Aluminum is a versatile metal and can be used to make many interesting things, including DIY parts. In addition, it has a relatively low melting point, which allows casting at home.

Of course, to melt aluminum, you will need to make a small furnace, it can even be made from coffee cans, as the author demonstrated. It took him only $ 23 to create a homemade product, not counting the cost of the necessary tools. You can see how this oven is made and make yourself a similar one according to the example.

Materials and tools for homemade:
- two tin cans, one larger, the other smaller (it is highly recommended not to use zinc-coated cans);
- household hair dryer (will pump air);
- a piece of metal pipe (adapter to a hair dryer to supply air to the oven);
- Scotch;
- scissors for metal (ordinary ones are also suitable, if you don’t mind);
- pliers with long handles (for gripping the crucible);
- gloves;
- coal as fuel, ignition fluid and more.

The process of making a mini oven:

Step one. We make the body of the stove
The body of the stove is actually taken ready-made, it is a large can of soup, canned food, etc. You need to choose such cans, in which the metal is thicker. In the lower part, the author made a hole, to which a hair dryer is then connected using a pipe. The hole must be made according to the diameter of the pipe. The easiest way to make it is square, but it's better to tinker a little and make a round hole according to the diameter of the pipe.

Step two. Pressurization installation
An ordinary household hair dryer is used as an air blower. It must be equipped with an air supply system and have at least two speeds of operation. A piece of metal pipe is attached to the hair dryer with adhesive tape, and its other end is inserted into the hole previously cut in the bottom of the can. The author fixes the cold air supply button with tape, it must be turned on all the time. Before starting the stove, you need to turn on the hair dryer and make sure that there is no air leakage at the junction of the pipe with the hair dryer. If there is, you still need to rewind the tape.

As a pipe, you can find a piece water pipe, a pipe from a vacuum cleaner is also suitable and so on. If the stove is large, the pipe must be taken longer, as it can get very hot and the heat will reach the hair dryer. However, the cold air from the hair dryer should cool it well.

Step three. Furnace crucible
The crucible for the furnace is also ready for the author, it is a small can of coffee or the same canned food. It is important to remember that such a crucible can only be used once; according to the author, it inevitably burns out when used again. And this will entail that liquid aluminum will flow into the furnace, which is not very pleasant.

Step four. Furnace tests and conclusions
That's it, the oven is now ready to start. It is necessary to install a crucible in it in the center, and lay coal in a circle. Then, after watering the coal with ignition fluid, you need to wait until it burns completely. After that, at low speeds, you need to turn on the hair dryer. Tests must be carried out on outdoors otherwise a spark may fly out of the oven and cause a fire. In addition, at the first start there will be a lot of smoke from the tin can.

Aluminum beverage cans are suitable as a source of aluminum. But, according to the author, due to the fact that the metal in them is very thin, they do not melt, but burn, as a result, there is too little aluminum for pouring, in general, such a source material is not very suitable.
If it is nevertheless decided to melt the cans, then they must first be crushed.

From 12 cans you can get about 150 g of aluminum.
2 cans will give about 300 g, and from 36 cans you can get 450 g of aluminum.

After starting the furnace, the crucible should turn red, this indicates that the furnace is ready and aluminum can be placed in the crucible. When aluminum is completely melted, it can be poured into molds to form ingots, which is very convenient for further work with metal.

The author recommends warming up the oven before placing aluminum there because oxide film which protects the metal from overheating. If aluminum is placed before the furnace is heated, it can burn through the metal and leak out. It is always necessary to work in thick gloves that do not burn or melt, since the oven heats up to very high temperatures.

In no case should molds be wet, otherwise, when casting, liquid hot metal may explode and fly in different directions.

The author does not fully insert the hair dryer pipe into the oven, since even at low speeds there is too much air supply. By adjusting the distance between the pipe and the furnace window, it is possible to achieve the desired air supply, and as a result, the temperature.

