Induction bolt heater - worth it?

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Ya know. The whole idea behind the induction heater is that the coil is NOT a resistance heater made of nichrome. It works by inducing eddy currents in the metal you stick in the center. Tje eddy currents react with the natural resistance of the material itself to create heat. The coil itself is very effective made of copper.

No, I didn't know that. Interesting. Another rabbit hole to go down...
I happen to have a lot of copper I'm going to scrap soon. Any particular type to keep? Also brass and S.S.

 

[pjtoledo]

before you get too deep in the hole research the frequency induction heaters work at.
I doubt it's 60 cycles because there aren't too many glowing transformers.

off to wiki we go!

 

[Curious Hound]

before you get too deep in the hole research the frequency induction heaters work at.
I doubt it's 60 cycles because there aren't too many glowing transformers.

off to wiki we go!

More efficient at higher frequencies.

Inductive reactance (basically the strength of the magnetic field) is dependent on the inductance of the coil "L" (influenced by the size of the wire and number of turns in the coil) and the frequency.

2 × pi × Freq × L

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Probably over my pay grade...

ChatGPT sez...

 

[Roert42]

I have the the bolt buster, bought the one with the big box of coils. I like it, but I don’t love it.


It’ll can heat an M12 nut to white hot in 10 seconds.

Little bulky, but not any more bulky then a torch, at the end of the day it’s cheaper, takes up less space, and doesn’t have any consumables(that you can get refills of on a Sunday afternoon when you need them the most).

I recently found that it does not work well on bolts that are seized in aluminum. Was trying to removed some bolts that were seized in a transfer case and the bolt buster would not get them hot enough to do much. The aluminum was just soaking the heat up too fast.

I have used it to heat up metal rod and tools for bending.


Other than that, I’ve been impressed and satisfied. After the incident I was a little disappointed but I would still buy a bolt buster again. Just for suspension and exhaust work it’s worth it.



Plus, mine came with an extremely blurry jpeg sticker of a lady in a bikini that said “Get your bolts off”.