This Boring Company I

Finally! The oven build begins.

All materials have been gathered:

• 6x Alumina bricks. (4 needed, 2 spares/testing)
• 2x SSR 25A+ 2x ssr radiator.
• 2x High temperature K probes.
• 2x Temperature controllers.
• 2x Porcelain connectors.
• 2x Kanthal heating filament 2000W (60cm compressed)
• Quartz tube (45mm OD x 450mm)
• Diamond hole saws (6.5 / 48 / 61mm)
• 3D printed drill guides.
• High temp electric cable.
• Lengths of 15mm square stainless steel tube, screw rod and some washers.

First, a holey test:

Result:

If one works slowly, the cores remain intact and you can remove them without having to remove the drill from it’s mount:

Next: Big drills.

A 48mm drill digs out half of the Quartz tube channel, and a 61mm one cuts the channel to allow the heater to serpentine.

I’ll have to figure a way to align the block so the cuts are straight before actually building the thing, tough. XD

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Go, go, go!

First, find a way to hold the bricks in place. Justsome press fit wood blocks will do.

This is probably NOT the worst tool in the world. Positioning is within ±0.2mm and angular alignment is good enough. Since this is a single use only (so to speak) tool, I wasn’t going to bother doing the mounting perfectly:

lol

In retrospective, I would make the pieces in such a way that they would fully reach to the base (and also have align markings) instead of this complex centering/mounting technique.

The complete tool (with short test brick):

Testing the drill-through capability before commiting with the good bricks. Everything looks nice.

The bricks are longer than the reach of the filament saw, so they have to be turned around and drilled from both sides. How good is alignment?

Good enough, I’d say:

Video of the process (not full length drilling because of reasons):

Once that is done, vacuum it good and insert the filaments (pre stretched so there are no shortcircuit between loops)

This looks so nice. ^^

Now. How should this be put together?

Metal!

I really, REALLY, need a welding table. I have zero holding devices, and the aluminium plate I use, warps with heat.

I made some “trays” out of stainless, allowing for a small gap between them and the bricks, so I could use a thin ceramic matt (4mm, compressible)

This way, I cushion everything, reducing the likelyhood of breaks.

Some length of stainless screw get soldered to the top and bottom:

And some washers hold everything together:

Looking good:

Next, heater connection. Seats are cut into the body.

 

And into the back plate:

This will make a secure connection AND hide everything.

You don’t want to clamp the canthal wire directly as a single filament. Instead, you have to bend it a few times to decrease resistance in the clamping point and allow a better connection over time.

It is also time to test the quartz glass tube fitting:

So…damn…gorgeous!

One more beauty shot:

Now, add some legs and cables:

I’m using duall controllers, one for the top filament and one for the bottom filament, because I’m a control freak, mostly.

I could not resist to test it before finishing the electronics body. First, one hour @300ºC

Then 20 minutes at 600ºC

The filament glows nice at this point, and you can very well see the heat pulses:

Let it cool down, and then, ramp it up to 1000ºC

Closeup of the inferno:

Make sure you don’t have the probes swapped, it can lead to weird temperature readings/setups (one coil heating the other to keep temperature), don’t ask me how I know.

And that’s it!

All the important bits and pieces have been done, encasing the electronics is trivial enough not to deserve a continuation of this post.

Part II