Important!
In the construction of such furnaces, zinc-coated cans cannot be used. The thing is that zinc, when heated, releases toxic fumes that will be harmful to health. If cans with a different coating are not found, then you need to work in respiratory protection and do not heat the oven to high temperatures.

Among other things, this furnace can be used as a small forge. When steel is heated, a crucible is not installed in it. As a result, it is quite possible to heat the file and then make a small knife or other product out of it. For example, you can make small souvenir swords from nails.

Aluminum is one of the most common metals on earth. It is present even in the human body, so what can we say about the surrounding reality. In every house or private car there are aluminum functional elements, parts or assemblies, which, alas, break quite often. These are furniture and window fittings, guides for doors and shutters, lock latches and other necessary little things.

They can be replaced with purchased new products, repaired or made independently. In the last two cases, you may need to melt aluminum at home.

Aluminum characteristics

It is not necessary to know all the characteristics of metal for homemade products. But there are a few things that can become significant or even dangerous at work.

Aluminum lends itself well to casting, melts at a relatively low temperature of 660 ° C. For reference: cast iron begins to melt at a temperature of 1100 ° C, and steel - 1300 ° C.

Therefore, melting aluminum at home on gas stove difficult to implement, since home gas appliances cannot provide such a temperature. True, domestic "kulibins" can do everything, but more on that later.

The melting point of aluminum can be reduced by grinding it into powder or by using a ready-made powder product as a raw material. But here another property of aluminum becomes important. It is a fairly active metal, which, when combined with atmospheric oxygen, can ignite or simply oxidize. And the melting point of aluminum oxide is more than 2000 °C. During melting, the oxide is still formed, but in small quantities, it is he who forms the scale.

The same activity can play a bad joke if water gets into the molten metal. When this occurs, an explosion occurs. Therefore, if you need to add raw materials during the melting process, then you need to make sure that it is dry.

Raw materials for smelting

If aluminum is to be melted at home, due to the complexity of working with powder metal, it is not used as a raw material.

You can purchase an aluminum ingot or use ordinary aluminum wire, which is cut into small pieces with scissors and pressed tightly with pliers to reduce the contact area with air.

Unless specifically intended high quality products, then you can use any household items, tin cans without a bottom seam or profile trimming as raw materials.

Secondary raw materials can be stained or stained, this is not a problem, the extra components will leave in the form of slag. Just remember that you can not inhale the vapors of burnt paint.

In order to obtain high-quality aluminum smelting at home from secondary raw materials, fluxes, the task of which is to bind and bring all impurities and impurities to the surface of the molten metal, are best purchased ready-made. But you can make it yourself from technical salts.

The coating flux is prepared from 10% cryolite and 45% sodium chloride and potassium chloride each.

An additional 25% of the total mass of sodium fluoride is added to the refining flux to obtain aluminum without porosity.

Personal protective equipment for melting

Melting aluminum at home is an unsafe process. Therefore, personal protective equipment (PPE) must be used. Even if such melting is needed once with minimal equipment, then at least you need to protect your hands, for example, with special welding gloves that perfectly protect against burns, because the temperature of liquid aluminum is more than 600 ° C.

It is also desirable to protect the eyes, especially if melting occurs often enough, with glasses or a mask. And ideally, you need to work in a special suit of a metallurgist with increased resistance to fire and high temperatures.

If you need very pure aluminum using a refining flux, then you should work in a chemical respirator.

Casting shape

If you only want to cast pure aluminum for soldering, then a mold is not needed. It is enough to use a steel sheet on which the molten metal will cool. But if you need to cast at least a simple part, then you need a mold.

The casting mold can be made from sculptural plaster, namely plaster, and not alabaster. Liquid gypsum is poured into an oiled mold, it is allowed to harden a little, shaking periodically to release air bubbles, a model is inserted into it and covered with a second container with gypsum. In a convenient place, you need to insert a cylindrical object into the plaster, so that as a result a hole appears in the mold, the so-called channel, into which molten aluminum will be poured. When the plaster finally hardens, the two parts of the form are separated, the model is removed, and the form with the finished cast is connected again.

