What would be involved in making a device to heat copper pipes to red
hot by means of induction. THis is my friend's project, not mine

Ignoramus21198 wrote:

What would be involved in making a device to heat copper pipes to red
hot by means of induction. THis is my friend's project, not mine

What would be involved is you doing your auction / ebay thing to find a
commercial induction heating / soldering unit cheap.

Two issues that may present themselves -

- Induction heaters usually require the item to be heated to be passed
into the middle of the induction coil, which may present a logistical
challenge for the pipes.

- Soldering copper pipes, if that's the intention, doesn't need "red
hot" and indeed "red hot" would be a problem.

If this at all related to recent cold weather and frozen pipes (copper
tubing).. an old procedure was to use long leads attached to a buzzbox
welder, clamped to the line over a distance of copper tubing, and flipper
on, at a low current, 'till the water flowed.

If you would just state the purpose, instead of being so vague about asking
questions, maybe someone would have some ****ing clue as to what this friend
is trying to accomplish, and be able to suggest a reasonable solution.

So, he wants to srtip copper out of vacant houses without having to use a
saw, or What?

Why red hot?

Ask a clear question.

--
WB
..........


"Ignoramus21198" wrote in message
...
What would be involved in making a device to heat copper pipes to red
hot by means of induction. THis is my friend's project, not mine

On 2011-01-25, Wild_Bill wrote:
If this at all related to recent cold weather and frozen pipes (copper
tubing).. an old procedure was to use long leads attached to a buzzbox
welder, clamped to the line over a distance of copper tubing, and flipper
on, at a low current, 'till the water flowed.

If you would just state the purpose, instead of being so vague about asking
questions, maybe someone would have some ****ing clue as to what this friend
is trying to accomplish, and be able to suggest a reasonable solution.

So, he wants to srtip copper out of vacant houses without having to use a
saw, or What?

Why red hot?

Ask a clear question.


I was clear and I do not care about your insinuations.

i

"Ignoramus21198" wrote in message
...
What would be involved in making a device to heat copper pipes to red
hot by means of induction. THis is my friend's project, not mine


The wikipedia article has a lot of good links at the bottom for
do-it-yourself induction heating projects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induction_heating

"Ignoramus21198" wrote in message
...
What would be involved in making a device to heat copper pipes to red
hot by means of induction. THis is my friend's project, not mine

http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/t...ectronics.html

He used to post at sci.electronics.design

On Jan 24, 11:21*am, Ignoramus21198 ignoramus21...@NOSPAM.
21198.invalid wrote:
What would be involved in making a device to heat copper pipes to red
hot by means of induction. THis is my friend's project, not mine

What about using an old induction stove top as the basis and work from
there?

Recently the Chinese have gotten into the induction heating business.
About 3 years ago, I set up a demonstration of a modern 5kw US made
unit for our blacksmithing club. This size would easily heat your
friend's pipe. But, it cost $28,000 althought they would have sold us
their demo unit for a mere $14,000!
About a year later, a chinese company came out with a knock off of a
VERY similar unit for about $3,500. I know a couple of guys who have
them and they are happy with them.

About Coil shapes:
There is some real art to making coils for the machines. The shapes.
For your friend' application, for instance:
Imagine makin a coil that was a rectangle, let's say 4" X 6", with the
in and out tubes coming out of the center of a 4" side. Now bend the
rectangle (at the other 4" side) into a semi circle. Now you have a
coil that can heat about 6" of tubing at a time as the work piece is
lowered into it.
There are tables that come with the machines, I think, that show how
much efficiency is lost when coils are less than 100% efficient, but in
many cases, the efficiency drop isn't bad enough to worry about.

Pete Stanaitis
------------------


Ignoramus21198 wrote:

What would be involved in making a device to heat copper pipes to red
hot by means of induction. THis is my friend's project, not mine

You were only a clear as you often are in your generally vague posted
questions.

I admire a lot of the interesting and metalworking-related things you've
shared with us/this group, but this question is not clear.

I know from experience that many of the useful properties of a clean piece
of copper are completely destroyed when the useful copper item is heated to
red heat.

--
WB
..........


"Ignoramus21198" wrote in message
...

I was clear and I do not care about your insinuations.

i

Was it an AC buzz box, or was it a DC welder? When an AC buzz box is
shorted, I think the transformer is detuned so much that the power
output at a couple of volts is almost nothing.

Pete Stanaitis
--------------------

Wild_Bill wrote:

If this at all related to recent cold weather and frozen pipes (copper
tubing).. an old procedure was to use long leads attached to a buzzbox
welder, clamped to the line over a distance of copper tubing, and
flipper on, at a low current, 'till the water flowed.

