15 kW Induction Forge / Furnace power supply - any owners?

snowman · Nov 27, 2017

These are sold by a couple different online suppliers. They are of course Chinese, but I don't think they really fall in to the "harbor freight" category.

I'm looking for a review. There are a few on youtube that seem to operate well. They are sold by a blacksmithing company out of Minnesota. I'm just curious how they hold up. I'd want to be able to do anything from melt ten pounds of brass a day (in multiple pours), as well as be able to make quick braze repairs and such.

billzweig · Nov 27, 2017

I have a couple of those. Both work well, but despite being marketed as 15KW they consume only about 8KW of power, so unless the Chinese discovered a way to create energy out of nothing, the real output is about 7KW. If you want to melt 10 pounds of brass you need a much bigger unit (maybe rated 30KW). I can melt a few ounces at a time in mine.
As will you will need some form of an insulated crucible system, as heating the crucible in an open coil will result in huge heat losses.

snowman · Nov 27, 2017

That part I am aware of. I need to melt at least a lb at a time. Given the heating videos I have seen on YouTube, that doesn't appear to be a problem.

Any repairs on yours?

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snowman · Nov 27, 2017

As for the power adjustment, I knew that. The chinese have little horses so once you redefine a horsepower, you might as well redefine watt as well.

billzweig · Nov 27, 2017

snowman said:
That part I am aware of. I need to melt at least a lb at a time. Given the heating videos I have seen on YouTube, that doesn't appear to be a problem.

Any repairs on yours?

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The heaters working fine: one for some 4 years and the other about 2. Not heavy usage, less than an hour a month mostly for brazing and heat treatment of small parts and this usually takes less than a minute. Occasional melting of a small quantity of aluminum, brass and silver. As for repairs, once the thing fails there is not much change of fixing it. There are no schematics or spares available. After repeatedly asking for schematics and spares I got a fuse and a note "this unit no break" I've opened one unit and all the ICs have the labels erased.

wippin' boy · Nov 27, 2017

I've never owned one of these
I've been involved in induction heating for quite some time.
the units that came up on a Google search seemed geared towards 1" and down billets for forging or blacksmithing not melting.
seems like your gonna end up having to do batches in something resembling a test tube in size.

snowman · Nov 27, 2017

wippin' boy said:
I've never owned one of these
I've been involved in induction heating for quite some time.
the units that came up on a Google search seemed geared towards 1" and down billets for forging or blacksmithing not melting.
seems like your gonna end up having to do batches in something resembling a test tube in size.

With a silicon carbide crucible in refractory, you can get by with a little. With induction melting you either directly heat the melt, or you heat the crucible which then heats the melt.

I'll check tomorrow and see what size unit a friend of mine has. I thought it was 15 chinese kw and he was good for melts of a couple pounds. His unit was 4,000...but that was also 5 years ago, and I'm not sure if the price has changed that much since then, or if he went through a higher quality company.

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