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My induction heater is an inverter. An inverter takes a DC power source and converts it into AC power. The AC power
drives a transformer which is coupled to a series LC tank. The inverter frequency is set to the tank's resonant frequency,
allowing the generation of very high currents within the tank's coil. The coil is coupled to the work piece and sets up
eddy currents. These currents, traveling through a conductive, but slightly resistive work piece, heat the piece.
Remember, Power = Heat = R*I^2. The work piece is like a one-turn coil; the work coils has several turns. Thus, we
have a step-down transformer, so even higher currents are generated in the work piece.
I would like to acknowledge the invaluable help from John Dearmond, Tim Williams, Richie Burnett and other members
of the 4hv forum for helping me understand this topic. Now, before we talk more, let's see some pictures of what it can
do:
Later, I will give a link to a video showing it running. Here is the inverter:
What I will now do is go over each part. Then, I will give the schematics, go over them and how you can build this
device.
So, the wider the tubing, the lower the resistance. We also want to use tubing so we can water-cool the coil. I purchased
some refrigerator 3/8" copper tubing from Home Depot. You will also need some 1/2" copper pipe and the necessary
fittings so you can feed water through one end, have it circulate through the coil, and come out the other end. I have brass
fittings with nipples so I can attach some tubing to my fountain pump, and a return tube to my ice water bath.
This is the tubing I got from Home Depot.
The work coil is made from shaping the 3/8" copper tubing. I use brass compression fittings to attach it to the LC tank.
The tank is made from two 1" x 3/16" thick copper bars. I drill holes in the bars to accommodate the capacitors. We need
a capacitor that can handle several hundreds of amps of current. I purchased some pulse capacitors with current ratings of
14A, 3000vdc, 750vac. With 20 capacitors this is close to 300A average current. The coupling transformer fits over the
copper tubing. If you look closely, you will see the fountain pump submerged in water. This pumps ice water through the
tank and back out into the bucket. Water flows in from the bottom left, through the copper pipe soldered to the bus bar,
through the coil, over the bank to the upper left, and through the tubing connected to the other bus bar, and out on the
upper right. You should also take note where the work coil connects with the capacitor bank. It does not connect both
leads at the front end; instead, the coil connects to
opposite ends. This ensures that the capacitors share
an equal current load. Otherwise, if both end
connected to the front, the capacitors closest to the
coil would handle the brunt of current because the
resistance would be the least. When you are dealing
with hundreds of amps, small changes in Rare
significant.
Fres = 1/2(LC)
Once you wind your coil you can get an idea of its value by making a simple RLC circuit with it and connect it to a
function generator and scope. I used a 1R resistor and a 500pf capacitor. I increased my function generator sine wave and
measured the voltage across R. At resonance the LC impedance drops and the voltage drop across R peaks. This gave me
a ballpark figure, but you can just go by the calculation.
Now, as far as the work coil goes you can form the work coil by driving a piece of PVC tubing into the ground. I used a
1" pipe (1.5" OD). Take the copper tubing and fill it with sand or salt. Make sure it is completely filled. This way it will
act like a solid tube and will not collapse when you bend it. Fix one end with something like a heavy vice and work the
tubing around your PVC tube until you have your desired number of turns. Four to five turns at 1.5-2" will give you a
coil with an inductance between 0.8 - 1.3 uH.
You can see how nicely the coil forms around the pipe. Once you are happy with the turns and shape you can blow the
sand out with an air compressor.
When I transitioned to my 10kw unit I increased the size of my high voltage supply. Each capacitor is rated for 450vdc,
so I can go up to 900vdc between both ends. I use two 50A rectifiers giving me 100A.
The second power supply you will need will be a 15vdc regulated source. It is imperative that it is regulated because the
PLL has a voltage controlled oscillator. The VCO determines the output frequency based on input voltage it receives.
The frequency range it can generate is based on its supply voltage, Vss. If the supply voltage wanders, the oscillator
frequency will wander and this will definitely throw you out of resonance.