I've only heard that it was a relatively common procedure/quick fix, not so
much what an actual plumber would perform regularly (not much money involved
with not replacing parts/pipes), but more of a quick solution for those who
had welders available.. rural areas, for example, where calling plumbers
wasn't a common solution to a problem. Totally self-sufficient, common sense
folks of past generations.

I know that resistance soldering (discussed here recently) will nearly
instantly take a connector contact to over 700 F.. that's a couple of turns
of an AC transformer secondary winding shorted, but in very close proximity
to the short.. yes, the voltage does drop to a very low value, but very
rapid heating of a small part is the result.

I would like to try the welder procedure, but haven't found myself in a
situation where I could. I've heard that the procedure works effectively,
from various serious/sincere and experienced guys, since the 60s.

--
WB
..........


"spaco" wrote in message
.. .
Was it an AC buzz box, or was it a DC welder? When an AC buzz box is
shorted, I think the transformer is detuned so much that the power output
at a couple of volts is almost nothing.

Pete Stanaitis
--------------------

Wild_Bill wrote:

If this at all related to recent cold weather and frozen pipes (copper
tubing).. an old procedure was to use long leads attached to a buzzbox
welder, clamped to the line over a distance of copper tubing, and flipper
on, at a low current, 'till the water flowed.

In article ,
"Wild_Bill" wrote:

I've only heard that it was a relatively common procedure/quick fix, not so
much what an actual plumber would perform regularly (not much money involved
with not replacing parts/pipes), but more of a quick solution for those who
had welders available.. rural areas, for example, where calling plumbers
wasn't a common solution to a problem. Totally self-sufficient, common sense
folks of past generations.

I know that resistance soldering (discussed here recently) will nearly
instantly take a connector contact to over 700 F.. that's a couple of turns
of an AC transformer secondary winding shorted, but in very close proximity
to the short.. yes, the voltage does drop to a very low value, but very
rapid heating of a small part is the result.

I would like to try the welder procedure, but haven't found myself in a
situation where I could. I've heard that the procedure works effectively,
from various serious/sincere and experienced guys, since the 60s.

Utterly common. There's even a specific setting (75 amps?) on a Lincoln
tombstone (ac) that's rated for 100% duty cycle (on what is otherwise a
20% duty cycle welder) for the purpose, though we had the welder come
out with his truck-mounted unit when the water caught (slang for froze)
before we re-did the line deeper and in plastic (where this won't work
anyway.) He had a long set of cables for the purpose, and it was regular
winter business for him. Likely his truck unit was DC or AC/DC.

It's not much of a "short" with the typical iron water pipes of the time
running a few hundred feet. Copper outside the house was never common in
our area, at least - iron followed by a shift to black plastic. Better
than the areas with water systems that had lead outside the house...

--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by

On Tue, 25 Jan 2011 07:56:06 -0600, spaco
wrote:

Was it an AC buzz box, or was it a DC welder? When an AC buzz box is
shorted, I think the transformer is detuned so much that the power
output at a couple of volts is almost nothing.

Pete Stanaitis
--------------------

A buzzbox arcwelder, whether AC or DC, delivers current essentially
independent of load at low voltages. This current will be a little
higher than the welding current at normal arc voltage of 24 V or so,
but not a lot higher.

The current is limited by the AC impedance of the xfmr, even if it is
subsequently rectified for DC welding. When you adjust the welder to
change the current setting, you're varying the leakage reactance of
the xfmr.

On Jan 25, 5:55*am, "Wild_Bill" wrote:

I know from experience that many of the useful properties of a clean piece
of copper are completely destroyed when the useful copper item is heated to
red heat.

Induction heating in a hydrogen atmosphere for the purpose of brazing
copper is not a terribly unusual operation (in a scientific instrument
shop). The copper gets cherry-red. The induction coils, also
copper, are usually soft copper tube with cooling water.

There was a company around here named Copperweld, that I believe used
special processes in working with copper alloys.

I believe that there are lots of applications that are applied to copper
which I'm unaware of, but I know from experience that
accidently/unintentionally overheating copper makes it worthless in/for many
uses.
For the most part, I try to avoid destroying a materials' useful
characteristics.

For an amazing display of colors, heat up some brass tubing with a MAPP or
other hot torch (with proper safety precautions and ventilation). Brazing
brass tubing doesn't destroy good tubing, that I'm aware of.. probably a not
common process though.

--
WB
..........


"whit3rd" wrote in message
...

Induction heating in a hydrogen atmosphere for the purpose of brazing
copper is not a terribly unusual operation (in a scientific instrument
shop). The copper gets cherry-red. The induction coils, also
copper, are usually soft copper tube with cooling water.