Any easy way to delaminate a big transformer

I have a couple of water cooled low voltage high current transformers like these:

formatting link

They are not the usual kind and have very heavy copper bars and pipes for windings and cooling.

I want to know how I can delaminate them in an environmentally conscious fashion. Thanks

i
Reply to
Ignoramus14156
Loading thread data ...

Ignoramus14156 fired this volley in news:1f6dnSFDiO4tZk7OnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

I'm not sure what you mean by "delaminate". What advantage - for scrap value - would de-laminating the laminations have?

If you want to just salvage the copper separate from the iron cores, do what we did when we were rebuilding them at Florida Transformer Corp... just saw off the coils flush with both sides of the core, and pull out the copper in the openings. Hammer out whatever is fixed into the openings by varnish.

It's a big job to rebuild one by hand (especially considering the floor space it requires, since you must hand-pull the new coils through, instead of bobbin-winding them), but it's only a few minutes work to extract the old copper from the core.

There's no method I know of that will effectively dissolve the vacuum- potted varnish out from in-between the lams.

LLoyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

There is some one out there that would pay you a whole lot more for that than just copper weight. If you could just find them! Any Idea what the voltages are? Mikek

Reply to
amdx

It is the second part that is the problem.

+- 10v and +- 5v.

I will scrap it, I am sure that selling it would be difficult. Lately I have been making an effort to scrap more and sell less.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus14156

Holy moly, at what 1000 amps!

I understand, and shipping it would cost big dollars. Mikek

Reply to
amdx

Nice spot welder transformer. Maybe a cutting torch type - carbon rod .

Might be use for plating metal. Might be Tube transformers. Heater jackets and filaments.

Where did you get these monsters ? The copper is likely strip with bars attached. Martin

Reply to
Martin Eastburn

Thaw frozen water pipes that're several miles long...

Seriously though, local plating shops may be keenly interested.

Reply to
PrecisionmachinisT

Martin Eastburn fired this volley in news:5J_Av.68483$ snipped-for-privacy@fx22.iad:

Martin, that's what I already described to him.

Back in the late '60s, it was still economical to rebuild those big ones, without delaminating the core. That meant sawing out the old windings, then re-winding them in place, using at most a hand-held bobbin, and sometimes just a parking lot with room enough to swing the free ends of larger square wire while bending it place with a leather mallet.

But the start was always the same. Saw off the coils flush with the core, and beat out the material that was stuck with Hi-Sol Varnish.

Lloyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

According to the website on the transformer nameplate, this may be from an induction heating power supply.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus12347

OK, how do you saw it on a transformer so big.

i

Reply to
Ignoramus12347

Ignoramus12347 fired this volley in news:jpqdnchJ8sYKcEnOnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

A recip saw with long demolition blades should reach everything.

It looked to me like there wasn't any portion of the coils further than about 8-10" from the outside edges of the core stack.

Besides, those long recip blades are flexible. You don't have to be perfectly parallel to the core to do the sawing.

Lloyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

There are two transformers on the picture. The one on the front of the picture would fit in a 55 gallon drum. The one behind is is about 33 inches wide.

I will see what I can do.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus12347

Ignoramus12347 fired this volley in news:FKCdnUDu1bugbEnOnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

FWIW, those are large for as low a voltage as they're designed for, but those are by no means "large transformers". You should be fine with a relatively coarse wrecking blade.

LLoyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

amdx fired this volley in news:lr2s10$1rr$2@dont- email.me:

It pretty much seems that way to anyone who isn't jealous of him.

He usually forges ahead, but when he butts up against something unfamiliar, he asks.

What's different about that from the way any competent tradesman works?

"Just try anything and if it doesn't work we'll try something else" is a pretty expensive mantra (at the very least in man-hours, on a low-margin task), especially with all the varied experiences on tap on the web.

Sometimes I hire 'experts' to solve materials handling issues (powders and dusts, not metal). Usually, it's worth the money.

Lloyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

MikeK, I appreciate your sentiment, but I want to say something about millionaires.

Being a millionaire used to mean a lot. Say, 100 years ago, millionaires were very rare, and a million dollars was significant wealth, enabling the lucky millionaire to live an extravagant, enviable lifestyle.

That rarified millionaire lifestyle 100 years ago, accidentally, was worse than the life that a regular middle class person earning

100k/year enjoys nowadays. They did not have air conditioners, cell phones, the Internet, comfortable cars, Viagra, TV, modern medical care, modern airplanes, and many other things.

So, I would much rather earn 100k per year today, than be transported

100 years back and given a million dollars to play with.

Today, in terms of social standing in the wealth percentile distribution, a million dollars in 1914, would be an equivalent of, perhaps, 50-100 million dollars in 2014 money.

A million dollars nowadays, is a very boring sum of money, unless you are willing to blow it and spend it all in a few months. You can only derive $40,000 or so of income per year without endangering the principal. This would not give you any ability to live extravagantly. A million dollar home, in most areas, is a very nice, but not remarkable house. Etc.

A million dollars still sounds like a lot of money to a lot of people, but practically this is no longer the case to those who think about this in practical terms.

What is still true, however, is the saying that "the first million is the hardest". A million dollars is a sum that allows one to open business ventures without being hobbled by bankers and investors, and to make and compound the money without having to work for someone else.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus12347

Pretending to be super intelligent, or super knowledgeable about anything, is not something that interests me personally. I have some things that I need done, like how to get copper out of a special transformer, and when I feel that I need to ask, I ask.

If this makes me look bad in the eyes of "machining luminaries" like jon banquer and "precision machinist", so be it.

There are people out there who build their entire life around pretending to be something, and I try not to be one of them.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus12347

OK, I spent some time thinking about these transformers. One has two windings and another, has three. I do not think that it is easy to cut them with a saw. (though I can be wrong).

Here's what I can try to do.

  1. Break the varnish with a bobcat-mounted hydraulic hammer
  2. Pull the laminations apart with the double acting press
  3. One I have the windings out I will be happy.
i
Reply to
Ignoramus12347

Ignoramus12347 fired this volley in news:FvSdndPKRu8qt0jOnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

If they're gapped lams that might work. That is, if all the "E" pieces are oriented in one direction, and all the "I" pieces are assembled in one piece, situated on JUST ONE end of the E pieces.

And that may be the case with a transformer that had a large DC component flowing with the AC (like if it fed a half-wave rectifier bank). Core gap reduces core losses with high DC components in the current flow.

However, the one appears to be a three-phase device. That's almost always a AC apparatus (even if it fed a rectifier, it would likely be a full-wave affair), and the laminations are going to be truly "interleaved" "E"s and "I"s alternating top and bottom.

You can't get those apart that way.

You CAN saw off the top of the core, then just press the coils off from the other end. A big (BIG) bandsaw would make quick work of that.

I keep forgetting you're just scrapping it. It doesn't matter if you cut the core. Nobody's going to salvage it as transformer laminations, anyway.

LLoyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

All I want is to get the copper out as #2 copper. I think that it will have an unusually good recovery percentage.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus12347

Ignoramus12347 fired this volley in news:BKOdna-5ooldskjOnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Ig, we're not talking about what you want to accomplish, per se. We're talking about HOW you go about accomplishing it.

If they are vacuum-varnished transformers (almost certain), and the laminations are interleaved (very likely), you are NOT going to just "pull apart" the laminations, no matter how big your press.

I've done this work (not to salvage, to rebuild). You may get lucky and find that both are gapped cores. I don't think that's likely.

Lloyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.