Now, when I made the 10kw unit it uses four Mosfets instead of two. This is twice the amount of gate charging. You
need to make sure your 15vdc supply can supply the amps to rapidly charge the gates. It should also have a robust
transformer and capacitor on the end to make sure there is plenty of charge available. I plan on adding an outboard pass
transistor. One problem that plagued me for the longest time was a jittery inverter current when I reached modest power
levels. The current would jump back and forth when compared to the inverter voltage. It appeared as if two currents were
competing. At first I thought this was EMI affecting my gate drive and I spent the longest time trying to fix it. I noticed
that when I disconnected any one of the four Mosfets the current tracing was perfect. This led me to believe that I was
falling short on charging all the gates rapidly enough, and the Mosfets were not all conducting identically. Remember,
you need to fully turn the Mosfets on in the shortest time possible. I put a scope on the gates and noticed that the slopes
changed when I added the fourth gate. I solved the problem by adding a 39000uf capacitor to my power supply. This was
with a 1.6A transformer and a 2A 15v regulator. The tracing was perfect. I plan on changing the transformer to 3A and
adding adding the outboard pass transistor just to play it safe.
If the inductive and capacitive reactance cancel out the phase shift is zero. The current in the circuit is in phase with the voltage.
Now here is an important point. The maximum power transfer will occur when the current is in phase with the voltage.
So, at resonance, the current in the series circuit is in phase with the voltage source. If we are out of resonance the current
phase is shifted from zero with respect to the voltage. If there is more inductive reactance the current lags the voltage; if
there is more capacitive reactance the current leads the voltage. You can also say the capacitor voltage lags the current.
What is the voltage source for the series tank? It is our coupling transformer. I am experimenting with different materials
and turns, but right now I am using an iron powered core from Amidon Corp made from Type 3 material. This material is
good from frequencies between 0.05Mhz and 0.5Mhz. I used two toroids. Each is 2.25" in diameter and 0.565" thick. I
wound 14g wire around for 20-26 turns. I am still trying to figure out the optimum turns and the best material. The lower
the turns the greater the exciting voltage to the tank. However, magnetization current goes up as does the load on the
inverter.
Below are the two toroids. I use two to prevent saturation. I wonder how three would do?
Here I have wound 14g wire around. The transformer does not impart a phase shift if place on the tank correctly. If you
flip, it around you will introduce a 180 degree shift which will prevent the PLL from locking onto the frequency. Just
turn it around. Which way is the right way? Use the right-hand rule.
Here is a solenoid with the current flowing in the direction shown. Put your right thumb in the direction of the current
and your fingers curl in the direction of the B field. The field outside of the coil is not important to us; the field inside the
solenoid sums to one large field going from right to left. If we had a metal bar or part of the toroid's arc inside, the field
would travel through it.
So here is a mock-up of the coupling transformer. The current travels to the positive terminal of our toroid transformer
output. Using the right hand rule we can realize the direction of the B field for each turn. The black arrow on the toroid
shows the direction the field travels in the core. Using the right-hand rule again we see that the current travels through the
copper tubing from left to right towards the positive terminal of our RLC tank. We will use this as the positive lead for
monitoring our tank capacitor voltage later. If you are unsure which end is which you can wind a few turns of wire as a
secondary and scope the ends. The voltages in and out should be in phase.
Ferrite Transformer
When I started this project I didn't understand how one determined the number of turns to put on the primary coupling
transformer. There are several factors to consider. First, the wire needs to be able to handle the current. If you are dealing
with high frequencies, the majority of the current is conducted on the surface. This is the skin effect. You will need to
have several insulated strands to increase the surface area; these strands will need to be twisted in order to reduce eddy
currents. As you pack more wire into the space, heating becomes more significant. If your wire is not robust enough you
might need a cooling system.
The power to your system has a voltage and a current. If you have the means to run high voltages, you can adjust your
windings to keep the primary current low enough to reduce the heating of your transformer and switches. If I want to
keep the primary current low, I need more turns on the primary. As long as I have enough voltage, the same primary
current will yield a much larger secondary current. Let's go over an example:
My transformer has 10 turns on the primary and one on the secondary (this is the resonant tank). Let's assume that the
load across the secondary is 1 ohm. If I have 100v on the primary, a 10:1 transformer gives us 10v on the secondary. 10A
of secondary current requires 1A of primary current. The power draw is 100W. If I want to draw less current, I can wind
a 20:1 transformer. Now, 200v on the primary results in 10v on the secondary. The current is still 10A on the secondary,
but it is 0.5A on the primary. This means that as long as I have a higher voltage supply, I can reduce the current my
inverter requires, and still maintain the same power to my work piece. If I have 400v available, I can draw the same 1A
on the primary, but have 20A available on the secondary.
