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10/21 ben106 (32) Photos: Flickr - Induction Heater (updated as I progress)
10/22 803 (2017)
10/23 Iniaes (9) Goal: Replace dirty coal forge and heat producing propane forge in my brothers blacksmith shop for work on smaller items.
Contact Primary Requirements:

If you need assistance, Heat .5 inch square carbon steel to 2200-2400 °F DONE
please send an email to Easy and safe to use by non technical users Easy DONE, working on safe
forum at 4hv dot org. To Draw under 30 Amps at 120V Update: 60A at 240V DONE
ensure your email is not Water cooled work coil DONE
marked as spam, please Water or air cooled electronics DONE
include the phrase "4hv Thermal readout of water temperature, power supply, and inverter DONE
help" in the subject line. You Mains current usage readout DONE
can also find assistance via Auto shutdown and warning for an over temperature condition DONE
IRC, at irc.shadowworld.net, Operate in the 30-100KHz range DONE
room #hvcomm. Fully automatic - No user tuning required DONE
Working coil changeable by user without opening case DONE
Foot switch operation DONE
Support 4hv.org!
Donate: Secondary Requirements:
4hv.org is hosted on a Heat .5 inch square carbon steel to 2600–2800 °F DONE
dedicated server. Thermal display (LED or LCD) DONE
Unfortunately, this server Built in power control for operating at less than 100% powerDONE
costs and we rely on the Multiple resonant tank frequencies via capacitor or working coil inductor changes without system recalibration DONE
help of site members to EMI filtering DONE
keep 4hv.org running. Unity power factor DONE (.97 to .99)
Please consider donating.
We will place your name on
the thanks list and you'll be Type: uP/PLL tuned inverter coupled to a series resonant tank via a toroidal coupling transformer, .5-1.5 uH work coil
helping to keep 4hv.org
alive and free for everyone. Resources:
Members whose names Design And Application Guide For High Speed MOSFET Gate Drive Circuits
appear in red bold have Eliminating Parasitic Oscillation between Parallel MOSFETs
donated recently. Green Phase-Locked-Loop Applications
bold denotes those who A decent Current Transformers application note
have recently donated to Latch-Up Protection For MOSFET Drivers
keep the server carbon Hall-based sensing devices (current sensing is what we are looking for here)
neutral. IGBT Drive using MOSFET gate drivers
Soft-Switching principles and design techniques
Power Factor Boost Preregulator Core Loss Calculations
All the other great IHs on this site of course!
Johnathan's IH Tutorial
Tim Williams induction heating saga
Neon John's IH examples
Special Thanks To: Richie Burnett's IH theory
Aaron Holmes
Aaron Wheeler
Adam Horden ************************************************************
Alan Scrimgeour ************************************************************
Andre
http://4hv.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?140297 1/25
20/10/2017 Forums / Projects / Induction Heater - Series Resonant - uC/PLL Tuning - 4hv.org
Andrew Haynes Progress: (See Flickr gallery for full size photos, and more photos not shown here.)
Anonymous000
asabase 6/13/2014
Austin Weil It's been a while since my last update here but I've been busy on this project. Since the last update my brother has quit his
barney day job, built a big new shop and is now full time making tools using an updated induction heater model as his sole heat
Barry source (no coal or gas forge).
Bert Hickman
Bill Kukowski In an effort to give back to the open source community I have organized the older project files into a repository on GitHub
Blitzorn that I am making publicly available under the project name ReactorForge. This repository includes all schematics and code for
Brandon Paradelas my first 2 induction heaters (the second of which has been in operation full time for over a year). Over the coming weeks I
Bruce Bowling will be organizing and releasing the information for the new version seen in the video below. This will be the last update to
BubeeMike this thread as it has been focused on the older model. The newest prototype is much different and I will be starting a new
Byong Park thread to cover it.
Cesiumsponge
Chris F. The video below is of the mark III beta prototype (code name: CriticalMass) in operation.
Chris Hooper
Corey Worthington
Derek Woodroffe NEW Induction Heater - 6" long coil vs. 1/2" bar - Round 2
Dalus
Dan Strother
Daniel Davis
Daniel Uhrenholt
datasheetarchive
Dave Billington
Dave Marshall
David F.
Dennis Rogers
drelectrix
Dr. John Gudenas
Dr. Spark
E.TexasTesla
eastvoltresearch
Eirik Taylor
Erik Dyakov
Erlend^SE
Finn Hammer
Firebug24k
GalliumMan
Gary Peterson
George Slade
GhostNull
Gordon Mcknight
Graham Armitage
Grant
GreySoul
Henry H
IamSmooth
In memory of Leo
Powning
Jacob Cash 2/15/2012
James Howells My brothers company he started, Argyll Hammer is doing well on eBay and he's starting to get customer orders now. He just
James Pawson posted this one today on his Facebook page:
Jeff Greenfield "Big order, 40 pairs of tongs going to the guys at Trackers Earth, a wilderness survival/outdoor skills school in Oregon. They
Jeff Thomas will be doing some blacksmithing classes soon now too and needed tools."
Jesse Frost
Jim Mitchell
jlr134
Joe Mastroianni
John Forcina
John Oberg
John Willcutt
Jon Newcomb
klugesmith
Leslie Wright
Lutz Hoffman
Mads Barnkob
Martin King
Mats Karlsson
Matt Gibson The pressure is on to get the next version up and running. Just working on the case and refining the coupling transformer.
Matthew Guidry
mbd
Michael D'Angelo 01/2013:
Mikkel I updated this thread so that the newest updates are on top and the old ones are on bottom since it was getting so long. I'll
mileswaldron remember to do that in the future since it was a pain inverting the list items.
mister_rf
Neil Foster
Nick de Smith I've added a cooling solution to the IH to eliminate the need for running hoses to and from it before use.
Nick Soroka
nicklenorp I also added a small high CFM fan with a push button switch powered from the 12V cooling fan supply to pull away fumes
Nik when heating a work piece. This came as a request from my brother who was surprised this was not an add on feature for
Norman Stanley commercial units.
Patrick Coleman Pump 1/2HP 650GPH
Paul Brodie
Paul Jordan Radiator for 4 x 120mm
Paul Montgomery
Ped High RPM 12V Fan 120mm x 4
Peter Krogen
Peter Terren 12V Power Supply
PhilGood
Richard Feldman
Robert Bush
Royce Bailey
Scott Fusare
Scott Newman
smiffy
Stella
Steven Busic
Steve Conner
Steve Jones
Steve Ward
Sulaiman
Thomas Coyle
Thomas A. Wallace
Thomas W
Timo
Torch
Ulf Jonsson
vasil
Vaxian
vladi mazzilli
wastehl
Weston
William Kim
William N.
William Stehl
Wesley Venis
The aforementioned have
contributed financially to the
continuing triumph of
4hv.org. They are deserving
of my most heartfelt thanks.
What's next? Well not much for this unit. I've been working on the next one which is an LCLR tank topology vs this series
resonant version. The entire unit is more robust and much simpler. I've eliminated the PLL drive and am driving each of 4
individual gate drivers with a high frequency PWM (64MHz base F) power stage controller. This has eliminated the touch
analog circuitry, and most important allowed me to phase shift the full-bridge for perfectly smooth power control from 0 to
100%.
I'll be compiling that project in it's own topic most likely since it is vastly different from this one. I'll also circle back and
update the schematics and code for this one. The field testing and heavy use my brother has put on the unit has reviled much
and yielded beneficial changes.
On another note, my brother sold his Habañero Chile Grande -