It is also possible to make a casting mold from a mixture of 75% molding sand, 20% clay and 5% coal sand, which is poured into a special box of boards and rammed. The model is pressed into the compacted earth, the resulting print is sprinkled with talc and graphite (coal dust) so that the cooled aluminum part can be easily separated from the mold.

melting crucible

Melting aluminum at home requires a special container with a spout made of refractory material. This is the so-called crucible. Crucibles can be porcelain, quartz, steel, cast iron, corundum or graphite. At home, you can use a purchased crucible or make it, for example, from a piece of steel pipe is enough large diameter. True, for this you need a grinder, welding machine and skills in using these tools.

The dimensions of the crucible depend on required amount aluminum to be melted. This bucket must be evenly heated, and its heat must be transferred to the raw material.

Smelting furnaces

The technology for melting aluminum at home is quite simple. In a special ladle, aluminum scrap is heated to a temperature exceeding the melting point of this metal, the melt is kept in a heated state for some time, slag is removed from its surface, then pure metal is poured into a mold for cooling. The melting time depends on the design of the furnace, that is, the temperature that it is able to provide.

If you are using a blowtorch or gas-burner, then they heat the aluminum from above. True, the oven is still made up of bricks in a well without a binder solution, inside which coals will burn through to heat the container from below and keep it warm.

The design of the furnace looks approximately the same if the crucible is heated from below with the help of ordinary firewood and a hair dryer. Only in this case, firewood is laid in a brick well not on the bottom, but on a grate located on the first row of bricks, and in this row a hole is left for a metal pipe put on the neck of the hair dryer and fixed to it with electrical tape. The crucible in this case is a tin can, of course, not aluminum, in which diametrically opposite through holes are made at a small distance from the top. A steel bar is threaded through these holes, for which the can should be hung in the furnace. A hair dryer is needed to force hot air into the space between the bricks and the crucible. Sometimes a metal barrel is used instead of bricks.

If melting should take place quite often, then you can make a muffle furnace with a vertical crucible loading with your own hands or buy a ready-made one.

Melting with a blowtorch

Melting aluminum at home with a blowtorch should not take place indoors. In addition to raw materials, a blowtorch, crucibles and bricks, you need to prepare firewood, pliers and a steel bar.

So, a small well was made of bricks so that a ladle with aluminum and a small steel sheet could be installed on top. A fire is kindled in the well, which must burn out a little to form coals.
Further, in fact, the melting of aluminum takes place at home. Step-by-step instruction process:

A container with raw materials is installed on the bricks. It needs to be heated for about 15 minutes.

After that, the blowtorch burner is turned on at full power and the aluminum is heated from above.

The process begins within a few seconds, but in order for the heating to be uniform, the metal in the container must be gently mixed with a steel bar, holding it with pliers (while not forgetting to put on gloves). You can do without a rod, periodically shaking the bucket with the same pliers, but very carefully.

When the liquid becomes homogeneous, you need to take a container with pliers and pour the contents onto a calcined steel sheet so that all the scale formed remains in the ladle, and only pure metal gets on the solidification sheet.

This is how pure aluminum is usually obtained from secondary raw materials, if aluminum parts are to be soldered with it.

Smelting on wood or gas

Melting of aluminum at home on firewood takes place in lightweight collapsible furnaces. The disadvantage of this method is the uncontrollability of the process. It is not possible to increase or decrease the heating temperature. It is possible to intervene in the process only by removing the container with aluminum from the fire.

