Induction annealer built around Annie

[powderbrake]

I just finished up my induction annealer, based on the Fluxeon Annie. I wish to thank Gina-Eric for their work on a home built induction annealer. I used their good ideas, and parts source (Jameco and Amazon) to make my unit. I was going to buy the parts for the induction and the water cooled coil, when I saw that Fluxeon had these items available for purchase, so I skipped the low cost route , and went for the easier assembly. Here are some pics and explanations.



The 16 X 18 X 6.5 case is made from 1/2 thick Baltic birch. The trapdoor mount is 1/2 Corian ( counter top material) The sliding trapdoor is 1/8 printed circuit board fiberglass, running in UHMW polyethylene. It is fastened with nylon screws to keep metals away from the coil area.



The supports for the trapdoor assembly are made from 1"square tubing( and 1 1/4 tube) which are drilled to allow pins to set the height for various cartridges. I have 3 preset heights, one for 6mmBR, one for 223 and 22-250, and one for 30-06 and 7mm Rem Mag. If I do some intermediate length cartridge, I can use the thumbscrews to set the height.

The 12volt solenoid pulls on the slide via a #2 screw. The solenoid is the same one used by Gina-Eric. The base support is also 1" sq tubing.


As to the operation, It uses the Sestos Quartric digital timer, which has two relays and an adjustable dwell period between actions.
The start button starts the timer, which pulls in Relay A for 0.3 seconds, which starts The Annie on its timed cycle. You set the Annie annealing time on it's front panel. For a .223 , it runs for 1.8 seconds. After the 0.3 seconds, the timer waits for 2.9 seconds, then relay B pulls in the solenoid for 0.8 second and the case drops. The cycle is complete, and will start again the next time you hit the start button. The 2.9 seconds is long enough for any case which I use.



I put switches on the 115 volt supplies to the timer and the 12 volt DC power supply I also have a switch for the fan, solenoid and coolant pump. All the switches are on (up) during normal operation. They are not necessary but help in initial setup, like when a coolant line starts leaking the first time you turn it on. You don't want to have to pull a plug at that time.

Here is the top view, showing the interior parts.



On the left wall is the 95 CFM 12vdc fan and the 12 VDC power supply. On the center wall, there are two 1 amp input line filters, and another on the right rear wall there is a 10 amp filter. I was worried about possible electromagnetic interference being caused by the Annie operation, and assumed the filters would help. The filters have a plug input, so that is why you see a cable /plug from the 115VAC input to the filters. I didn't want to cut the input cable to the Annie, in case I had to return it for service.
Behind the Annie is the coolant tank with the pump inside. This comes with the water cooled coil from Fluxeon, along with a wall socket 12vdc supply, plenty of 1/4 tubing, and the red dye for the water.
What would I have done differently? Probably would have bought a 12 VDC input timer, and run it off the 12VDC supply, rather than off 115vac.

The box top slides in a groove and there is a piece of plywood across the top of the back of the Annie. This forces the air to exit around the Annie and out the front. I would have preferred to have the fan blow air out, rather than in, but the Annie has an internal fan that blows out the holes in it's front panel, and I didn't want to buck that airflow.

A few more views;






Here are the essential parts, available from Amazon, Jameco and Fluxeon:



For your info: the following are the annealing times which I used, as set into the Annie.

223 1.8 sec
22-250 2.7
30-06 1.8
7mm Mag 1.9
6mmBR 2.5

I have no explanation for the times except that they worked for me. I assume it has a lot to do with where in the coil the neck and shoulder are located. With my design, the location is absolutely repeatable. At 2.5 seconds I melted a 30-06 neck, the Annie is a 1000 watt device, and works very quickly. The inside of the coil is only about 5/8 inch.


I have uploaded the Schematic and the CAD drawing of the entire unit in DXF format to Dropbox. You are welcome to use it as you see fit. I accept no responsibility for the accuracy, fitness to use, suitability or safety of the device or the drawings. There are lethal voltage levels in the box, and you must have knowledge or experience in electrical wiring. Use at your own risk.

I drew it in Turbocad but uploaded in DXF in case you have a different CAD program. I have also uploaded a movie of the operation.

Cad file: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/37972300/Jerry's Annealer.DXF

Schematic: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/37972300/Annealer Schematic.dxf

Movie: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/37972300/annealer.MP4

Fluxeon: http://fluxeon.com/

Jameco: http://www.jameco.com

I now have to anneal some cases and see if there is an accuracy improvement.

