Master Yoda's Aluminium processing foundry

Discussion in 'Furnaces and their construction' started by master53yoda, Aug 18, 2020.

  1. master53yoda

    master53yoda Silver

    I had a 500lb order come in and have been busy the last week or so.
    In the old days we used mechanical safeties, the failure we were protecting against determined the level of redundancy and sometimes the method of of protection would be two different types of protection, If the failure we were protecting against was life threatening you would place 2 controls in series with the one being a manual reset safety such as an on-off operating control and a manual reset high limit control. Flame safeguard would in most cases allow for multiple 2 or 3 resets but then a lockout that had to be powered down to reset. On large burners there were two main gas valves with a purge valve between them in case the primary valve failed. they also had high and low gas pressure switches. Normally all of the safety switches were in series and any one would cause a lockout. As time went on we started seeing electronic timers, phase protection, etc. but even today High limit control is mechanical manual reset because of the safety issues involved.

    with our furnaces we need to look at the level of danger involved in a failure, for instance if the environment inside the furnace is hotter then the ignition temp there is little chance of a flame failure unless the air fuel ratio gets outside of combustion like to rich or to lean. Even then the worst would be a blow the lid of and as heavy as our lids are even that is unlikely. The only time in processing 12 tons of engine parts that i had a problem was with ice in a valve chamber on a cylinder head, it set along side the furnace for 1/2 hour before i put it in and the valve chamber went below the melt pool level, the steam explosion belw the lid open and the cylinder head out of the furnace and about 3 ft away. Needless to say it got my attention, That instance was not protectable against with any type control, It was operator error, I did modify my process in the winter to make sure the parts were above freezing before being placed in the furnace, any parts that would be melted required being inside the foundry for 24 hours before melting.

    art b
     
  2. dennis

    dennis Silver

    Wonders aloud, "does he do small, 20 lb or so orders, too, given a no-rush request?"
     
  3. master53yoda

    master53yoda Silver

    I do 3 basic size orders 14 lb $55.00, 28 lb $95.00, and 43 lb $130.00, I also have a sliding discount on multiple of the 43 lb boxes. This is my EBAY store
    https://www.ebay.com/str/A-and-A-Handiworks?_trksid=p2047675.l2563 . The only time issue I'm having is if I get hit with extended below freezing temps. I'm in the process of building the oil heater to get the waste oil thin enough for proper control through the burners. Each pour is 150 to 250 lbs..

    Art b
     
    509Maker and dennis like this.
  4. dennis

    dennis Silver

    Thanks.
     
  5. master53yoda

    master53yoda Silver

    The wife went out and helped me video the process, this is a raw video including the finger that kept helping me pour. see the link below
    https://youtu.be/ZtW5PWvkKmc
     
    DavidF, 509Maker, Al2O3 and 2 others like this.
  6. master53yoda

    master53yoda Silver

    Wiring diagram for the tilting furnace, this is a Fritzing drawing, I also will share the code if any one wants it.
    Art B



    furnace_bb.jpg
     
    HotRodTractor likes this.

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