by Tony » Sun May 06, 2007 8:44 pm
The website is "Backyard Metalcasting.com" and here is a direct link to the Forum:
What those guys are doing is fairly primitive, but they are getting some surprisingly good results with fairly unsophisticated low cost home built equipment. Their methods would certainly enable you to successfully cast an aluminium dyno rotor and housing at home. Or even a bronze one.
I post over there as "Warpspeed", but although I take a peek at that Forum every day, I have not posted there for several weeks.
One thing has lead to another, and I have now decided to design and construct my own 15Kw induction furnace. That type of project is technically way beyond the people over at "Backyard Metalcasting".
My induction furnace project is rapidly gaining quite a bit of interest over at the "CNC Zone.com" Forum. The thread now runs to eleven pages and has had over 9,000 views so far, and I have hardly started the project. It will take months yet ! The induction furnace thread is located here, and I am still the infamous "Warpspeed".
I find this project particularly fascinating from many aspects, and a real challenge. Many others have attempted to build induction furnaces and failed to get anything usable working. The internet is littered with failed induction furnace projects if you do a search. Being a retired power electronics design engineer gives me a little bit of a head start, and I am sure I can accomplish this.
If I can solve all the design problems, and still keep it fairly simple, it will probably start off a frenzy of home construction activity all over the world. An induction furnace is an excellent way to melt metal without a flame, especially those with very high melting temperatures such as cast iron. But casting aluminium is dead easy, and a very simple and easy to construct propane fired furnace is all you need.
So all flow bench and dyno projects are on hold right now while my furnace project very slowly creeps ahead.
Also known as the infamous "Warpspeed" on some other Forums.