Not because it didn't work as intended but because it was more expensive and vastly less convenient to use than the IH. He
also went part time on his day job and is now making more selling custom tools than he is in his career position. So the
pressure is on to get a more reliable, higher power unit going! Not to mention a backup.
8/18/2012:
My brother made a video of his shop progress and did a big portion of it on the IH, it was cool seeing it used by someone
besides myself when I was not there to baby it which was really the biggest goal.
When he is talking he is addressing some online blacksmith community. A quick warning, he is a big dork which is not the
same as us nerds and geeks. :)
update: I think he deleted the video.
Work in progress UPDATE: COMPLETE:

A few of the items I'm working on right now:
The next tank setup which will eliminate case heating by reducing inductance and raise tank efficiency.
A new control board with lots of upgrades including a micro-controller that will do the phase locking (on its own, no
FPGA, working on a breadboard now with a small LV test tank, just needs some more tweaking). This is big not
because there is an issue with the PLL, that thing works like a champ. But because it will allow me to have a tunable
range with no center frequency, basically a PLL that can set it's own tunable range each time it runs allowing the user
to switch coils out without retuning the PLL circuit. I know I could accomplish this to some degree using a varactor
(C1) and two digitally set potentiometers (R1,R2) on the PLL but that's adding more failure points to an already
touchy circuit in my opinion.
I'm also redesigning the IGBT driver to be more like a commercial driver with isolated DC/DC converters for each
transistor, fault sensing and protection to detect over-current and short-circuit conditions, adjustable blocking time,
desaturation protection and better common mode rejection... to name a few.
9/16/2012: So exciting day today, finally got the IH set up in my brother shop for some real life tests and heavy use. After
using it for only a few minutes I think he was ready to git rid of his $1500 propane forge he just bought.
There was a lot more I wanted to work on such as better current limiting, current readout on the LCD, program timed cycles,
temperature sensing and safety cutoffs, etc. Although the unit can run at a 20KW (.99PF) at 100% duty cycle indefinitely with
no over heating as long as the water is running even with no work piece in the coil. Much more over 20KW and the coupling
coil heats up above 130F so that will be the first thing that gets upgraded. I'm going to let him keep this one and build a new
one with a new board and better tank setup and see how far I can go. He would like to be able to melt about 5-10lbs of
material for making his own steel, seems easily do able.
Anyway here are a few pics and videos, nothing really technical just the results of a semi-permanent setup in the shop. I left
the case off to allow some tweaking if needed and because there is a bit of inductive heating in the case where the tank is
close to the metal, a cleaner tank setup will probably solve that. Copper stock on order!
Messing with a 1/2 bar at 10-20KW (10 cold, 18-20 hot)
First Shop Test of the Microcontroller/PLL Controlled Induction Heater
Pulling apart a 1/2" bar with an induction heater at about 12 KW
More in the Flickr album of course...
9-12-2011: Here is the current schematic for the control board and a few photos of the first prototype board, good bye noisy
breadboard!
The small breadboard on the side was for testing an active filter/amplifier for mains current sensing (which is a pure sine
wave with Fo embedded in it) that is currently using a ratiometric hall effect sensor: ACS756SCA-100B. There were a few
other tweaks and additions I made after the board was fabricated as with most prototypes, but the schematic is updated.
Also it now supports small controlled fusion reactions. ;)
8/24/2012: Ok it's been a while since my last update, these things take time to create and well time is money. I received
the hall effect sensors (Allegro's ACS758ECB-200B-PSS-T) and have those hooked up to monitor mains current so I can
implement current limiting and power factor correction. These are very easy to use, the output is ratiometric to Vcc so it
remains accurate in a noisy environment and with temperature fluctuations.
The main reason for current monitoring was to be able to implement some form of current limiting. At the moment I am using
a simple zero point detector circuit to signal to the uController the beginning of an AC cycle. A time delay is then imposed
before reading the current with an ADC channel to ensure that the reading is taken at the peak of each cycle.
2mS Scale
Top trace: Top half of the 20V-peak AC on the low voltage power supply
Bottom trace: 5V squared representation of the mains AC inverted
So using falling edge detection to fire an interupt in the uController we can now measure the current at any phase angle on
the positive current slop.
1mS Scale
Top trace: Top half of the 20V-peak AC on the low voltage power supply
Bottom trace: 5V test pulse generated 4mS after the beginning of the positive going AC slope putting the test pulse roughly at
the peak of the half cycle
Shown below is the 240VAC waveform along with the mains current waveform. Since we are using a rectifier and a filter
capacitor we have this horrible non-linier current wave form. To measure the peak current we need to sample it at exactly
2mS into the positive half cycle. We can not simply cut off the bottom of the current waveform and smooth it with a low pass
filter since the waveform is non-linier. Doing so would give us an average current reading, but I am interested in the peak
current. This is where some reading up on Power Factor would be good if you do not already understand the benefits of having
a unity power factor.
Power factor on Wikipedia