Melting aluminum at home on gas is the only possible option for an apartment. It is necessary to heat the container for a long time, periodically draining the molten metal. In this case, the casting is performed in layers. For work, you will need two metal containers of such diameters that one is put on the other. The smaller one serves as a crucible. It is placed with a crowbar, for example, cut aluminum wire, on a burner, from which it is necessary to remove the flame divider, a household gas stove. Larger capacity will have to be worked on first. About a dozen small holes are made in its bottom. Bolts are screwed into two or three of them, which act as handles, for which the red-hot container can be lifted with pliers.

This container is placed upside down on the crucible. This design allows you to warm up aluminum. Periodically, the upper container must be removed and scrap is mixed with a metal rod or knife. Before draining the molten metal, slag must be removed from its surface.

Melting aluminum in a muffle furnace

A muffle furnace is already quite serious equipment for obtaining high-quality molten metal. Therefore, when melting, a flux is used to clean aluminum from impurities. And this is already almost a production process, and not melting aluminum at home.
Step-by-step instructions also include several points for the preparation of raw materials:

• First, the flux is melted in the crucible, which must be taken in an amount of 2 to 5% by weight of aluminum, and then scrap is added to it.
• How active the flux can be determined by the surface of the melt - it must be mirror-like. If this is not the case, a little more flux is added to the melt, then it will need to be added before the end of the melt, so that the slag can be more easily removed from the metal surface with a steel spoon.
• Melting should be carried out at approximately 700-750 ° C. This is the temperature of the red glow.
• During the melting process, it may be necessary to add raw materials to the crucible, as the molten metal is greatly reduced in volume.
• Refining flux is added, if necessary, at the end of the melt in an amount of 0.25% by weight of the molten metal. Maintaining such a proportion at home is not an easy task. After adding the flux, the melt must be stirred with a spoon, let stand for about 5 minutes, then remove the slag.
• When, as a result of heating, aluminum has turned into a homogeneous shiny drop, the crucible must be kept in the furnace for some time so that the metal becomes more fluid.
• Then aluminum from the crucible through the spout (at this moment it becomes clear why such a ladle is needed) is poured into the mold in a thin continuous stream.
• After complete cooling, the mold is carefully divided into halves, the finished part is removed from it, which still needs to be finalized: drill holes, if necessary, clean and sandpaper sand the surface. That's all. Process completed.

So do not be afraid in advance if you have to melt aluminum scrap at home in order to get clean metal or make a part to replace the broken one. Serious professional skills are not needed at all to organize such a foundry. The desire and skillful hands of an ordinary amateur craftsman can work wonders.

Having built such a stove, you can melt aluminum and bronze without any problems, and if you try hard, even steel can be melted in it. The whole principle of operation of such a furnace is to create an insulated housing that can withstand temperatures up to 2600 degrees Celsius.
As for the dimensions, it is not strictly necessary to observe them, the author did it for himself so that at least 2 kilograms of aluminum could be melted at a time.

The design of the furnace is very simple, it consists of a container, a lid, a gas supply hole, and also has a drain. The insulation here is designed to withstand high temperatures, and special attention is paid to the creation of the cladding, because it must withstand the temperature of the burner flame.

To create the case, you will need either sheet steel of sufficient thickness so that it can be welded, or a piece of steel pipe. It is impossible to use galvanized steel for such purposes, since zinc burns and emits a gas that is very harmful to health.

Materials and tools for creating a furnace:
- refractory clay;
- sawdust;
- refractory cement;
- materials for creating the furnace body, cover and other;
- welding;
- Bulgarian;
- corner;
- gas supply pipe and burner.

Furnace manufacturing process:

Step one. Making insulation
The author's isolation consists of several layers. One part is designed to keep the heat out of the oven, and the second part is inside the oven and withstands high temperatures from the burner (ceramics).

For such purposes, refractory clay will be needed, it can be purchased at stores specializing in the creation of ceramics, it is sold in powder form. When buying, it is important to ask about what temperature this clay can withstand. Sawdust will also be needed, they are mixed with clay and form a single mass. When the kiln is first heated, the sawdust inside the clay burns out and air chambers form there. Thanks to these chambers, the temperature inside the oven is well maintained.

