Induction annealer built around Annie

[TAJ45]

@normmatzen, Your cooling water looks pink, what additive(s) are in it (antifreeze)? My Annie is going to sit beside a sink and I was thinking about just tapping into my cold water line and running the warm water back to the sink drain. In case any water conservationists are listening, we have plenty of water in Houston... We have hard water so occasionally I might need to run some white vinegar through the line to clean a little scale out.

Or Lime Away may help too, Norm.

 

[VaniB]

Man, that's a real nice machine you have there!

Here's a photo of my invention. I count to 22, dump the hot case in a can, and do the next case.

 

[6ShotsOr5?]

Here is my Annie setup, with a few pics. Mine looks a lot like the setup from @normmatzen in this thread, except I have a sink available so I’m just trickling water through the coil and down the drain. I could have plumbed the coil outlet straight into the drain, but I wanted to be able to see how fast the water is trickling.

When we bought the house, I knew I wanted to add a sink in the garage, and also have space to set up an annealer by the sink. I noticed the washer and dryer in our utility room backed up to a wall of the garage, so it would be dead simple for a plumber to install water supply lines and a drain on the other side of that wall in the garage. The space is a little shallow from front to back because it is sitting up on a ledge at the edge of the garage. I got a work bench from Sam’s Club and just cut a hole for the flush mount sink, but before buying the bench, I shopped around to make sure I could find a deep sink with a small enough footprint. It had to be shallow from front to back, but I also didn’t want it to be too wide because I wanted to keep the bench top space. The sink I found is made by Elkay and it has basin dimensions 12” square by 9-7/8” deep, but it was pricey. I couldn’t find a really cheap sink that was even close to the size I wanted.

So far, I have only annealed Peterson 6 Creed SRP brass. I used the 750 F Tempilaq to find a time of 3.0 seconds is needed per case. It only took about 4-5 minutes to anneal my first 50 cases. Here are a few lessons learned:

— If you want 5 mm glass rods for your .224 to 6mm cases, don’t buy the $8-12 packs on Amazon. I ordered packs from two apparently different sellers on Amazon, but what I received were two identical packages of made-in-China 6 mm rods which are okay for .260 and larger, but not what I needed for 6 mm cases. I finally got 5 mm rods that are really 5 mm by spending a bit more with a reputable supplier, in this case Fisher Scientific. Is there a different metric system in China?

— I used a diamond-impregnated Dremel cut-off wheel to cut the glass rods. The diamond cut off wheel plus the mandrel cost nearly $30, so there might be a better way to do that.

— I also learned not to use any plastic tubs to toss the hot cases in, duh. Pyrex or metal containers are a good option.

 

[powderbrake]

That is a nice setup. I believe the Norm Matzen glass rod is a great idea. cheap and repeatable. The Annie has all the timing controls built in, so it is very efficient.
As for trays, I use the aluminum foil tray that is about 8" long, 3" wide, I buy them in packs of 3 at the grocery store.

 

[MatthewsCarbineCo]

You did an exceptional job building and executed the write up very well. But also being a Mechanical Design Engineer it is what we do though...
Very nice. Also at half the cost and no special pilots to buy like the well known commercial annealer, I know what I will be doing the winter of 2020.
Time is money and well spent.

 

[normmatzen]

The water in my reservoir is pink as I wanted to put something into the cooling water to retard ugly things from growing in it! I used a chemical to stop mold and things from growing in a humidifier. I used some of that. It has lasted since I started using my water cooled coil!

 

[Shooting while seated]

This thing gives me a headache when I look at it. Im going to set something up with angel iron and a butane torch.

 

[normmatzen]

Some of you have seen my posts about using a glass rod to support the case for annealing. I use different lengths for different cases.
My water reservoir holds about a pint of water (tinted pink with anti-bacterial additive).
I routinely anneal 100 cases at a time and the water gets barely warm to the touch.
Incidently, even with hand loading and un-loading 100 cases take 15-20 minutes.

 

[Beiruty]

Great design, I can suggest adding a laser-emitter-detector under the coil to trip the start switch. The user would drop a case, the annealing would start immediately, or after some programmable delay. After the annealing cycle is completed and the case is dropped, the switch is reset waiting for the next case being dropped by the user (or by auto-case-feed)

 

[Johncalloway]

Man that’s nice!

 

[ELR LVR]

View attachment 994347

That thing looks like it belongs in a Delorean....I like it

 

[Stanislav Plagov]

Hello everyone, I am new to the forum and want to share my build of annealing machine with auto feeder. It makes lot easier to do that. It takes about 6sec for 6.5 Creedmoor and about 5 sec for 223.

 

[20-practical]

Hello everyone, I am new to the forum and want to share my build of annealing machine with auto feeder. It makes lot easier to do that. It takes about 6sec for 6.5 Creedmoor and about 5 sec for 223.

looks great. can you post a video of it working?

 

[Stanislav Plagov]

looks great. can you post a video of it working?

Here you are

 

[Fire Dog]

Looks to be a great project...
BUT, I think that for all that and of course saving some $, I will stick with my AMP machine as it is:
1. Quick
2. Exact and repeatable
3. I can get exact standoff collets that put the annealing area of the case in perfect location {No Guess Work}
4. The Aztec program will give a perfect annealing temperature and time.
Repeatable with any other machine, just use the code that is generated the first time.
Yes, a bit expensive but but perfect every time and I did not need to be an electronic wiz...
OH Yea, it also does not need any water cooling... No leaks ever... Good idea when using electricity!