Power Factor Basics <-- very good one
2mS Scale
There was a problem with measuring the current at a set phase angle, depending on the load the current waveform can shift
or change shape entirely as seen below.
2uS Scale
120VAC waveform along with the mains current waveform. This is a better power factor than running on 240V at higher power
levels but still below .80.
So I need to measure the current at any point from 0-90 or 0-4mS from the positive slop trigger point. I decided to run the
ADC continuously after triggered by the falling edge of the inverted square AC waveform, keeping track of two values. 1: the
highest current value read since the beginning of this phase and 2: the average current value since the beginning of this
phase. The ADC keeps running until the average level begins to drop, a 5 amp drop was a good point to avoid prematurely
stoping the ADC due to fluctuation. This means the zero point detector is no longer needed for current reading, but I still have
something else in mind that will require it later... active power factor correction.
Power factor is a big deal when you are drawing a lot of current. Say running at 240VAC your peak current is 100A but your
current wave form is non-linear, you have a lot of wasted power or KVAR. If your power factor is .75 then then your true
power or KW is only 18,000, the KVAR is 6,000, and the total KVA is 24,000. Your machine is making use of 18,000 watts of
power or 75A but your breaker, rectifier, and filter cap all need to be able to handle 24,000 watts or 100A. If you could bring
your power factor closer to unity or 1 then your reactive power (KVAR) to true power (KW) would be zero and the current
used in the system would equal the current supplied to the system. So no energy would be wasted as reactive power.
There are many ways to go about correcting power factor depending on if you have an inductive, capacitive, or non-linear
voltage to current phase relationship. The method I had chosen, although it would require a fairly large inductor was a buck-
boost type which to put it simply uses a switch to short the rectifier output across an inductor. The inductor holds a charge
that is then released back into the filter capacitor through a diode. The switching rate is varied to force the capacitor to draw
charging current in phase with the AC mains. Not a terribly complex idea and not complex to implement. But it does require
another switch either MOSFET or IGBT since the switching rate is still fairly low which means another driver. And it requires a
large inductor to store energy and a diode to direct the flow of that energy. It will also require uProcessor time to read the
current waveform and adjust the pulse rate to correct as needed, or a stand alone buck-boost power factor correction chip
which will require another handful of passive components. In short I'm trying to keep this project simple and cost effective but
still with incorporate some valuable features like power factor correction.
This lead me to start at the root of the problem (which is why it has been a while since my last update). What causes bad
power factors. A lightbulb which presents a purely resistive load on the AC mains has a perfect power factor of .98 to 1.
(Some stray inductance here and there, and probably a very small amount in the filament coil.) But nearly perfect by any
measure. So what is causing my big amp sucking DC power supply to have such a crap current waveform. The rectifier itself
doesn't draw any current or affect current draw of the load, hook one up to AC and you get 120Hz out. Hook a light bulb up to
that and you still get a power factor of 1.
AC Mains
Rectifier output (Inverter input) No Load / Load
Hook a filter capacitor up to that same circuit and bam, the power factor drops to about .70. This is because the capacitor
does not re-charge in phase with the voltage. Rather the current begins to rise early in the phase and peaks just before the
peak of the voltage so the current leads the voltage. Any capacitive reactance causes current to lead voltage. We could
counter act that capacitive reactance with inductive reactance, similar to what is happening in the tank circuit at resonance.
But we have the same problem here as we did trying to read the current at the peak of the waveform, depending on the load
that the IH is drawing the effect of capacitive reactance varies because there are other factors involved besides a simple
XL/XC circuit, so we would need to vary the inductance. Again requiring the need to read the complex waveform and adjust.
Let's go back to the light bulb hooked up to the AC mains through a rectifier with no filter capacitor. Why can't I do that with
the induction heater? Rather than a feeding a fixed DC voltage of 340V (240 x √2) to the IGBTs and getting a consistent
square wave output of pulsed 340V we feed 120Hz 340V peak into the IGBT inverter and the output is a 120Hz envelope
containing the resonant high frequency component. Well I say I can do that. There can be issues with under voltage IGBT's
turning on from an off state but since we are pulsing them at a frequency much higher than the frequency of the input voltage
this effect is non-existant or does not affect IH operation at least.
Power Factor reading on a Kill-a-Watt meter (While running on 120V about 10A)
240VAC mains input and current waveforms
Same as above but zoomed in on the high frequency resonant component of the current waveform
Inverter drive Fo and mains current waveform
Inverter output showing the resonant component Fo inside of the 120Hz envelope
Another feature I added was soft starting and stopping of the inverter Fo by ramping the PWM output feeding the VCO from
15V (Max VCO Fo) down until a resonant lock is achieved, and when the stoping the IH the VCO is ramped up from it's current
setting back to VCO max be for disabling the PLL VCO using pin 5 of the PLL. This gives a nice smooth start and stop of the
inverter with no bucking or large in-rush current.
So far I have not been able to find any negative side effects in running the inverter like this, only one big positive. Which is
25% less current draw while still maintaining the same output power both by measurement and by results.
1/2 Bar white hot and sparking in 10 seconds from cold. Melted in half at about 12 seconds.
In this video I pulse the IH on and off to keep the metal from just melting and falling off but keep it hot enough to burn it
away. I am going to add a code to allow the user to change the maximum current so pulsing to do this type of heating will not
be necessary.
Melting 1/2 carbon steel
Time for some fun:
Penny Fire:
Zinc has a fairly low ignition temperature, seen here is the zinc oxide left behind from a penny fire! I had a vacuum ventilating
to outdoors for this. I would have taken a picture of the fire but I was to busy making sure it was contained. It was a brilliant
white (similar to burning magnesium) with a ting of green. Out of the fire spewed long strands of smokey blue zinc oxide.
Another way to use the work coil
Quickie furnace cement crucible
Molten zinc in a crucible and the effect of the magnetic field on the zinc.
Molten Al, Cu, Zn alloy
Cooled Al,Cu,Zn alloy
Alloy: 75% Al - 20% Cu - 5% Zn : This ended up being a very interesting alloy, with a dark sheen and heavy feel, very brital
even though it was cooled slowly and has a beautiful crystalline structure.
Alloys of Al Cu and Zn are very common and among some of the hardest and lightest known to man. With a little precipitation
hardening this one would be much less brittle but it has much more copper than most alloys of this type to be useful for
much.
8/9/2012: I've migrated away from the MOSFETs to IGBT's using a simple driver setup, TC4421A/22A's driving a P0585NL
gate transformer which is controlling the gates of 4 x 30W discreet MOSFETs which are in turn driving a custom wound
1:1:1:1:1 gate transformer that can handle about 30 watts to drive the IGBTs directly. I chose to go ahead and do this before
working on the current limiting for two reasons. One because IGBT's will be used in the final design so it has to happen
anyway and two because I'm waiting on some single IGBT blocks for the current limiting circuit. I'm not going to use SCR's
like originally planned. I'm either going to detune the tank or use an IGBT to PWM the the DC bus output between the rectifier
and filter cap.
Water block construction:
IGBT setup on water block with the 3 Phase rectifier, filter cap, snubber cap, and bus connections:
New IGBT inverter mounted:
IGBT driver test setup
Currently I'm running two 580V 3.75uF Eurofarad tank capacitors with a .864uH work coil for an uploaded Fo of 62.5Khz.
Unloaded this setup pulls 50A when feed with 120VAC single phase and 125A when feed with 240VAC single phase. With 200A
IGBT's I won't be trying it on 3 phase.
Videos:
Testing 1/4" square on 120V peaking at about 35A Sparkling white hot in about 25 sec
1/4" square bar @ 25KVA