When heating small pieces of metal with small coils, the current demand will go up quickly as there is little material to
quench the tank. You want a lot of turns on the primary in order to keep the current draw low while still supplying a lot
of current to the tank. If you plan on heating large pieces of metal, the tank gets quenched and the current draw will be
too low for effective heating. You need less turns on the primary in order to provide a higher excitation voltage to the
tank.
Let's look at another example where the work piece is quenching the tank. In this case you don't have enough voltage to
get an adequate current to flow in the tank. If you have 200v on a 20:1 transformer you will have 10v on the secondary. If
the load is 1R you will have 10A on the secondary and 0.5A in the primary. If our maximum voltage is 200v we need to
draw more current, making sure our switches can handle this of course. By changing to a 10:1 transformer we get 20v @
20A on the secondary; the primary we have 200v @ 2A. We are drawing more power and we have doubled the output
current at the expense of needing to deal with four times the primary current. As long as the primary circuit can handle
this we have solved the problem. As you go lower on the turns you need to make sure you do not saturate the core. Also
remember that a small amount of the total primary current is magnetization current.
Oscilloscope Tracings
The inverter outputs a drive voltage to the coupling transformer. The current in is in phase with the current out. When the
tank is at resonance, the tank current is in phase with the drive current of the coupling transformer, and is in phase with
the inverter input voltage. If anything, you want the current to slightly lag the voltage because the Mosfets behave better
when facing an inductive, rather than a capacitive, load. This has to do with the Mosfets conducting in the reverse
direction. The tracing below is clean and allows me to reach very high power levels while maintaining relatively cool
Mosfets.
Now, if the tanks are above resonance we have more inductive reactance. The tank's net current will lag the driving
voltage from the coupling transformer. Since the input and output current of the coupling transformer are in phase, the
tank's current is lagging the inverter driving voltage. Below you can see the dominating inductive reactance results in the
inverter current (triangle-looking wave) is almost 90 degrees lagging the inverter voltage (square wave).
If we are below the resonant frequency capacitive reactance results in the current leading the inverter voltage. Also, there
is ringing in the current waveform and at the inverter voltage transitions. This noise gets worse with higher power levels
and can result in Mosfets failure.
Below is another example of ringing. You can see ringing on the voltage at the transition and on the current waveform. I
have positioned them apart for easier viewing. This is due to high inductance on the gate. Heavy current on the gate
causes a large Ldi/dt. The problem can usually be solved by either increasing the gate resistance (increase the resistor
value), or decrease the stray inductance by shortening the gate lead. I was able to almost eliminate the ringing by
shortening the gate lead, but then I did not have enough length for connecting two in parallel. So I changed the value of R
from 5 ohms to 10 ohms. The first image is with the 5-ohm gate resistor. I was still able to charge the gate with 10 ohms
in a sufficiently short amount of time at 15v.
These images show the waveform after the fix: shortening the gate leads as much as possible to still allow room for
paralleling two of them and increasing the gate resistor from 5R to 10R. Notice the clean voltage square wave and the
smooth current curve. The second image is a blow-up of the first.
Below is a basic sketch of the half-bridge inverter. The coil in the middle is the coupling transformer to the resonant
tank. The arrows show the paths the current takes as the switches alternate between closed-open and open-closed.
Below are two sketches. Sketch I shows ringing if there is too long of a delay during switching. If the next switch does
not close in time, the inductive kick will drive the voltage too high, causing an overshoot, followed by a large dip when it
finally closes. Sketch II shows profound voltage sagging in the middle of the waveform. I had this happen when the
decoupling capacitors went bad, shorting the current path. The capacitors are needed to remove any DC component from
the pulse.
I would like just mention that the inductive waveforms are really an exponential curve. If we can approximate the tank
above resonance as a RL circuit responding to a step response
The solution to
is
Analysis of a capacitor dominant RC circuit will yield something similar. When dealing with a RCL step response one
has
We will monitor this relationship. We are at resonance when our PLL chip keeps Vc ninety degrees lagging behind V
inverter. Now, we can easily exceed the chips maximum input voltage, so we need to clip the top and bottom the
capacitor voltage, and keep it to a maximum of 15v. We do this with some clamping diodes yielding this waveform,
which will be the signaling input on pin 14 of the HEF4046.
