently cooled by standard PC fans
which will eventually make the unit very compact and transportable.

The circuit boards where designed using Eagle PCB then cut on a CNC
Denford
Starmill (1988) that I was lucky to find going for a song. Incidentally
I
managed to convert this mill to run on Linux EMC patched into its
original
L297 / L298 stepper drivers. The original control circuit could only
hold
approx 32kb of info so this is now bypassed.

This has been a part time project with many trips to the library and
countless hours rambling the web for as much info on induction as
possible.
Hopefully soon it will all payoff.... ;-)

Regards
Steve.

"Eric R Snow" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 2 Jun 2004 13:48:38 +0100, "sme"
wrote:

Dear Group,

I am posting this message in an attempt to gauge interest for a
project
I
have been working on.
I have been a hobbyist of metalworking for some time and currently
posses
a
lathe and CNC milling machine which I enjoy the use of very much.
I have also cast metal using traditional foundry methods (gas /
charcoal)
and this is what seeded my interest for this project.

I have designed an induction furnace which is currently in it's
testing
stage.
Initially this furnace was not going to see light of day out side of
my
own
workshop but while demonstrating it to a friend he showed a great
deal
of
interest and mentioned that many like minded hobbyists may be
interested
in
such a device.

So I guess I am posting this to gauge interest from the group and
seek
advice to what value both from usage and monetary you would put on
it.

I would like to apologise in advance if members of this group see
this
post
as a form of spam. Please be assured that this is not my intention.
I agree it would be nice to make a little cash out of ones hobby and
give
up
the office job ;-)

Regards,
Steve.

Greetings Steve,
By all means you should post any info you can. There has been much
interest in induction furnaces expressed in this group.
Cheers,
Eric