Steel melter for forty bucks? Needs a KW dc supply. Also $1 100nS 30KV! Also ALSO!

On Friday, December 11, 2015 at 4:35:04 AM UTC-5, Jan Panteltje wrote:
> Found a better crucible, it is the alu cap that holds the spring from the soldering stand of my LS50 soldering station.
> :-)
> That cap is not needed (it never catches any solder anyways),
> so now tried it with some more pieces of solder scrap I found:
>  http://panteltje.com/pub/inductive_heating_better_crucible_IMG_5195.JPG
> 
> A little more than a minute and a half or two before it all was very fluid, stuck a copper wire in it..
> It stays fluid quite long (minutes).
> Tried to tin some wire with mixed results, this solder was not very clean an 60/40 mixed with silver ROHS stuff, plus some plastic I guess, and dirt.
> 
> But it works.
> 
> I was sort of expecting as the cup filled up, that the part that forms the 'shorted turn' that creates the heat, to become smaller,
> and this seems to give an automatic temperature stabilization? 
> I mean if it is full there is no more shorted turns, provided the solder makes good contact.
> need to really measure current.

Probably not as good as measuring current, but you could make a pick up
coil from a few turns of wire and set it next to / near the big coil.  
I kinda expect the amplitude to drop as you load it.. but I don't know how much.

I've got a ~70MHz RF drive for a Rb bulb and that drops by 1/2 or more
when the bulb turns on.  

George H. 

> Found a better crucible, it is the alu cap that holds the spring from the soldering stand of my LS50 soldering station.
> :-)


Ooo, can you destroy aluminum using liquid solder?   Mercury or gallium will turn aluminum into gray powder.  LMI liquid-metal embrittlement.   But I think it has to "wet" the oxide-free Al first, like molten zinc does.   Perhaps tin/lead won't do it.

Generally the first time you mill or cut a graphite block at home is the last.  

Nasty fine black dust everywhere, and it dulls saw blades.

I do lathe down graphite welding/cutting  rods to make small crucibles, but I would seriously rather buy them. 

SWMBO will scold you and give you two supervised weeks of being Dr. Bunsen HoneyDo, if she ever saw what happens when you dry machine graphite without it being wet or near a serious collection system. 

Steve 

On a sunny day (Fri, 11 Dec 2015 12:49:07 -0800 (PST)) it happened Bill Beaty
<billb@eskimo.com> wrote in
<fdb194e2-daed-4580-adbb-e9a4fe377fab@googlegroups.com>:

>
>> Found a better crucible, it is the alu cap that holds the spring from the soldering stand of my LS50 soldering station.
>> :-)
>
>
>Ooo, can you destroy aluminum using liquid solder?   Mercury or gallium will turn aluminum into gray powder.  LMI liquid-metal
>embrittlement.   But I think it has to "wet" the oxide-free Al first, like molten zinc does.   Perhaps tin/lead won't do it.

Yes, I did notice the alu crucible has somehow become weaker,
I pressed it and it was easier to bend, i.e. it collapsed :-)
had to bend it back in shape again.
A carbon one is ordered (3 $).

Any next test will have to be above something to catch molten solder in.
Talking about molten solder, of course (:-)) I tipped it over at some point
while lowering the coil around it, and a whole bunch of fiery sparks appeared as molten solder shorted turns in the coil.
I switched off very fast.. No damage done apart from cleaning the coil
an filling up the crucible again.
But all that is just normal procedure no?

:-)
<disclaimer blah blah do not do this at home or even on an other planet...?
?

On a sunny day (Fri, 11 Dec 2015 14:18:45 -0800 (PST)) it happened
sroberts6328@gmail.com wrote in
<c8adceb0-04ae-468c-b727-0832caaf17d8@googlegroups.com>:

>Generally the first time you mill or cut a graphite block at home is the last.  
>
>Nasty fine black dust everywhere, and it dulls saw blades.
>
>I do lathe down graphite welding/cutting  rods to make small crucibles, but I would seriously rather buy them. 
>
>SWMBO will scold you and give you two supervised weeks of being Dr. Bunsen HoneyDo, if she ever saw what happens when you dry
>machine graphite without it being wet or near a serious collection system. 
>
>Steve 

Yea, for 2$39 inclusive shipping of course:
 http://www.ebay.com/itm/321849233116

And then you can melt even hotter things, like maybe GOLD?

On 14/12/15 06:06, Jan Panteltje wrote:
> While looking for things to melt I came across my Thorium welding rod collection.
> These are a bit [radio] active on the Geiger counter.
>
> One question that came up is: Will decay rate change in a RF (heating) field?

Heating should not affect the nucleus until you pass millions of degrees.

I doubt that your RF has a wavelength short enough to interact with the 
nucleus either!

Clifford Heath.

> So to see if I could measure this easily (without high power RF messing up my Geiger counter)
> I uses a Zns scintillation screen
>
>    to try to see if there were any flashes from those rods.
> Unfortunately after spending half an hour in the near dark bathroom I did not see any flashes...
>
> Should be alpha, say Helium ions...
>
> Thorium welding rods, Thorium lamp mantles, you know,
>
> But: Tests: Thorium welding rods do not heat up in the coil...
> And heating them up still does not show any light flashes on the screen.
>
> Should try that Geiger counter again.
>
> And that, was only part of all alien Xperiments today.
>
>
> I have also recorded some movies that I did not have time to watch, RED [2] one of them, it stands for ...
> Maybe I should watch it,.
> Maybe
>
>
> mm
> Suggestions?
> OK, no forget it.
> ;-)
>
> Can guess
>

While looking for things to melt I came across my Thorium welding rod collection.
These are a bit [radio] active on the Geiger counter.