The components are measured by volume, for such purposes you can take a jar of coffee. First, a dry mixture is made at the rate of one part of clay three parts of sawdust. Mix the mass very carefully so that the sawdust is evenly mixed with clay. Then you can add one part of water to the mixture and mix everything well again. The mixture should be allowed to stand for at least 12 hours. During this time, the clay will absorb water well and become plastic, it will be very convenient to work with it.

Step two. Furnace lid manufacturing
The oven lid is very easy to make. First, a frame is created, in appearance it resembles a wheel from a motorcycle. Such a frame can be made from a steel plate and a pair of steel rods. The whole thing is bent, cut, and then welded. In the center of the lid, the author makes a ventilation hole, for these purposes you will need a can of coffee or another product, it is installed in the center. To prevent the jar from sticking to the clay, it can be lubricated with vegetable oil.

Well, now the frame is installed on a flat surface and the insulating material is evenly laid into it. It is important here that the clay completely fills the entire mold, then the lid will be strong and will not burn through. When the clay begins to dry, you can carefully remove the jar from the center, although it is better to wait for the clay to dry completely so as not to damage the lid. It will take a week or ten days to dry.

Step three. Production of the main part of the furnace
At this stage, the author fills the previously made furnace frame with insulating material from clay and sawdust. In the process of forming the inner part, you must not forget to leave a place for a drain, as well as make a hole for the gas supply. How to make the inside of the oven, there are several options. For example, you can fill the form completely, and then insert it in the center metal pipe and use it to carefully remove the core. Similarly, you can make holes for gas supply and drain.

You can also pre-install a mold in the center of the oven, and then fill the resulting space with insulating material. It is important in both cases to remember to step back from the bottom so that the oven has a floor. After shaping, the clay must be allowed to dry for at least one week.

Step four. Vent caps
To completely close the oven if necessary, you can make a couple of such covers, as the author did. These covers are also made from an insulating compound. For molding, you can use cans from coffee, canned food, etc.

Step five. Outer protective layer
To protect the furnace insulation from overheating, you will need to apply a protective layer on it, it must withstand high temperature. For such purposes, the author used refractory cement. Well, then everything is simple, the mixture must be mixed with water and then evenly applied by hand to all areas with open insulation. Of course, such cement is quite expensive, but fortunately it needs very little.

Step six. We dry the oven
If the clay has already dried up by eye, this does not mean at all that it does not contain 100% moisture. There is quite a lot of water there, but this is a serious enemy. If there is water in the clay when the furnace is heated, the resulting steam will lead to the formation of cracks and so on. To completely dry the oven, the author took a number of measures. First, a series of holes must be drilled in the insulator; for this purpose, a concrete drill may be required.

Further outside, the oven is wrapped with glass wool or other insulation, and an incandescent lamp is lowered into the center. As a result, the walls warm up well and moisture comes out of them. The light bulb must be at least 100W.

Step seven. We fix the lid and supply gas
A mixture of gas and air must enter the furnace. You can make a burner yourself or buy a ready-made one.

To fix the cover, you will need a corner, an axis, as well as a piece of pipe. The essence of the design is that, if necessary, a heavy and hot cover can be easily turned on its side. For these purposes, a gap of a couple of millimeters must be maintained between the lid and the upper part of the furnace.

Step eight. Casting accessories
For casting, you will first need a crucible. The author made it from a piece of thick steel pipe. She will need to weld the bottom, as well as attach long steel handles. Everything here must be very reliable, otherwise if the handle, God forbid, comes off, contact with liquid metal is very deplorable.

You will also need to make a pair of blacksmith tongs, a ladle and other accessories. It won't be difficult.

Melting metal by induction is widely used in various industries: metallurgy, engineering, jewelry. A simple induction type furnace for melting metal at home can be assembled with your own hands.