1/2" round bar @ 25KVA
7/30/2012: Over the weekend I got the resonant control working with the micro controller and PLL and changed to a larger
coil (4 uH) which lowered the resonant frequency to around 41KHz. I still need to do some work on the coupling transformer, I
don't have an issue with the wires heating just the toroid cores.
7-30-2012: I had a noisy ground issues that was causing the uProcessor to reset when the unit hit about 12 amps of current
draw from the mains but solved it last night when I rearranged the test setup so that the control lines were all leading away
from the tank. I also removed the variac and hooked directly to a 30A circuit breaker through 6AWG wire. With this setup the
unit draws about 20A with a cold work piece and 30 to 32 past curie.
Something else interesting is that I no longer seem to have a problem with the toroids in the coupling transformer heating up.
This was after a 5 minute run at 3000VA. Will take a closer look at this later.
The next addition to the unit (after I complete the current sensing circuit and code) will be to replace the MOSFETs with IGBT
bricks (200 or 400A). My brothers original power requirements were a bit limiting but he now has available a 240V 60A circuit
so I can up this to a 15KW unit.
7/25/12: So it's been a while since my last update, I tend get caught up in the process and don't make time to document
my progress. Once it's complete I'll have a nice summary of the whole project. Since the last update I made and stuffed an
inverter board. This board was initially just for testing so I could complete the control logic and work with the basic signals
that are present in this type of IH. Well I wasn't happy with it. I had trace heating at higher power levels and and melted
solder resulted in a flash over from tank output to ground taking out a few components near it's path. I redesigned the
inverter board routing the HV manually on larger bus lines, seperated the HV from LV control, and added some latch up
protection on the now larger TO-220 drivers (from SOIC-8). I also made the inverter ground and LV ground connection
optional and clearly defined. All signals look beautiful and I can safely run at 15Amps (off of 120V mains using the voltage
doubler power supply) for long periods using the now water cooled MOSFETs. Even with the cooling water around 90-95
degrees F the FETs hover around 115-130 degrees when pulling 15A at resonance.
Flash over:
New inverter board, water block for bridge and MOSFETs, coupling tx (trying different toroids and wire), tank setup (removed
loop intended for current balancing an MMC), terminal strip for connections.
Test setup with Inverter logic drive in, Inverter current out, and tank voltage out. Will get some cleaner pics up as well as all
the scope tracings.
New Inverter (V2.1):
Updated eagle project files for the inverter: ih-inverter.zip
As always there are more pics in the Flicker album not shown here. Since these pictures I have removed one of the tank
capacitors and raised the work coil inductance slightly, the resonance frequency is still around 65KHz. More to come soon on
the PLL/uController resonance lock.
7/2/12: Completed initial schematic and board design for the Inverter Power Supply, Low Voltage Power Supply, & Inverter.
All control logic will remain on a breadboard until I work out how I want to control resonance, manage power, and what needs
monitoring. I'll make the boards on the 5th and stuff them on on the 6th when the last of the components arrive. That leaves
the weekend for the fun part, putting it all together and making it work!
Images and Eagle project files: ih-power-inverter.zip
6/28/12: Bonded tank cap mounts to the tank cooling pipes and mounted the caps. A little No-Ox on the copper plates
between the caps to keep the connection clean. The brackets are made from 1/16" rigid coper and are short to allow the
capacitors to dissipate heat via the cooling water running through the pipes just below them.
6/27/12: Assembled the first coupling transformer (will use litz wire when it arrives), and capacitor mounting brackets for
the Eurofarad tank caps. Working on a phase monitoring set up to possibly eliminate the PLL. Basically I'm using a comparator
to turn the wave form of a current transformer (at the output of the inverter going to the coupling transformer) into a square
wave, changing states at the zero cross points. This is fed into one port of the uP. Another comparator set up connected
across the tank capacitor sends a similar square wave to the uP, this one shows the phase of the voltage across the capacitor.
Since we know that the current and voltage are in phase in the tank at resonance we can use these inputs to determine if we
are at resonance and if not which way to tune. The comparators outputs are shown in the photo below, I on top and E on
bottom. I'm not sure yet if I want to generate the inverter driver frequency with a uP interrupt or a VCO of some type, we'll
see. I'll have schematics and results up here as soon as I complete them.
6/23/12 - 6/25/12: Built the PLL/uProcessor circuit on a bread board to test and work out a final schematic design for the
resonant frequency range needed. (Currently 45-100KHz) - Received lots of toroids, caps, and other fun stuff, most of the
parts that I don't have in stock are here now.
6/20/12: Received rectifiers (1000V 50A) and caps for HV supply. Wired up the HV multiplier power supply for testing. AC
IN:DC OUT = about 1:2.85 so 120VAC in yields about 340VDC out.
6/16/12 - 6/18/12: Obtained the remaining copper parts needed to assemble the tank. Cleaned out an old ATX computer
case and modified to work as a case for the Induction heater. Fabricated and mounted working coil and internal plumbing for
tank capacitor mounting, coupling transformer mounting, and water cooling. Most of the parts will be arriving this week form
Digikey, Mouser, Newark, OnlineComponents, AliExpress, and of course eBay
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Dr. ISOTOP Tue Jun 19 2012, 04:54AM
How are you planning to control power? Bus voltage control, phase shifting the legs, detuning, pulse-skipping?
Registered Member #2919