Below is a diagram of the scoped voltages. Using a differential probe, the positive lead goes to the positive inverter lead
going to the toroid and the negative to the negative lead. Using a second differential probe we scope the + and - ends of
the capacitor tank. Vc will lag Vinv or Vtank. We will have to invert the Vc waveform, that is shift it 180 degrees, in
order for the PLL to work, which I will discuss shortly.
Now, we are ready to talk about the phase locked loop chip - the HEF4046. After this discussion, we will have enough
information to understand the workings of the inverter and how it maintains a lock on the resonance.
This is the inverter voltage (yellow) and gate drive (blue). Notice how the voltage heavily sags and the gate signal is no
longer a clean square wave.
Here is another gate wave that is abnormal taken at a different time.
As you can see, I was getting strange waveforms and I did not know why.
At first I thought it was the Mosfets so I swapped them out. When that failed to fix the problem I redid the gate resistors
and shielding. Then, I pulled out the inverter capacitors and replaced them. Still no good. Frustrated, I took out the board
and replaced the gate drive capacitors. When this failed I redid the entire circuit board thinking I was getting some type
of cross-talk or a failed component. I saved myself from buying another tank capacitor by connecting the coupling
transformer to another LC tank. Again, I had the same problem.
I thought I checked everything and I couldn't understand how the waveform had deteriorated. Sometimes, the current
appeared to go at twice the frequency of the inverter voltage. Then, I had a final thought. I started looking at my high
voltage DC supply. I must have reconnected the HV wires to the inverter early in the summer. Notice in the picture how
they are not together.
They should be together to cancel out any stray inductance as shown below.
Amazingly, after days of racking my brain, this simple solution was all that was needed. I twisted the HV wires close (as
I had done in the past) and made sure they were close on my inverter board before splitting to each of the HV rails. At the
frequency I am driving my coil, stray inductance and capacitance on the HV lines is significant and clearly affected my
waveforms. Not only did this affect the LC tank, but it affected the gate signal and the voltage supply signal to the
circuitry, making things even worse. Hopefully, my experience will make someone's life easier if these symptoms appear.
Below are the waveforms for the inverter voltage and current immediately after this repair. I have the frequency
deliberately higher than resonance to prevent reverse currents.
Below is the gate signal after this repair.
Figure 2
The logic is high if one of the two inputs is high; otherwise it is low. It will generate a square wave whose width is based
on the phase difference of the two signals. If the two waves are 90 degrees out of phase the average value of Vphi is
Vdd/2. The loop filter takes the phase detector output and converts this to the input voltage to the VCO. The simplest
filter is a RC low-pass filter. The cut-off frequency will determine how sensitive the PLL is to phase changes, and how
well it stays locked on the reference signal.
So what happens? At resonance the tank current is real and in phase with the coupler transformer voltage, which is in
phase with the inverter voltage. The tank capacitor voltage lags the tank current by 90 degrees; therefore, it lags the
inverter voltage by 90 degrees. Now as the work piece heats its ferromagnetic properties change. The work coil becomes
a variable inductor and affects the resonant frequency of the tank. If the effective resonance goes down, it seems to the
circuit that we increased on drive frequency to the tank. This makes the tank more inductive. Inductance causes the
source voltage lead the tank current. That is, the tank current is forced to lag the inverter voltage. The capacitor voltage
initially lagged the current by 90 degrees. This means the capacitor voltage lags the inverter voltage even more as shown
below.
Figure 3
Below we can see the relationships with Vinv, Vcap and Vphi. Vphi is high Vinv or Vcap is high, but not both.
Figure 4
The top shows Vinv and Vc. An increase in inductive reactance is the same as if we increased our inverter drive
frequency. We lower it by decreasing the voltage to VCOin. We see in the top pair that as Vc shifts more to the right of
Vinv the XOR region increases. However, we need it to decrease in order to yield a lower voltage for VCO. We achieve
this by inverting Vc to Vc_inverted. Now as Vc_inverted shifts to the right, Vphi decreases. We integrate this to a
voltage value and use this for VCOin. A smaller VCOin results in a lower frequency and we stay in resonance. The
frequency range is determined by resistors on pins 11 and 12 of the PLL. When, VCOin is at ground the frequency is at
the low-end of the range; when it is at the supply voltage it is at the high end.