Heating and melting of metals in induction furnaces occur due to internal heating and changes in the crystal lattice of the metal when high-frequency eddy currents pass through them. This process is based on the phenomenon of resonance, in which eddy currents have a maximum value.

To cause the flow of eddy currents through the melted metal, it is placed in the zone of action of the electromagnetic field of the inductor - the coil. It can be in the form of a spiral, figure eight or trefoil. The shape of the inductor depends on the size and shape of the heated workpiece.

The inductor coil is connected to the source alternating current. In industrial melting furnaces, industrial frequency currents of 50 Hz are used; for melting small volumes of metals in jewelry, high-frequency generators are used, as they are more efficient.

Kinds

Eddy currents are closed along a circuit limited by the magnetic field of the inductor. Therefore, heating of conductive elements is possible both inside the coil and from its outer side.

Therefore, induction furnaces are of two types:
• channel, in which the channels located around the inductor are the container for melting metals, and the core is located inside it;
• crucible, they use a special container - a crucible made of heat-resistant material, usually removable.

channel furnace too overall and designed for industrial volumes of metal melting. It is used in the smelting of cast iron, aluminum and other non-ferrous metals.
crucible furnace quite compact, it is used by jewelers, radio amateurs, such an oven can be assembled with your own hands and used at home.

Device

A home-made furnace for melting metals has a fairly simple design and consists of three main blocks placed in a common housing:
• high frequency alternator;
• inductor - do-it-yourself spiral winding of copper wire or tube;
• crucible.

The crucible is placed in an inductor, the ends of the winding are connected to a current source. When current flows through the winding, an electromagnetic field with a variable vector arises around it. In a magnetic field, eddy currents arise, directed perpendicular to its vector and passing through a closed loop inside the winding. They pass through the metal placed in the crucible, while heating it to the melting point.

Advantages of the induction furnace:

• fast and uniform heating of the metal immediately after switching on the installation;
• directivity of heating - only the metal is heated, and not the entire installation;
• high melting rate and homogeneity of the melt;
• there is no evaporation of the alloying components of the metal;
• the installation is environmentally friendly and safe.

A welding inverter can be used as a generator of an induction furnace for melting metal. You can also assemble the generator according to the diagrams below with your own hands.

Furnace for melting metal on a welding inverter

This design is simple and safe as all inverters are equipped with internal overload protection. The entire assembly of the furnace in this case comes down to making an inductor with your own hands.

It is usually performed in the form of a spiral from a copper thin-walled tube with a diameter of 8-10 mm. It is bent according to a template of the desired diameter, placing the turns at a distance of 5-8 mm. The number of turns is from 7 to 12, depending on the diameter and characteristics of the inverter. The total resistance of the inductor must be such that it does not cause an overcurrent in the inverter, otherwise it will be tripped by the internal protection.

The inductor can be mounted in a housing made of graphite or textolite and a crucible can be installed inside. You can simply put the inductor on a heat-resistant surface. The housing must not conduct current, otherwise the eddy current circuit will pass through it and the power of the installation will be reduced. For the same reason, it is not recommended to place foreign objects in the melting zone.

When working from welding inverter its body must be grounded! The socket and wiring must be rated for the current drawn by the inverter.

The heating system of a private house is based on the operation of a furnace or boiler, the high performance and long uninterrupted service life of which depends both on the brand and installation of the heating devices themselves, and on the correct installation of the chimney.
you will find recommendations for choosing a solid fuel boiler, and in the following you will get acquainted with the types and rules:

Transistor induction furnace: circuit

There are many different ways to assemble an induction heater with your own hands. A fairly simple and proven scheme of a furnace for melting metal is shown in the figure:

To assemble the installation with your own hands, you will need the following parts and materials:
• two field-effect transistors of the IRFZ44V type;
• two diodes UF4007 (you can also use UF4001);
• resistor 470 Ohm, 1 W (you can take two series-connected 0.5 W each);
• film capacitors for 250 V: 3 pieces with a capacity of 1 microfarad; 4 pieces - 220 nF; 1 piece - 470 nF; 1 piece - 330 nF;
• copper winding wire in enamel insulation Ø1.2 mm;
• copper winding wire in enamel insulation Ø2 mm;
• two rings from chokes removed from computer block nutrition.