Joined: Fri Jun 11 2010,
06:30PM
Location: Cambridge, MA
Posts: 652
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Josh Campbell Tue Jun 19 2012, 05:30PM
I'll most likely adjust the phase angle before the HV bridge rectifier using large Eupec PowerBlock SCR's:

Joined: Sun Jun 10 2012,
10:15PM
Location: Missouri - USA
Posts: 117
Other options I will want to try are making a fully-controled SCR bridge rectifier in place of the standard one. Or making a
variable tap coupling transformer.
Did you ever incorporate any type of power control into yours, have any suggestions or pointers?
Back to top
Dr. ISOTOP Tue Jun 19 2012, 08:33PM
2bytes wrote ...
I'll most likely adjust the phase angle before the HV bridge rectifier using large Eupec PowerBlock SCR's:

Joined: Fri Jun 11 2010,
06:30PM
Location: Cambridge, MA
Posts: 652
Other options I will want to try are making a fully-controled SCR bridge rectifier in place of the standard one. Or making a variable tap
coupling transformer.
Did you ever incorporate any type of power control into yours, have any suggestions or pointers?
I had a 4-tap transformer to control power for different work piece materials, and I detuned the driver for finer control. Its
not good for the bridge, but I was using watercooled CM400's, which dealt with it fine.
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Dr. Dark Current Sat Jul 14 2012, 10:11AM
Remember to use an inductor if you are controlling a capacitive load with a SCR.