When we are at resonance - inverter voltage and current are in phase - the inverter voltage leads the tank capacitor
voltage by 90 degrees. Vphi is half of half a pulse width (see Figure 2 and 4). The average voltage is Vdd/2, or 7.5v if our
supply is 15v. So, 7.5v at VCOin will keep us close to resonance if our center frequency is Fres. The problem is that Fres
changes with different work pieces and during heating. However, the PLL will adjust itself to maintain a lock on the
phase relationship.
The scope images below show these waveforms. The first picture is at a lower frequency than the bottom picture. Shown
are Vcap_inverted, Vinv, and Vphi. The capacitor voltage is clipped to protect the PLL chip.
The capacitor voltage is a clean signal, and was distorted when I tried to show three signals. Below is just the inverter
and tank capacitor voltage.
Let's talk about how we set the free-running PLL frequency and the range it can capture. If the resonant frequency falls
with the PLL capture range, the PLL will be able to find the frequency that maintains the 90 degree shift that we want,
and maintain this phase lock as the frequency required for this phase difference changes over a wider range of
frequencies.
Here is the chip
These formulas can be off and require constants as shown below:
You can also use graphs on the manufacturer datasheets to get you in the ballpark for the values you need. The first step
is to determine the capacitor value that will get you near your Fres at a given Vdd voltage. Determine the R value you
need for Fmin, and then determine the R you need for Fmax.
Let's do a quick example. My Fres is 65kHz and my supply is 15v. Actually, my supply is 14.4v, because I have a diode
to protect from hooking up the pos and neg in reverse. I go up the left hand side to the 60khz row and across to the 15v
supply line. I go straight down and get a C1 of 300pf. This will be my starting point for my equations. Using C1 = 330pf,
I will pick some R values and measure the actual frequency in order to determine the values of the constants K1 and K2.
We want to have the center frequency, (Fmin + Fmax)/2, equal our resonant frequency, and we want about 10-15kHz on
either side. Now, the chips can vary from the equation by a factor of 4, so you need to multiply each equation by a
constant. Take a 100k resistor for R2 and R1. Ground pin 9 and measure Fmin. Next, connect pin 9 to Vdd and measure
Fmax. This will give you K1 and K2. I measured 50kHz for Fmin, giving me a K1 of 1.81. I then connected pin 9 to Vdd
and got 154khz. Subtracting Fmin, 50khz, I was able to dedue that K2 equals 3.78. My frequency is 65kHz, so I want
something between 50-80kHz. I will use a 330pf capacitor, as determined from the graph, and values of K1 = 1.81 and
K2 = 3.78. I now use these values to determine the true values of R1 and R2 that I need, which is 100k and 348k. The
calculations are below. Of course, you need to verify this with your scope.
Fmin = 50khz = 1.81/ (100,000 x 362e-12)
Fmax = 80khz = 50khz + 3.78/ (348,000 x 362e-12)
On my circuit I add a trim pot and another resistor in parallel to R2 with an optional jumper. This gives me a selection of
resonant frequency ranges.
So, how does our circuit come together? Let's see.
Below is the timing showing ZVS. The voltage goes through zero volts exactly when the current is zero.
Below, one of the series diodes is shorted, so we can compare the timing of the signal going to both gates. The bottom
tracing has the transformer gate drive going directly to the gate. The tracing above it goes through the diode The temporal
difference between the gate drive with and without the series diode is close to 100ns.
Below are the gate drive waveforms with both series diodes working.
Below, both series diodes are shorted, and we can see the time to reach the same voltage is delayed by about 200ns.
OP-AMP INTEGRATOR
The op-amp is centered around Vdd/2. R10 moves the center point on the integrator allowing you to fine tune PLL
frequency. You can force it to stay a little above resonance by adjusting it. When connecting it to the circuit, set it up so
clockwise motion increases the PLL frequency.
