amp draw on 30K stadlmelter

[Victor Chiarizia]

i'm curious as to what other folks register as amp draw at idle with their stadleman furnace. just had an energy audit from my electric company and we registered 75amps on one leg of my single phase unit. thats 150amps total draw which i believe is pretty high. any one? Steve? vic

[Dave Hilty]

For single phase you put the clamp meter on one leg only. Thats your amp draw total. For some applications single phase 240 feeds may have a higher amp draw on one leg or another but your single phase furnace should have the same on each leg. You don't add one to the other for single phase draws.

[Victor Chiarizia]

thanks but i always thought you added them together to measure amp draw. so my draw would only be 75 amp at idle. im also looking for actual ##'s for comparison. v

[Pete VanderLaan]

I would call Cheyenne. He builds quite a few and order a lot of 28 inch pots. My own experience suggested to me that a regular session with an infra red laser would tell you if you have issues that would cause it to draw heavily when it shouldn't. That whole area around where the walls meet the floor was always an issue for heat loss as well as the passage brick areas. The elements do seem to have a life span but the 9/18 runs for a long time with no issues. Not so much with the 6/12. The Chinese customs has changed its policies on export making it a greater nuisance to get them.

I stopped using the moly when fuel prices just got too high. The electric is indeed far safer but it's so nice to use gas and make nice color again.

[Brian Wong Shui]

Measure with a true rms clamp meter. You’ll get incorrect readings if it isn’t true rms.

We run about 19kw at idle on our 3phase 30kw rig

75amps at 240v is 18kW so I’ll say that in the same ballpark.

FWIW, the furnace can’t pull 30kW at higher temps (2300F). The resistance of the elements at that temperature restrict it to about 26kW