Blog : Tooling Up

Tooling Up: Induction Furnace

Tooling Up: Induction Furnace

After struggling with the problems with gravity feeding molten glass though a small nozzle (inherent with MIT’s glass printer design), we have decided to redesign our hotend to forcefully extrude molten glass (and other materials). Before we share details of the new design, the next several posts will be covering what we are building so that we can build everything we need for the new design in-house. To that end, our 15KW induction generator is capable of melting most anything at a flip of a switch. It’s seriously like magic! Here are the results from our first run.

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A few minutes after applying power for the first time. We loaded in a couple pieces of mild steel from an old bed frame and some drill bits that will not be causing us any more grief.
A few minutes later the steel was melting into the puddle below.
A few minutes later the steel started melting into the puddle.
There it goes, but not without some sparks.
There it goes, but not without some sparks.
The resulting ingot a few minutes later. It poured like white hot water.
The resulting ingot a few minutes later. It poured like white hot water!