After I posted I found that Dropbox doesn't seem to handle CAD files, so private message me if you need copies of the CAD or schematic. Better yet, if anyone knows how to post a CAD file to make it available to download, let me know how.

EDIT: I found out how to get the CAD files in Chrome. (Haven't got IE11 or Edge to work yet.)
1) Click on link, it opens a text file in another tab.
2) Right click on the page, "save as", and save to your preferred location
3) Go to saved location. It saves as file.dxf.txt so delete the .txt and resave
4) open with your CAD program

 

[Gina1]

Beautiful job !!!!! Looks great....

Thank you for the acknowledgment (from Erick and myself). Thank you for publishing your design and parts list.
That was the whole idea behind the GinaErick annealer. Build your own, or take the idea, modify it as you have done... and done very well.
I'm sure the Annie crowd now will take your design and build your mod.

Gina

PS
The GinaErick's coil diam is 1 1/8". The Annie"s coil being 5/8" brings the coil closer to the case, hence more power transfer. Also the GinaErick is 600 watts as compared to the Annie's 1,000 watt. Hence slightly longer annealing time as compared to the Annie.

Again great design.

 

[TAJ45]

I look at you guys that do "trons" like some do at those who fixture in the machining world. My hat is off to you.
Just curious about cost of parts w/o legs or box figured in.......that stuff I can scrounge up in the shop.
That is a near work of art Powderbrake.

 

[TheOtherZilla]

I have been lookin at annealers, especially the Annie. But I can't get past the one at a time deal. For 5 bills it needs to be auto-feed IMO..

 

[comagutsa]

top work mate

 

[powderbrake]

I look at you guys that do "trons" like some do at those who fixture in the machining world. My hat is off to you.
Just curious about cost of parts w/o legs or box figured in.......that stuff I can scrounge up in the shop.
That is a near work of art Powderbrake.

I am retired and it was a project to keep me busy and to play design engineer, like I used to be. So It was not a "build it as low cost as possible". I liked that Fluxeon had worked out the induction and coil and water cooling, I just packaged it all. It took longer to draw the detail parts than to build it, as I had to wait to get the parts to measure them to make the CAD layout.
I have a pretty complete woodworking shop in my basement, and I built the metal parts at my son's manufacturing plant. He makes steel shooting targets. https://www.custommetalprod.com/ So I had access to the metals, a plasma table, welders and a Bridgeport to drill the parts. The wood was $30, and the metals were free (mostly 1" sq tube, and 10 gauge steel).

approximate costs:
Annie, coil, water cooling stuff............................$568
Fan, Timer, Solenoid, DC supply..........................$ 71
Misc switches, cables, filters, fuses etc.................$ 55

total....... $ 694

 

[MrBottleneck]

Beautifully executed!

 

[Gina1]

Just wondering.... I did not see a radiator in your coolant system from the pictures. How hot does your coolant get if you doing a lot of cases ? 50 or more, one right after another .

Gina

 

[Terry Altom]

Just wondering.... I did not see a radiator in your coolant system from the pictures. How hot does your coolant get if you doing a lot of cases ? 50 or more, one right after another .

Gina

I wondered this myself.

 

[powderbrake]

Just wondering.... I did not see a radiator in your coolant system from the pictures. How hot does your coolant get if you doing a lot of cases ? 50 or more, one right after another .

Gina

I haven't done a lot of cases but the Fluxeon website says that running a lot of cases can get the water warm, but additional cooling isn't needed. I will check the water temp when I get around to running a larger batch. Besides, it has a 4 3/4 diameter fan blowing right on the coolant container.

 

[Gina1]

Thanks for the come back.

Gina

 

[Jay Christopherson]

Made sticky because I think this is an awesome write-up.

 

[Dakota_Mike]

Looks great.

Have you thought about adding a proximity sensor in parallel to the start switch so that the sequence would start automatically when you drop a case in? I have a micro switch about 3/4" from my annies coil and have done thousands of cases and haven't had any issue with the electronics close to the coil.

 

[GrocMax]

Been looking into proximity sensors myself but its looking like the affordable ones will be optical open collector output type. But they don't do anything a regular old mechanical snap switch won't. Biggest issue is with that timer the START signal needs to be 100mS long, I'm assuming the STOP signal is similar. It is not fully clear without playing with one what happens if the START is held ON for several seconds. How we are able to get case feeding working with that timer is totally dependent on what the signals have to be to cycle thru. It looks to me like you'd need to use both START and STOP.