One question that came up is: Will decay rate change in a RF (heating) field?

So to see if I could measure this easily (without high power RF messing up my Geiger counter)
I uses a Zns scintillation screen
 
  to try to see if there were any flashes from those rods.
Unfortunately after spending half an hour in the near dark bathroom I did not see any flashes...

Should be alpha, say Helium ions...

Thorium welding rods, Thorium lamp mantles, you know,

But: Tests: Thorium welding rods do not heat up in the coil...
And heating them up still does not show any light flashes on the screen.

Should try that Geiger counter again.

And that, was only part of all alien Xperiments today.


I have also recorded some movies that I did not have time to watch, RED [2] one of them, it stands for ...
Maybe I should watch it,.
Maybe 


mm
Suggestions?
OK, no forget it.
;-)

Can guess

On Sunday, December 13, 2015 at 11:06:21 AM UTC-8, Jan Panteltje wrote:
> While looking for things to melt I came across my Thorium welding rod collection.
> These are a bit [radio] active on the Geiger counter.

Probably tungsten TIG rods, with ?1% thorium.   Not very hot when 
compared to the powder from burned lantern mantels.

Once I had someone try to cut a TIG thorium rod with an oxy torch, 
thinking to avoid radioactive grindings.  Uh, no.  SUDDEN BIG YELLOW 
CLOUD of tungsten oxide smoke.   Mmmm, smells like alpha particles.

Actually we dropped everything, rolled up all the big overhead doors 
while fleeing outside.

Practiced habit: breathing outward continuously while fleeing.  Only 
take a breath far upwind, to check whether you're out of the plume.
Learned during the bygone age of big opaque clouds of bus engine 
exhaust, also fireworks, also cooking experiments involving dry chili 
peppers in overheated wok oil (an invisible tear-gas.)

On a sunny day (Sun, 13 Dec 2015 23:23:43 -0800 (PST)) it happened Bill Beaty
<billb@eskimo.com> wrote in
<1103e17a-74ec-46b1-987d-57e94f6cf5ee@googlegroups.com>:

>On Sunday, December 13, 2015 at 11:06:21 AM UTC-8, Jan Panteltje wrote:
>> While looking for things to melt I came across my Thorium welding rod collection.
>> These are a bit [radio] active on the Geiger counter.
>
>Probably tungsten TIG rods, with ?1% thorium.   Not very hot when 
>compared to the powder from burned lantern mantels.
>
>Once I had someone try to cut a TIG thorium rod with an oxy torch, 
>thinking to avoid radioactive grindings.  Uh, no.  SUDDEN BIG YELLOW 
>CLOUD of tungsten oxide smoke.   Mmmm, smells like alpha particles.
>
>Actually we dropped everything, rolled up all the big overhead doors 
>while fleeing outside.
>
>Practiced habit: breathing outward continuously while fleeing.  Only 
>take a breath far upwind, to check whether you're out of the plume.
>Learned during the bygone age of big opaque clouds of bus engine 
>exhaust, also fireworks, also cooking experiments involving dry chili 
>peppers in overheated wok oil (an invisible tear-gas.)

Yes I use that technique when soldering, the fumes seem to come after me sometimes... [1]
Anyways, thanks for the warning, will leave those rods alone for a while.
The big copper coil is by now somewhat colored copper getting darker.
MOSFETs stay very cool, body temperature or less.
Quite satisfied with this thing.

[1] especially when burning insulation of transformer wire, I have read these fumes are poisonous.
Those people who use thin transformer wire for prototyping use that, I do not want that.

Wanted to test some more things, and looking forward to baking some eggs, and maybe fish,
made a spiral coil,
as many of you suspect it was ever since I was abducted and the aliens .. but that is an other story,
anyways their math goes like this:
 I took length of the copper tubing in existing coil, (1 meter ) and as litz wire was way
 too expensive, even on ebay, I used 2 heavy gauche wires in parallel of the same length.

<insert formula here for eartlings ehh earth-links, whatever>.
Anyways, smoke! hey
but the coil did not get hot, where does this smoke come from?
I tested it on the PCB for thermal insulation, as before.
Well picked up the peeseebee, and it was freaking hot,
turned it over:
 http://panteltje.com/pub/why_the_unexpected_happened_IMG_5201.JPG

OK, that explains it, seems copper works too on a spiral coil!
Who would have thought that?
In case you think of soldering that way, not sure the components like it.
it is not very even either.
So, mm BAD burn, all the way through to my glass table, glass still OK:
 http://panteltje.com/pub/burn_trough_to_glass_table_IMG_5206.JPG
After setting the exhaust fan to maximum, and it still smells, and mind you this happens in just a second! these kind of things,

testing without the PCB, and with a steel spoon if it would burn water:
The alien calculations worked:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKIaj77ZWws&feature=youtu.be

 http://panteltje.com/pub/boiling_water_test_setup_IMG_5203.JPG