MOSFETS, ZERO VOLT SWITCHING, and CURRENT MONITORING
Mosfets U1 and U2 have ultra-fast diodes across the source and drain to protect the slower acting intrinsic drain diodes.
There are no series isolation diodes with the Mosfets for two reasons. We are doing zero volt/current switching which is
guaranteed when the circuit is in tune by the PLL. When we switch the Mosfets there is no current or voltage on the
device. Secondly, the present day Mosfets have very fast intrinsic diodes, rated for flywheel service. Capacitors C1 and
C2 set a point half-way above ground, which gets charged when U1 is open, and discharges to ground when U1 closes
and U2 opens. The current transformer T2 uses a 1:100T ratio to monitor the inverter current. The 100R resistor means
that every 1V on the oscilloscope is 1A of current going to the coupling transformer.
Now, let's look at the tank circuit schematic. The inverter output is coupled to the tank through T3, which is a 20:1 toroid
transformer. The 20 turn primary is connected to the inverter output. The coper tubing which form the connects for work
coil and capacitor serves as a one-turn primary. You can experiment with different toroid materials and turn-ratios. The
resonant frequency will change as the material goes through its curie point.
Below is a picture of the current conduction through the inverter during different phases of the power transfer cycle. It
shows how the free-wheeling diodes come into play to divert the reverse current around the Mosfets.
During Mode 1, the upper Mosfets is conducting and transferring power to the resonant tank through the coupling
transformer in our circuit. In Mode 2, the Mosfets are transitioning, and the upper Mosfets turns off slightly before the
bottom one turns on. Here, current is conducted through the free-wheeling diode of the lower Mosfets. In Mode 3, the
lower Mosfets turns on, and the resonant tank throws the power back through Mosfets. In Mode 3, both Mosfets are off
during the transition, and the upper Mosfets free-wheeling diode conducts the current.
TUNING
You will have to tune the PLL to your tank's resonant frequency. To do this just connect jumper JP2. Leave jumper JP3
open, which goes to the integrator. With a volt meter, measure the voltage at pin 9 and the inverter ground. Trim R6 until
you have one half of your supply voltage. Accounting for the diode voltage drop on the regulated 15vdc supply, this
should be around 7.2v. You will need a differential set of oscilloscope probes to do this next part right. Put one probe pair
across the current transformer, which would be across R15. Put another probe pair across the inverter output at J2. This
will monitor inverter voltage and current. Using a variac, set the voltage input to your inverter high voltage supply to a
low value like 30-40vac. Trim R5 until you have the current and voltage in phase. A cruder method uses an unregulated
rectifier with a smoothing capacitor with the voltage input being the tank capacitor. Monitor the voltage for a maximum.
Once you are confident that the PLL's center frequency is close to the resonant frequency, open jumper JP2 and close
jumper JP3. Turn on the inverter first and then turn on the variac to the voltage doubler, which provides the high voltage
for the inverter. Slowly increase the voltage while monitoring the inverter voltage and current waveforms. After 20 or
30v you should see it lock onto Fres. The inverter output will be a nice square wave and the current will be close to a
smooth sinusoidal tracing. If all you see is a triangle-looking wave for the current, you probably have the polarity wrong
on your capacitor voltage input to pin 14. The quickest fix is to swap the connections going to the coupling transformer.
Try it again and it should work.
PLEASE NOTE THERE ARE MORE SCHEMATICS AT THE END OF THIS TUTORIAL (YOU HAVE MORE WEB
PAGES TO GO)
You can watch a video of it working here.
If you have read this much, you might want to read a bit more. These two other sites are well worth the reading and
explain things from their perspective with regards to the theory and construction of an induction heater.
NOTE: There are more schematics for a higher powered unit at the end of this tutorial using microprocessor-controlled
resonance locking.
This unit includes plans for levitating metals using high-powered magnetism.
Current going through the coil sets up a magnetic field. This field, according to Lenz's law, sets up an opposite magnetic
field in the work piece. This magnetic field opposes the one inducing it, and repels the object upwards. The picture below
shows a snapshot in time. The field alternates. The coil also increases in diameter as one moves upwards. This results in
there being a magnetic force underneath the object, but nothing directly above it. This results in an upwards force. The
object moves up until the distance of the work piece to the inner surface of the coil is such that the magnetic field is too
weak to drive it up any more. The bucking plate at the top turns in the opposite direction. The two fields cancel out so
there is no upward driving force at this point. It is a null zone.