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Josh Campbell Wed Jul 25 2012, 07:32PM
Dr. Dark Current wrote ...
Remember to use an inductor if you are controlling a capacitive load with a SCR.
Definitely! But thank you for the reminder, sometimes I'm only reminded of subtle things like this AFTER catastrophic
Registered Member #5258 component failure. I would like to actually cancel out any reactance using a boost type converter and correct the power
Joined: Sun Jun 10 2012, factor to 1 so the SCR's would only see a resistive load. But this is obviously not a major requirement in order for the IH to
10:15PM work properly so it will probably be the very last thing I do, if I do it at al, for now denting above resonance works just fine.
Posts: 117
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Josh Campbell Thu Aug 09 2012, 11:30PM
I was really looking for a reason to use these SCRs in something but I don't think I want to use them just for the sake of
using them when driving an IGBT is so much easier and more flexible. I am going to test using an IGBT to PWM the DC bus
before the filter cap, will update with results soon. I do need to do some type of current limiting for sure since when
connected to 240V it pulls about 125 amps with no work piece to load it, which is about twice what my brother has available
where this is going.
Check out the new vids, nothing new really (glowing stuff) but it does show the working PLL/uP tuning in use. I'll get some
videos of the scope and the IH together while in use to show that part a little better. One button operation is really nice,
rather not say how many MOSFETs I blew tuning it manually during testing. :)
10:15PM
Videos:
Posts: 117
Testing 1/4" square on 120V peaking at about 35A (Sparkling white hot in about 25 sec)
1/4" square bar @ 25KVA
1/2" round bar @ 25KVA
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Gabriel35 Fri Aug 10 2012, 12:21PM
Pretty Impressive!!!
I hope that someday I can reach something like that!!!

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Josh Campbell Fri Aug 10 2012, 11:19PM
Gabriel35 wrote ...
Pretty Impressive!!!
I hope that someday I can reach something like that!!!

Appreciate it Gabriel, once I finish the closed loop hall effect current sensing/limiting portion I'll get the rest of the
schematics and pcb layouts up along with descriptions and walk throughs. And after I refine the Atmel code I'll post it up
10:15PM
here as well. So far I've made the prototype boards but once I get a revised "final" version I'll have some made and
probably post the rest of them up here just to offset the cost of ordering multiples. As of now it will have a low voltage ps
Posts: 117
board and then all the control and driver circuitry on another board. With a possibility of having the driver circuitry on it's
own board as well, we'll see, there's not much to that part now that I'm using IGBT's.
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Jrz126 Sat Aug 11 2012, 07:05PM
Looks great.
Where'd you get the ferrite cores for the coupling transformer? What material is it?

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Josh Campbell Sat Aug 11 2012, 08:33PM
Jrz126 wrote ...
Looks great.
Where'd you get the ferrite cores for the coupling transformer? What material is it?

The grey ones are iron powder toroids material type 3 with a frequency range of 50 to 500KHz distributed by Amidon.
10:15PM
T225-3 Iron Powder Toroid
Posts: 117 The yellow ones are also iron powder toroids material type 26 for use as high temperature transformer cores. They are
similar in quality to Micrometal's type 26 cores but I'm unsure of the manufacturer. These are nice to have around as they
take a lot to saturate at sub 100KHz Fo ranges.
AT225-26B High Temperature Iron Powder Ferrite Core
The coupling transformer configuration isn't final but it is working very well at high power levels. For example running near
10KVA (240VAC in limited to 40A) the toroid core never passed 115 degrees F on long runs. I have an assortment of power
conversion rated powdered iron toroid cores from Micrometals that I need to experiment with. I may end up using a type 52
for the final stage gate transformer (that's actually what's on it now) and for the coupling/matching transformer as they
seem to perform much better than the type 26 material up to 250KHz and have lower losses than the 26 below 100KHz
(Their design tool is pretty useful.)
I have a BOM of all the parts and suppliers that I'll list once I finalize it all.
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teravolt Mon Aug 13 2012, 03:59AM
do your tank caps get hot and are you still just using the one

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Josh Campbell Mon Aug 13 2012, 02:21PM
Right now I'm using both of them since I have a a smaller H work coil attached. With both of them attached and running
from 240VAC mains limited to 50-60A they run only slightly warm, showing around 115-130° F on the IR thermometer. The
front cap does get a bit more warm than the back one, the next tank I build I'll put them equidistant from the work coil
rather than front to back like they are now. I'll post some vids or pics of a long run and show the temperatures of the
working components.

10:15PM
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teravolt Mon Aug 13 2012, 04:52PM
if you switch the caps will the front one still get hot? what do you think the circulating current is?

08:27PM
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Josh Campbell Mon Aug 13 2012, 07:52PM
If the caps are arranged to be an equal distance from the work coil then they will heat evenly since the current will not favor
one or the other as is the case with one being closer. (The cap closest to the work coil will be carrying the most current.)
When running at 10KVA my 300A clamp on meter pegs out hard when attached just behind the work coil. I'll do some tests
with the variac at reduced power levels and plot a graph of tank current as supply voltage increases.
I have some hall effect current sensors on the way that I will be using to determine mains draw current and maybe for fun,
tank current at high power levels.
10:15PM
Posts: 117
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Dr. Dark Current Mon Aug 13 2012, 09:05PM
You can measure the current by putting a small cap in parallel to the tank caps and measure the current through it (if the
cap is 1000 times smaller than the tank one, you will get 1000 times lower current).