 

[Terry Altom]

Made sticky because I think this is an awesome write-up.

You may consider this one also.

http://forum.accurateshooter.com/threads/induction-brass-annealer-redux.3908353/

 

[powderbrake]

Looks great.

Have you thought about adding a proximity sensor in parallel to the start switch so that the sequence would start automatically when you drop a case in? I have a micro switch about 3/4" from my annies coil and have done thousands of cases and haven't had any issue with the electronics close to the coil.

I haven't really contemplated the move to an automated feed/start system. Your info on placement near the Annie coil is valuable, if I go in that direction. Thank you.

 

[Dakota_Mike]

The start is edge triggered from contact open to closed and can be held in for as long as you want. It resets when the contact opens up. Even if held in for 10 seconds the annie will only cycle once.

My annie setup isn't as refined as the one posted above but has worked great for probably 8-10k cases. I have mine setup with 3 switches: one for the 12vdc fan, one for the motor that spins the case while being annealed and another switch that disables the micro switch. When I slide the shuttle with the case all the way forward it hits the micro switch that starts the annie. Once the annie is done I pull it back and the case falls into a pan and then slide it forward just a little and insert another case and start over. For setup I disable the trigger and slide the case forward onto the spinner and then add shims under the annie if using taller cases. Simple but effective.

I have the parts to build a hopper fed automated version but haven't got around to it yet. Maybe this winter.

 

[powderbrake]

Update on coolant temperature questions:

I said I would test the temperatures, but first I had to add a hole and a plug in the top of the coolant container. The way I built the system, it is difficult to add water to the coolant tank, so I added the hole and a toggle plug. This is also how I could measure the temperature of the coolant.


I annealed 100 22-250 cases, which take 2.7 seconds on the Annie to anneal, and the overall timer cycle was 4.0 seconds.
The 100 cases took me 9min, 30 sec. This is an average cycle of 5.7 seconds. The time cycle was 4.0 seconds total.

The temp of the coolant at the start was 75 degrees F, and at the end of 100 cases it was 129 F. I measured the temperature with a lab grade thermometer. So I am not worried about the coolant temp because it is unlikely I would try to maintain that fast of a cycle time when annealing a large group of cases.

During the test, I dropped 3 or 4 cases through the hole before the solenoid slide had closed. I had to get the unannealed case out of the pan, so that cost time, as well as changing the small metal pans I had under the coil. The times for these errors are in the overall time.

I also found that I was waiting for the slide to close, so I reset the time on the solenoid from 0.8 seconds to 0.5 seconds. I also reset the start from 0.3 to 0.2 seconds, and the dwell time for anneal to 2.8 seconds. This results in a 3.5 sec overall timer cycle for future use, 12.5 % faster than the old timer settings.

I discovered that when I dropped the case into the hole in the 1/2 thick Corian, the case sometimes was cocked, and did not fall all the way down into the hole. This meant I had to hit the case with my finger to get it to drop into the hole. I plan to add a collar around the hole to bring the top of the hole closer to the bottom of the coil (if necessary). I believe if I don't try to set speed records, I will have few cocked cases. Also I have to run a bunch of the longer cases like the 30-06 to see if there are any different cocking conditions.

As side note is that I could touch the coil (which has a glass sleeve around the tubing), and it wasn't hot to the touch. Overall, I am very pleased with how the system worked out.

 

[powderbrake]

The start is edge triggered from contact open to closed and can be held in for as long as you want. It resets when the contact opens up. Even if held in for 10 seconds the annie will only cycle once.

My annie setup isn't as refined as the one posted above but has worked great for probably 8-10k cases. I have mine setup with 3 switches: one for the 12vdc fan, one for the motor that spins the case while being annealed and another switch that disables the micro switch. When I slide the shuttle with the case all the way forward it hits the micro switch that starts the annie. Once the annie is done I pull it back and the case falls into a pan and then slide it forward just a little and insert another case and start over. For setup I disable the trigger and slide the case forward onto the spinner and then add shims under the annie if using taller cases. Simple but effective.

I have the parts to build a hopper fed automated version but haven't got around to it yet. Maybe this winter.

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That is a gorgeous piece of wood(and finish) on your annealer. Is that cherry?

 

[GrocMax]

Looks like AK red cedar to me.