Induction heating pipes

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

Reply to
Ignoramus21198
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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.

Reply to
Pete C.

The wikipedia article has a lot of good links at the bottom for do-it-yourself induction heating projects.

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Reply to
anorton

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He used to post at sci.electronics.design

Reply to
Rick

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

Reply to
kfvorwerk

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

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Ignoramus21198 wrote:

Reply to
spaco

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