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Josh Campbell Tue Aug 14 2012, 02:14PM
Dr. Dark Current wrote ...
You can measure the current by putting a small cap in parallel to the tank caps and measure the current through it (if the cap is 1000
times smaller than the tank one, you will get 1000 times lower current).

I'll try that, although I may have to wait until the caps are rearranged to be an equal distance from the coil or take one out
since the placement of the small cap relative to the tank cap(s) would likely make a difference in current reading. I should
10:15PM
also be able to work it out mathematically since I know the input V & I along with the peak tank voltage from the scope
readings. Hall effect sensors will be here today too!
Posts: 117
I'm working on finishing the control board to get everything off of the breadboard, once that is finished I'll have more time
to look at interesting things like tank current.
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klugesmith Tue Aug 14 2012, 03:15PM
For tank current measurement, a permanently installed Rogowski coil might be well suited.
Its sensitivity (in units of nH) can be calculated from geometry. An integrator to give you voltage proportional to current
could be passive and trivial. Especially in your narrow frequency range of interest.
If you're interested, I could give you one of my PCB Rogowski coils as described here:

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12:22AM
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Josh Campbell Tue Aug 14 2012, 03:47PM
klugesmith wrote ...
For tank current measurement, a permanently installed Rogowski coil might be well suited.
Its sensitivity (in units of nH) can be calculated from geometry. An integrator to give you voltage proportional to current could be
passive and trivial. Especially in your narrow frequency range of interest.
Joined: Sun Jun 10 2012, If you're interested, I could give you one of my PCB Rogowski coils as described here:
10:15PM
Posts: 117
A standard closed loop CT would obviously not work due to inductive heating of the core, my clamp on was quite hot after
just clamping it on and removing it in under a second or two. But an open loop Rogowski coil would work great, good idea!
And since the Rog coil has no iron core to saturate, it's response is very fast. I used something similar to measure magnetic
fields in another project. The pcb is a very cool idea but I think i would rather have the coil on a flexible substrate so I could
wrap it around the 1/2" tank bus tube. I wrapped the wire on a 1/4" flexible pvc tube in the past.
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Gabriel35 Tue Sep 04 2012, 12:02PM
How are you measuring those waveforms on your scope? Using Differential probes right?

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Josh Campbell Tue Sep 04 2012, 03:52PM
Gabriel35 wrote ...
How are you measuring those waveforms on your scope? Using Differential probes right?
Registered Member #5258 One would think so but no. The my differential probe has been shot for a while, a scope upgrade is in my near future so I'm
Joined: Sun Jun 10 2012, waiting until then to get new probes. I just isolated the scopes ground and was careful which grounds I connected together
10:15PM with the scope probes. I usually leave my o-scope floating anyway to avoid ground loops.
Posts: 117
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teravolt Wed Sep 05 2012, 04:14AM
hi 2bytes I recently aquired some celem caps and I am trying to make a decision on a 4046 circiut and I am interested how
you integrated the pll with the micro and did you use a arduino?
it could have other applications for driving other circuits like DRSSTC
Registered Member #195 what is the advantages of using a micro with the 4046?
08:27PM
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Josh Campbell Sun Sep 09 2012, 05:46PM
teravolt wrote ...
hi 2bytes I recently aquired some celem caps and I am trying to make a decision on a 4046 circiut and I am interested how you
integrated the pll with the micro and did you use a arduino?

10:15PM
Posts: 117
it could have other applications for driving other circuits like DRSSTC
what is the advantages of using a micro with the 4046?
Hey Nathan sorry for the delay, I've been working on a really fun RGB LED project for a client and got side tracked from HV.
:)
I'll post my current control schematic and a couple new photos in the OP. Basically I just have the uC inserted as the low
pass filter for the PLL. The micro controller takes in the output of the the Phase Comparator I out through a low pass filter.
From this we know what the current phase difference is between Fo (inverter drive frequency) and Tce (Voltage across tank
the tank capacitor). As I'm sure you already know the tank voltage should lag behind the inverter drive F by 90 degrees at
resonance. The uC simply outputs an analog voltage via filtered PWM to feed VCO in on the PLL. This allows us to do much
more than a simple low pass filter. Soft starting/stoping, and current control by detuning to name a couple.
The original code was written in C using AVR Studio 6 when I was using the bread board and STK200. I moved to Bascom
for the new board once I knew the hardware was working well because it makes it so quick and easy. Although the resulting
code is not as optimized imo so I will eventually rewrite the basic for the final product in C.
I'm not a fan of Arduino, I guess because I've been using Atmel products for 10+ years, long before that thing came along.
Plus I just make my own boards or have them made for less than the cost of an Arduino. But there is definitely value in
them for the beginner or when in a hurry I suppose.
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Josh Campbell Wed Sep 12 2012, 04:40PM
BTW Nathan, that's a very nice setup.

Have you tested that push/pull coupling transformer setup yet? Would be interested to see how well that works. What type
of cores are those, did you pick them up for this use or just have them lying around? Same thing with the Celem caps, did
you source them just for this or just happen upon them? Sure would be nice if those were available as surplus somewhere.