Do-it-yourself assembly sequence:

• Field-effect transistors are mounted on radiators. Since the circuit gets very hot during operation, the radiator must be large enough. You can also install them on one radiator, but then you need to isolate the transistors from the metal using gaskets and washers made of rubber and plastic. Pinout field effect transistors shown in the figure.

• It is necessary to make two chokes. For their manufacture, copper wire with a diameter of 1.2 mm is wound around rings taken from the power supply of any computer. These rings are made of powdered ferromagnetic iron. They need to be wound from 7 to 15 turns of wire, trying to maintain the distance between the turns.

• The capacitors listed above are assembled into a battery with a total capacity of 4.7 microfarads. Connection of capacitors - parallel.

• The inductor winding is made of copper wire with a diameter of 2 mm. 7-8 turns of winding are wound on a cylindrical object suitable for the diameter of the crucible, leaving long enough ends to connect to the circuit.
• Connect the elements on the board in accordance with the diagram. A 12 V, 7.2 A/h battery is used as a power source. The current consumed in operation is about 10 A, the battery capacity in this case is enough for about 40 minutes. If necessary, the furnace body is made of heat-resistant material, for example, textolite. The power of the device can be changed by changing the number of turns of the inductor winding and their diameter.

During prolonged operation, the heater elements may overheat! You can use a fan to cool them.

Induction heater for melting metal: video

Lamp induction oven

A more powerful induction furnace for melting metals can be assembled by hand on vacuum tubes. The diagram of the device is shown in the figure.

To generate high-frequency current, 4 beam lamps connected in parallel are used. A copper tube with a diameter of 10 mm is used as an inductor. The unit is equipped with a trimmer capacitor for power adjustment. The output frequency is 27.12 MHz.

To assemble the circuit you need:

• 4 vacuum tubes - tetrodes, you can use 6L6, 6P3 or G807;
• 4 chokes for 100 ... 1000 μH;
• 4 capacitors at 0.01 uF;
• neon indicator lamp;
• tuning capacitor.

Assembling the device with your own hands:

1. An inductor is made from a copper tube, bending it in the form of a spiral. The diameter of the turns is 8-15 cm, the distance between the turns is at least 5 mm. The ends are tinned for soldering to the circuit. The inductor diameter must be larger diameter placed inside the crucible by 10 mm.
2. Place the inductor in the housing. It can be made from a heat-resistant non-conductive material, or from metal, providing thermal and electrical insulation from the circuit elements.
3. Cascades of lamps are assembled according to the scheme with capacitors and chokes. Cascades are connected in parallel.
4. Connect a neon indicator lamp - it will signal the readiness of the circuit for operation. The lamp is brought to the installation housing.
5. A tuning capacitor of variable capacitance is included in the circuit, its handle is also displayed on the case.

For all lovers of cold-smoked delicacies, we suggest you learn how to quickly and easily make a smokehouse with your own hands, and get acquainted with the photo and video instructions for making a cold-smoked smoke generator.

Circuit cooling

Industrial melting plants are equipped with a forced cooling system using water or antifreeze. Water cooling at home will require additional costs, comparable in price to the cost of the metal melting plant itself.

Air-cooling with a fan is possible provided that the fan is sufficiently remote. Otherwise, the metal winding and other elements of the fan will serve as an additional circuit for closing eddy currents, which will reduce the efficiency of the installation.

Elements of the electronic and lamp circuits are also able to actively heat up. For their cooling, heat-removing radiators are provided.

