Induction Block Heater

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by gumby79

I was thinking of adding one of those 110 induction cook tops to my oil pan

Interesting, but how would you make sure it could withstand to the risk of damage in such location?

[teoman]

Actually, if you placed it on your garage floor and parked over it, it could be a pretty neat solution.

Bu be warned, it is wireless heat transfer to some specific metals/components. You could very quickly cook some wires or sensors (or thermistat) in your car.

The ture efficiency as a cooker comes from somewhere else. Its ability to heat the pans directly instead of first heating the cooker itself.

[gumby79]

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

Interesting, but how would you make sure it could withstand to the risk of damage in such location?

On my truck , the drain hole is within a 1/2" of the bottom of the frame, the drain valve is protruding , at risk of damage.
So I looked at building my own coil/device. All the counter top cookers I found were 2-4"thick
I found it is a simple circuit 9 components in the previous link.and redy made drivers are an off the shelf itom
I started looking for an alternatives to the heat prone water cooled pipe they used and found,
wiki Litz wire

Also called induction wire.
This allows for a coil ,0072"(3strands x44ga) up to 21,000 strands of 30ga over 1" thick. Eact strand is insulated magnet wire, so each strand can be a separate circuit if desired.
Avaliable in many configurations round , square , and rectangular, small gage strands helps reduce heating in the coil caused by skin effect raising the resistance/coil heating at high frequency. My guss (input welcome) is to start with 10ga litz wire. I ordered some Litz Wire Enameled copper wire twisted-pair size：0.1mm X 150 shares. AWG 38 X 150 Strands . Copper core cross-sectional area: 1.178 square mm.

To solve the possibility of an opossum undoing the work .
1)I'm thinking of wrapping the oil filter with a sleeve, pvc for easy removal and not have to rewrap the coil every oil change.
Wrap the litz coil around pvc.with thermistors on both sides of pvc for temperature control.
A Ferris sleeve. Coverd by stainless steel or aluminum (outer sleeves are to form a magnetic shielding if nessasary.) The alternator is a few inches away for me so at least a simple pice of sheat metal is nessasary to shild it . One would have to use a thermal camera to see the heating effects on other components.


2) seting up a coil 3-10 turns around the vertical sides of the pan
I found this article that gose over my head(help needed) on how to set up and the technical effect of modifications to the circuitry /power supply. High Frequency Induction Heating

---
Teoman
An induction heater has limited range. The cook top I used in the past ~ 1-2" and would shutdown for lack of cook wear.

[BamZipPow]

I had looked into inductive heating fer my truck a few years ago. I had to rule the oil pan out as it would eventually cause the pan to buckle over a number of cycles. I use an induction cook top daily in my household and I've expeienced what happens to a thin walled mixing that's heat cycled a few times.

I was looking into making one with its own heat exchanger to plumb into the cooling system so you would have to worry about damaging any critical compenents like the oil pan. It could heat up the coolant fairly quickly (15 minutes or less) compared to a standard block heater setup which can take a few hours depending on conditions. The key would be able to make the coil survive the road vibrations if it was attached to the vehicle.

[WyrTwister]

I would be cautious about heating up an engine or any part of an engine , too rapidly . Thermal expansion , and such .

Heating the oil would be very beneficial in making it lubricate better , quicker .

Heating the block or coolant would be beneficial in assisting the engine to run more efficiently , quicker .

Either is a good thing and would overlap to a certain extent . Both would be excellent .

God bless
Wyr

[oil pan 4]

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ter-33500.html