Induction Furnace Request for Bids

Induction Furnace

You may have heard us talk about 'recasting civilization from scrap metal.' Refined metal can be mined in abundance from heaps upon heaps of industrial detritus in junkyards and fencerows. This will have to do until we can refine minerals directly and smelt them to pure metal.

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 will allow us to cast machine parts using molds printed by open source ceramic printers. We see the induction furnace, hot rolling, forging, casting, and other processes critical to the fabrication component of the GVCS.

An induction furnace requires a high frequency, high-power supply (between 20 and 50 kW ($1600 on eBay)) , and the melting chamber proper. We might be able to buy a complete turnkey system for around $5k used and run it from the LifeTrac generator, but if it breaks we’re dead-in-the-water with either an inability to repair a closed-source technology ourselves or a high repair bill. A single blown component that is inaccessible to our repair efforts could turn a working power supply into worthless junk. Thus, it is worthwhile to tame this technology by open-sourcing the design. This is the robust and cost effective choice.

Seeking Designers

We are looking for a consultant or developer to produce a design according to specifications below. We are offering between $100 and $3000 for a design, depending on its level of completion. This request will be posted on eLance and other outsourcing sites. 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.

The bids will be judged on the demonstrated skill of the bidder and on the extent of design completion. The complete design would include all of the following:

1. Design of an induction furnace circuit scalable up to 50 kW in units of 1 or 5 kW
2. Design allows for power and frequency selection
3. Power source may be either 1 or 3 phase electrical power.
4. Specifications of a cooling or heat dissipation system
5. Adaptable design specifications for primary coil windings
6. Geometrical design of melt chamber and basic power transfer calculations
7. Melt chamber includes provisions for loading and pouring.
8. Complete bill of materials
9. Fabrication files for circuit and other components
10. Sourcing information for components
11. System design and process flow drawings

If the proposed design specifications turn out to be unfeasible, design criteria will be modified accordingly. However, dismissals of the feasibility of the project that are not carefully reasoned and supported will be ignored.

We have a $5k commitment to prototype an open source induction furnace. We are choosing to alot $3k for design work, as we believe that the remaining $2k would suffice for the furnace's physical components: about $1k for the electronics, and $1k for the furnace chamber.

Responses

See this project's Project Notes