10:15PM
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teravolt Mon Sep 17 2012, 03:04AM
hi Josh, sorry for the delay, I want to do the same thing you are doing but I want to use Raspberry Pi and python to make
the same sort of driver.
I haven't applied the driver yet I ame looking at what type of circuit to drive it. I am not shure of what types of cores they
are I know they were used for some sort of pulsed transformer aplication and I picked them up as surplus. I have used a
signal generator and the resonant frequency is around 10k unloaded. the celems I got on ebay and I snached them up as
soon as I soon as I could. The tank circuit has been upraded since the last picture and I will show later I added a mica wrap
3uf+celem 2uf+celem .1uf is my total capacitance. when I get back from yosemite I'll do another picture. what is the
resonant freq unloaded. I cind of wanted ti do what Linas did with his

08:27PM
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Josh Campbell Mon Sep 17 2012, 03:26AM
HA, I was thinking of using a RasPi in my next version to talk to an FPGA so I could deal with the phase relation ship in real
time. Although I think it might be a bit overkill and probably wont use it, a uController to interface with the FPGA is almost
always sufficient. But who knows, I did already by this nice case for it from Polycase (highly recommended). Linas might
have the better idea, just using a prebuilt controller, a lot of the buck/boost PF correction controllers for florescent lights
would work too. They have every feature and more built in that you would need to run an IH. I really just wanted to do it
myself in the raw to see what was happening, plus I like PLLs and micro controllers, you know getting your hands dirty and
wrapping your mind around the fundamentals.
Registered Member #5258 Have fun in Yosemite (if your going for fun) and keep us updated on your IH!
10:15PM
Posts: 117
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teravolt Mon Sep 17 2012, 02:59PM
I read some whare that a RPi has lots of interup cycles and that if real time controle is neaded that adruino is better. I am
wating for the gert board wich has a aduino chip on it and that could be used to run the 4046 and make adjustments while
rpi monitors. FPGA is definatly the way to go it seams. I am realy a newbe when it comes to programing but I know how to
hardware. I thought pyton and C and linux are handy to know. maby it is pausible to make a PLL that is aduino based or like
you say using a FPGA. micro mixed with analog is good. when I refired to Linas's thread he has some of thos poly caps that
you use plus a celem and mixing caps can be tricky. In his setup I think that his poly caps do moast of the work because
here XL is 10 times less than the celem and I want to balence it more and I am not shure if it is necisary with the celem. I
have wated a long time to find some Celem caps that are afordable.
yosemite is nce and I haven't cought the Haunta Virus hear in curry village yet I hope

08:27PM
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Hi Josh, here is a picture of my additions next week I hope to work on the igbt driver

08:27PM
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oops sorry for duble poast

08:27PM
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Josh Campbell Wed Sep 19 2012, 03:11AM
That's looking great! I'm really interested in your push/pull coupler. Did you see that somewhere else or is that a Nathan
original? Also what is that MMC on top of your Celems, are you trying to lower your resonant frequency with those? Or is it a
DC filter array or snubber network? Also if that current clamp you have behind your work coil is an iron core you'll melt it,
trust me. ;) You'll have to measure tank current by another means, there are a couple methods listed above, unless your
running low power of course.
Just noticed you used compression connections, the flare tool is $15-30 and it's worth it. I highly recommend flare
Registered Member #5258 connections over compression.
10:15PM
Posts: 117
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Username: Josh Campbell Tue Jun 19 2012, 03:51AM

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Members Birthdays: NEW! Github Repository: https://github.com/joshcam/ReactorForge

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Contact Primary Requirements:

On another note, my brother sold his Habañero Chile Grande -

update: I think he deleted the video.

Work in progress UPDATE: COMPLETE:

Messing with a 1/2 bar at 10-20KW (10 cold, 18-20 hot)

First Shop Test of the Microcontroller/PLL Controlled Induction Heater

Pulling apart a 1/2" bar with an induction heater at about 12 KW

More in the Flickr album of course...

Also it now supports small controlled fusion reactions. ;)

Power factor on Wikipedia

Rectifier output (Inverter input) No Load / Load

240VAC mains input and current waveforms

Inverter drive Fo and mains current waveform

Time for some fun:

Another way to use the work coil

Quickie furnace cement crucible

Molten Al, Cu, Zn alloy

Cooled Al,Cu,Zn alloy

Water block construction:

New IGBT inverter mounted:

IGBT driver test setup

1/4" square bar @ 25KVA

New Inverter (V2.1):

Updated eagle project files for the inverter: ih-inverter.zip

Dr. ISOTOP Tue Jun 19 2012, 04:54AM

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Josh Campbell Tue Jun 19 2012, 05:30PM

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Dr. ISOTOP Tue Jun 19 2012, 08:33PM

2bytes wrote ...

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Dr. Dark Current Sat Jul 14 2012, 10:11AM

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Dr. Dark Current wrote ...

Josh Campbell Thu Aug 09 2012, 11:30PM

Gabriel35 Fri Aug 10 2012, 12:21PM

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Josh Campbell Fri Aug 10 2012, 11:19PM

Gabriel35 wrote ...

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Jrz126 Sat Aug 11 2012, 07:05PM

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Josh Campbell Sat Aug 11 2012, 08:33PM

Jrz126 wrote ...

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