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| | | #redirect [[Induction Furnace Request for Bids]] |
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| [[Induction Furnace]] Investment | |
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| [[Image:furnaceicon.jpg]]
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| You may have heard us talk about 'recasting civilization from scrap metal.' Metal is the basis of advanced civilization. Scrap metal in refined form can be mined in abundance from heaps upon heaps of industrial detritus in junkyards and fencerows. This will have to do until we can take minerals directly and smelt them to pure metal.
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| I look forward to the day when our induction furnace chews up our broken tractors and cars from the paleoindustrial order - and spits them out in fluid form. This leads to casting useful parts, using molds printed by open source ceramic printers - tnese exist, see this link (). This also leads to hot metal processing, the simplest of which is bashing upon an anvil - and the more refined of which is rolling. Can we do this to generate metal bar and sheet in a 4000 square foot workshop planned for FeF? We better. Technology makes that practical, though undeard-of outside of centralized steel mills. We see the induction furance, hot rolling, forging, casting, and other processes critical to the fabrication component of the GVCS
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| We just got a $5k investment to open-source this technology.
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| The program for delivering an induction furnace (link) involves a high frequency, high-power supply (between 20 and 50 kW (the latter can be gotten for $1600 on Ebay), and the melting chamber proper. Well, we could buy a turnkey system perhaps for $5k total used, and run it from the LifeTrac generator. The only disadvantage to this route is that if it breaks we're dead-in-the-water - either with the impossibility of fixing closed-source technology, or a high repair bill. A single component which blows and is inaccessible for fixing could in principle turn a working power supply into worthless junk. Thus, it is worthwhile to tame this technology by opensourcing the design.
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| The more robust and cost effective route is to open source the high power induction power supply. We would like to opensource the power supply - which is mature technology. The question is finding a consultant or developer. We are thus making a bid for calls. We are offering between $100 and $3000 for a design - depending on its level of completion. We will post this on eLance and other exploit-the-proletatariat global outsourcing gigs. (more tactful wording needed).
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| If you are qualified to produce a design, please submit a bid by emailing opensourceecology at gmail dot com. We're open to other suggestions on tactical and strategic aspects.
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| The bids will be judged on the demonstrated competence of the bidder, and upon the extent of design completeness. The complete design would include all of the following:
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| 1. Design of an induction furnace circuit scalable up to 50 kW in units of 1 or 5 kW
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| 2. Design allows for power and frequency selection
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| 3. Power source may be either 1 or 3 phase electrical power.
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| 4. Specifications of a cooling or heat dissipation system
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| 5. Adaptable design specifications for primary coil windings
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| 6. Geometical design of melt chamber and basic power transfer calculations
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| 7. Melt chamber includes provisions for loading and pouring.
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| 8. Complete bill of materials
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| 9. Fabrication files for circuit and other components
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| 10. Sourcing information for components
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| 11. System design and process flow drawings
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| Serious bidders only, please. Naysayers on feasibility of this proposal will be either dismissed summarily, or our design criteria will be modified accordingly.
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| With up to $3k allotted for design work, we believe that the remaining $2k would suffice for building the actual device: about $1k for the electronics, and $1k for the furnace chamber.
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