Chinese 1800 Watt Induction heater, unboxing, power supply and testing

[madsbarnkob]

This is a 1800 Watt Induction heater that I bought from ebay at 40 Euro, I avoided the cheapest seller for the simple reason that they all have bad reviews, so be sure to check that out before just buying the cheapest.

This is part 1, the unboxing:



The future parts will be power supply building and testing.

Pete who started a thread ( https://highvoltageforum.net/index.php?topic=530.0 ) has a wide ranged knowledge of induction heaters. Check out Pete Stanaitis website: https://spaco.org/Blacksmithing/ZVSInductionHeater/ZVS1800Watt/1800-2500WattZVSInductionHeaterNotes.htm and his take on the 1800W IH: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuazfefsFtE_9a2paf_yE-A

[madsbarnkob]

I built my first experimental cheap power supply and it was a great success!

12 laptop chargers put together for 40V 51A.

[madsbarnkob]

5 minute stress test at full power. 1800 Watt peak input power.

[BravoV]

Maybe its just me, usually I can tolerate it up to certain amount, but this latest video, I find the camera juggling is too much. As you're not a noob in video blogging, at least you could arrange the whole setup like the placements for the heater, coil, meters and their orientations and etc to be more "presentable" to your audience to minimize that.

[madsbarnkob]

Maybe its just me, usually I can tolerate it up to certain amount, but this latest video, I find the camera juggling is too much. As you're not a noob in video blogging, at least you could arrange the whole setup like the placements for the heater, coil, meters and their orientations and etc to be more "presentable" to your audience to minimize that.

I knew it would be a bit handheld as the setup was, thats why I had a 2nd camera on the work piece all the time, but thank you for the feedback, I could use a 2nd tripod/mount with smartphone holder

[madsbarnkob]

A new 2200 Watt power supply made from server power supplies, and with steady cameras

Test of it in a long induction heater run is being edited and will come online in a few days

[BravoV]

 

Regarding used beefy power supplies, alternative source is from former cellular towers, every big cities have it and they keep upgrading all the time. Usually they used really good one top tiers PSU, and once they've upgraded, these considered fully depreciated in their accounting dept. 

Scored bunch of these while ago at dirt cheap price, and these psu is designed to be adjustable, parallel (by design) and of course series too. Shot with a TO-220 chip as reference size.



Example from it's datasheet for parallel and adjustment.

[madsbarnkob]

Nice score to get such powerful SMPS cheap, and that they are built for master/slave configuration is just convenient 

I have done a lot of base station/tower mount amplifier teardowns: http://kaizerpowerelectronics.dk/general-electronics/teardowns-a-complete-list/

Some times I have been lucky to find the cabinets full of power supplies aswell, like these 27.2V 1540W models: http://kaizerpowerelectronics.dk/teardown/ericsson-rbs-2216-900-mhz-base-station-teardown/

But I must admit that I sell those as they have a value to radio amateurs when they can be modded for 28VDC, gives some cash to spend on other expensive equipment

[madsbarnkob]

This test is being run at 36VDC and everything stays cool over a course of 10 minutes, I would say it can run stable at this power input. The 5 minute test at 40VDC showed resonant capacitors heating up.

Test is powered by the "2200 Watt server power supply for induction heating"

[BravoV]

  thanks, shopping list updated.