Now, the magnetic field created in the work piece creates circulating eddy currents. These currents heat the work piece.
The closer the work iece gets to the coil the better the coupling, which creates more heating. You will find if you gently
push the object down with a quartz rod it will heat up very quickly.
Below is the ferrite toroid wrapped with 26 turns of the magnet wire braid
Ferrite Toroid
One needs to make sure the maximum flux density of the core is not exceeded. If one exceeds this value, the permeability
will go towards one (the permeability of air) and the transformer will no longer function as a transformer. That is, it will
cease transferring power.
So, let's calculate the flux density of our ferrite coupling transformer. This is a Magnetics, Inc. P material core. Please
refer to the chart below provided by this company.
According to this chart, the maximum flux density is 5000 gausses at 25C. At 100C this number will be closer to 3000
gausses.
Now, we need to calculate the flux density of our core. The cross-sectional area of the ZP48613TC is 1.8cm2. We have 8
of them for a total cross-sectional area of 14.4cm2. We are using between 19-24 turns depending on the heating
application. We'll use 20 for convenience. The voltage is close to a pure square wave with a slight ripple voltage, and the
RMS value is near 350V. With use a multiplication factor of 4 for a square-wave; we would use 4.44 for a sine wave.
The formula is Bmax = E x 108 / (4 x N X F X A)
This yields: 350 x 108 / (4 x 20 x 100,000 x 14.6) = 300 gauss
So, in a worse-case scenario, we still have a 10x safety margin.
Tinned Copper Braided Shielding, EMI, Celem Capacitor
Tinned copper braid, or copper braided shielding wire is essential to keep the emi out of the gate leads. Magnetic noise is
a big problem, and it gets worse at the power levels needed for levitation. The tinned copper resists corrosion. Depending
on your leads you will need anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2-inch copper braid. This envelops the gate leads and is connected to
the ground.
One not only needs to worry about how the emi affects the gate drive on the inverter, but how it affects the PLL feedback
loop on the driver. The solution begins by separating the drive circuitry from the high powered inverter section. I now
have two boards. One board tracks and generates the drive signal. All of the critical signals are shielded with a grounding
plane. The signal exits in a shielded wire that is connected to ground. This goes to the second board. On this board the
gate drive lead is shielded with the shield connected to ground. The Mosfets modules are electrically isolated from the
heat sink. If they are connected the heat sink will broadcast the inverter waveform and interfere with the feedback
signals. The gate drive signal goes through a damping resistor. I originally had a ferrite bead, but found this was not
necessary. I have copper shielding completely covering the gate drive lead. Inside the shielding I have the lead going to a
10-ohm resistor. It is important that each switch has its own resistor as close to the gate as possible to reduce oscillations.
So far this has worked out well. I have seen what happens with poor shielding, and it isn't pretty.
Below is a picture of the inverter with the shielded leads.
I also had to modify the feedback control loops. I use RC networks to filter the pulse-waves from the PLL to create a DC
feedback signal. I then use RC networks to take the PWM output and convert it into a steady DC signal for the PLL's
VCO input. The better my filtering for a smooth signal, the longer the delay. If the delay is too long the system oscillates.
If the filtering is not sufficient, the drive signal is course. The trick was to find the right balance.
The tank capacitor was another issue. A rough calculation showed that I was already maxing out the capability of my
capacitor bank. I had 20 capacitors that were each rated for a maximum of 14A. I must have had between 200-300A
going through them with my 2kw unit. I switched to a water-cooled Celem capacitor that was rated for 600V/1000A
(part# CSP-505-2.6uf). The connections were made so that every contact point shared current equally. If you make the
connections incorrectly, all the current will go through the closest point and rapidly overheat the copper. I witnessed this
and it was not pretty.
I will start elaborating on the modified drive circuit and the inverter on the following pages (to come shortly).
Here are some links to the levitation coil in action for the 2kw unit
Levitating and melting aluminum
Levitating and melting copper scrap
Levitating copper tubing
10kw Induction Heater Inverter Schematic
I got most of my components from Digikey Corp and Mouser Electronics. The microprocessor is from Arduino