Work Safety Measures

• The main danger during operation is the risk of burns from the heated elements of the installation and molten metal.
• The lamp circuit includes elements with high voltage, so it must be placed in a closed case, eliminating accidental contact with the elements.
• The electromagnetic field can affect objects that are outside the device case. Therefore, before work, it is better to put on clothes without metal elements, remove complex devices from the coverage area: phones, digital cameras.

It is not recommended to use the device for people with implanted pacemakers!

A domestic metal melting furnace can also be used to quickly heat up metal elements, for example, when they are tinned or shaped. The characteristics of the presented installations can be adjusted to a specific task by changing the parameters of the inductor and the output signal of the generator sets - this way you can achieve their maximum efficiency.

The approximate melting point of aluminum is about 660 degrees Celsius, which allows melting even at home. Of course, it will not be possible to reach such a temperature on a gas stove, and it is highly undesirable to carry out such work indoors. There are many videos on the Internet, how to do it yourself. In this article we will consider the most interesting, proven and reliable methods.

Kinds

ovens, used in industry are very expensive. Their price is thousands and tens of thousands of dollars. In addition, such units take up an unacceptably large amount of space. Aluminum is the most common metal on Earth, so the industry in this direction moved far ahead. There are many types. For instance, inclined cylindrical furnaces, furnaces with reverberating crucible, carousel furnaces other.

But what to do if you need to make some part at home, but there is no way to order it for one reason or another? Excellent mini oven quite easy to make and do it yourself, and, for this, basically, it will not be necessary to look for any specific materials, parts and devices. Most of them can be found in almost every house, in the garage or in the country.

In essence, the principle of operation of all home-made stoves is simple and of the same type. Differences are usually only in some of them. design features. In some volumetric heat-resistant vessel fired up charcoal (this is the most successful fuel option for aluminum melting), into or over which in the crucible is placed the metal itself. The crucible can be, for example, trimmed fire extinguisher body, or even ordinary steel teapot. To increase the temperature of coals, high-quality air blowing from all sides is necessary (so that aluminum is heated evenly in the container). As a rule, oxygen is supplied through a pipe down the “well”. cravings an ordinary vacuum cleaner, an engine from an old hood, a cooler or even a hair dryer can create it. Basically, this the necessary conditions to create a kind of mini-smelter with your own hands.

Read also: How to make a clay kiln

Gypsum is usually used as a mold for casting parts. If it is necessary to cast an ordinary cylindrical ingot from aluminum, a piece of cut steel pipe will do. Consider the most interesting and simple designs mini ovens.

Wheel disc mini oven

Craft this model very simple. rim of the desired diameter is dug into the ground so that its surface coincides with the horizon, that is, does not protrude above the ground. In the middle of the disk inside the resulting firebox there should be a hole through which we pass bent pipe, which exits next to the smelter. Through it, oxygen will flow into the mini-oven from below. Useful as a blower small cooler, put on the pipe from the outside. However, with such an air supply, the blowing will be extremely poor quality and unidirectional. To do this, we will build something like a burner inside the boiler at the outlet of the pipe. It is convenient to use car disc brake welded over the pipe. After that, coals can be poured into the resulting mini-smelter and air can be supplied, raising their temperature. Aluminum scrap in the crucible is placed among the coals.

Metal tank oven

It is not necessary for the stove to be sunk into the ground. Easy to make by hand and portable oven. For this, any cylindrical tank made of heat-resistant metal, for example, a tank from an old washing machine with vertical loading. From the inside, the diameter of the tank is reduced by bricks and clay. Thus, the thickness of our furnace will be 10-15 centimeters. Do not forget to mount a pipe for inflation at the bottom of the case. Air can be supplied to it in any convenient way. Aluminum Raw Crucible hung inside the firebox. As you can see, there are no fundamental differences from the previous version. It is just as easy to make it yourself, the differences are only in necessary tools and details.