I just want to say that you all are amazing. I’ve been following this thread, and seeing a bunch of people who know what they’re doing coming together to work on this is fascinating. I’ve nothing to contribute, and I hope you all keep posting progress here.
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I was just about to comment that same thought Jorge. This is a great thread, multiple committee’s working together, getting stuff done!!
I look forward to seeing (and hopefully making my own) cast items soon!!
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Right! My skills on this begin and end with making at “training required” vinyl but once it’s working I’m looking forward to learning
Here is the latest from the manufacture Tanabe in Japan…
From: Harumi Tanabe [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, July 7, 2017 9:30 AM
Subject: RE: Troubleshooting Casting Machine
Hi Joseph,
Thank you for these information.
Our oldest technician who were in charge of this machine was already retired.
And there is no more really beneficial data about this machine anymore…
However, our technician said that most likely, the blink is lack of water flow.
If you use more than 1.5 liter/min with this machine, the blink might stop.
Another possibility is an error of PLC program for some reason.
In that case… we don’t think it is valuable to use a lot of repair cost for no assured repair because of too old system.
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I say we pull the water lines one at a time to flush them. Then pull the heating coil, perhaps there is some scale build up.
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Makes sense. We can also measure the flow and check the water sensor.
This is a heat exchanger after about a year without cleaning with standard water. Our local water tends to have quite a bit of mineral content, not as bad as Mineral Wells though.
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Lots of calcium in our water
If this is going to have it’s own closed loop cooling system, you could fill the system and tank with distilled water to avoid the mineral build up. Course, that won’t help with any existing clogging.
In fact, if we have a closed loop cooling system on it we might even add a couple of things to prevent it from clogging.
You mean like coolant?
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We would likely need to change it one a year. Unless we get inhibitor with biocides in it. Even then it would still likely need to be changed at a determined interval.
Agree on the changing, what a lot of folks don’t realize is anti-freeze has additives to keep all the things that clog up the system in suspension. Once that capacity is exceeded then build-up starts to occur. The actual “coolant” doesn’t really wear out.
Biocides aren’t needed because temp gets high enough to kill off the little buggers.
There are good inline filters that can capture much of the suspended stuff… we could probably make the housing here and just buy the filter elements. But pump capacity becomes a problem at that point too. Maybe look into a centrifugal separator? I’m sure the biofuel guys would double up on making one.
I’m curious how did you clean/remove the clog? Did you end up replacing the pipe altogether? That looks like a real mess to clean out.
Rifle cleaning kit & about 5 brushes.
This is what we (apprentices)use to brush our normal heat exchangers 
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If it was all stainless, wouldn’t some CLR work better and be far easier?
Thanks @TBJK for the photo of an example of a corroded heat exchanger. Last night I pulled the panels off to photograph the parts and trace the water lines.
The water lines are plastic and go to a heat exchanger and to the Induction Coil as shown below.
Water flows out of the Heat Transfer Unit to the undersides of the Induction Coil. Water flows in via Line 2 and flows out Line 1 to the external connector at the back of the machine. So there are only a few parts that could be corroded and blocking the water flow. More to come.
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Hopefully it’s just the induction heater that’s clogged & not inductor block.
