Microwave furnace

Construction Zone >

This is a page to document my proposal to build a massive microwave furnace at Noisebridge. I have already acquired all of the parts and supplies, but assembling everything, testing, safety checks, and coordinating on training new users will be quite a process. Please message me on Discord if you're interested in getting involved! You can also check out my website project page covering this effort. MAINTAINER: Lucy (Discord: @autopoieesis)

Why would we want this

You can make highly detailed metal parts with complex geometries!

The process goes something like

• Print the part in wax castable resin on an mSLA printer.
• Make a mold with petrobond and a casting box, add a hole, and melt out the wax
• Load you metal(s) of choice into a silicone carbide crucible, wrap them in some insulation, and load them into the microwave to blast
• Carefully unload the crucible and pour your molten metal into the mold

What's involved in building a 10kW microwave furnace

At a high level, you need to put together a magnetron, a (10kW 2kV) AC->DC PSU, a high power chiller for the cooling loop, and an assortment of tubing and fittings. We will need to build an enclosure which incorporates the aluminum oven chamber, work area to unload the crucible, and various control and safety systems. The 2kV out of the sputtering PSU will need to be stepped up to the 9kV 1.6A required by the magnetron head, which we will do with a beefy full bridge LLC step up converter (WIP). Making sure everything is safe to operate in a community space is going to be quite a bit of work. We are gonna need to sort out HV isolation, interlock systems, overtemp protections, ground fault and rf leakage detection, etc

LLC Step Up Converter

The LLC converter is necessary to step the output from the AC/DC PSU up to 9kV 1.6A we need to drive the Magnetron head.

• LLC component selection math
• References and component datasheets
• Approximation and design reference

Interlock System

The interlock system is responsible for shutting down the system in the event any failure conditions are detected. The failure conditions we are worried about are:

• Grounding errors
• RF leakage
• Overheating (driver components, heating chamber, or cooling loop)
• Excessive power draw

I am working on getting some samples of some super nice reflected power meters for leakage detection, but worst case I think we can make our own.

We need a big relay to disconnect the mains supply that feeds the magnetron step up, I'm applying for samples for that as well, but this should be fairly cheap.

Resonant Oven Chamber

We want out oven chamber to be sized such that we can imagine nodes pinned to the walls at the spatial frequency of our magnetron's output (2.46GHz). 183mm×183mm×183mm (3λ/2×3λ/2×3λ/2) seems like a good place to start. We are gonna use 3mm aluminum. If anyone is familiar with TIG welding and wants to assist in this, that would be a huge help. We need to drill holes in one side to bolt the magnetron to. We'll also want to add a viewport (25mm diameter or so) with some metal mesh to monitor the chamber.

Cooling Loop

I have all the tubing and equipment for this, we just gotta test our chiller and make sure I have all the right fittings for the magnetron connection.

Mode Stirrer

This spins the crucible around in the chamber to prevent hot spots, like the platter in a microwave. We need to add a small hole in the oven chamber to stick a motor shaft through to spin a glass platter.

TO DO

• LLC step up construction (values selected, components acquired, harmonic approximations and spice sims seem good)
• Fill out more HV relay, reflected power sensor, choke, WR-40 waveguide and flange sample requests
• Test chiller and cooling loop
• Construct resonant oven chamber
• Convert sputtering PSUs to split phase input and add disconnect relays
• Construct directional coupler and power monitor circuit
• Test DIY SiC crucibles