Levitating and Melting Metals (Induction Heater)

Part 2 is coming soon. I will update it ASAP.

This project deals with high voltages and high currents. Follow at your own risk. Don't make this if you are not comfortable working with AC mains circuits. The whole process of levitation and melting metals works on Principle of induction heating and eddy currents.

H-Bridge design that I use to drive the coil (8x IGBTs design):

https://www.instructables.com/Powerful-Low-Parasitic-Inductance-H-Bridge-Half-Fu/

GDT Design used to isolate High Power circuitry from low power circuitry:

https://www.instructables.com/Proper-GDT-Gate-Drive-Transformer-Construction-Hal-1/

Supplies

1x Copper pipe (Inner Diameter 1mm, Outer Diameter 2mm)

4x IGBTs (for full bridge) (Although 8 would be better, 2 parallel each side)

CBB Capacitors (20-40 small values)

Bus Capacitors (upto 2000uF)

Coil Construction

Coil has to be made with a taper. I used 85 degrees of taper. Also pay attention to how at top of coil it wraps on itself. This turn is very crucial for achieving stable levitation. Make sure the turns are touching with each other (but try to keep them as close as possible to increase magnetic field strength).

H-Bridge, GDT and Low Power Circuitry

The full H- Bridge is made out of 8x IGBTs (2 parallel). IGBTS are necessary in this project because it uses series LC circuit. In series configuration. In this configuration, the impedance / resistance to current flow is very low. So, a huge amount of current flows through it. That is why it is recommended to use multiple CBB small capacitors in parallel (20-40) for series LC circuit.

H-Bridge design that I use to drive the coil (8x IGBTs design):

https://www.instructables.com/Powerful-Low-Parasitic-Inductance-H-Bridge-Half-Fu/

GDT Design used to isolate High Power circuitry from low power circuitry:

https://www.instructables.com/Proper-GDT-Gate-Drive-Transformer-Construction-Hal-1/

Low Power Circuitry (Clock):

For clock I'm using ESP-32, UCC27321P, UCC27322P (schematic above).

For more information watch the above video in provided in this step. It shows how everything comes together. This is a very versatile setup and can be used to drive almost anything.