Suppliers for SiC or MoSi2 elements?

[Eric Trulson]

Hey all,

I'm looking for suppliers for SiC or MoSi2 elements, trying to source a handful of elements for a gas -> electric retrofit for a small custom furnace - I've had an RFQ out with IsquaredR for a few weeks now but can't seem to get them to respond even after following up multiple times. Anybody know other outfits that sell silicon carbide or molybdenum disilicide heating elements?

From the glass world, I know Ryan Staub used to get some molys wholesale from a chinese vendor and re-sell them, but I'm not sure if he's kept up that sideline since moving out to Hawaii. Eddy & Cheyenne probably both keep some on the shelves for their electric furnaces, but this is for a custom furnace and I think I'm going to need some a bit shorter than their usual sizes.

I've been having surprisingly little luck chasing this, so if anybody knows of other sources I might be able to try, I'd certainly appreciate getting pointed in their direction

[Pete VanderLaan]

IR squared is probably the most expensive non responsive bunch you could choose to deal with.

Call duralite in Riverton Connecticut. Mark Jesson. I think he handles both. I have some Moly elements still here which I would indeed sell but moly's require fairly tight voltages to work properly. SiC, as I suspect you know are just straight up 240 V units. They are reactive with glass and they do change resistance as they age.

Getting them out of China has proved to be a major pai these days. It's why I quit bringing them in.

I've never encountered using both before in the same unit. I also have transformer here that I would sell. It's a conventional unit that would tap at 60V or 120V. It's ugly but it ought to work and would be cheap. I have quite a few 6/12 300/450's I also have clamps and braided straps

[Josh Bernbaum]

Not sure if they have any SiC things there but I second the mention of Duralite, and they seem to have some different sizes of Moly elements to choose from.

[Victor Chiarizia]

i get coils from duralite for years but they fell short on their overpriced moly elements. never got a firm quote from them either so i went direct to china...found them on ebay of all places. delivery was a success too. v

[Pete VanderLaan]

Originally Posted by Victor Chiarizia

i get coils from duralite for years but they fell short on their overpriced moly elements. never got a firm quote from them either so i went direct to china...found them on ebay of all places. delivery was a success too. v

*****
Delivery is a success until it isn't. Then the trouble starts. When I drop shipped elements to clients, I would insure with supposed insurance. If one element in six broke, they wanted to replace that element on the client's next order. That is not workable. Ultimately, between that, price increases and Chinese customs it was no longer a workable operation.

The one thing you do not want to do is to have to ship the same elements twice. I simply could not repackage elements to avoid breakage. I'm a very good packer.
I refer Duralite only because they handle a wider variety of elements. Cheyenne handles a narrow line.

[Mark Rosenbaum]

FYI.... Duralite is selling off their stock of molys. I bought the last of their 450/450s a couple of weeks ago. Check availability because they are not going to buy from China anymore because of slow downs and breakage in shipping.

[Pete VanderLaan]

I recall that Rollin Karg used a contact known as "The Andy Group" and it worked well for him.
6/12 elements are really hard to ship without breakage. The first time Steve and I put in a large order, way back around 2002 a hand welded crate out of steel arrived in Portland- just amazing box. Inside were fifty broken 6/12 450/450 elements. Not a one wrapped at all.

I reached a stage where no matter what I did, the 6/12's all broke when I tried to repack them. I finally went to drop shipping which actually helped for some time but then the insurance routine started where they said it was insured, but not if you made a claim. So if someone order six elements and one broke, they would replace it in the next order for that person. Utterly unworkable. I finally just stopped.

If Mark is getting out of the lightweight element biz, that may be the death nell for the furnaces with those element types. It required a conventional transformer with a secondary of 120 volt which cut in half gave 60 volts which is what those elements need. It is possible to change out the element to a 9/18 which Cheyenne still stocks but the configuration would need five elements in series to hit the right voltage. The crown for a six element unit could be used leaving one hole empty. It requires some modest ingenuity. Otherwise, a new transformer will be necessary and that will run between 2-3K. Cheyenne now is using an even beefier element and I have never pursued the power draw on them. I did use a much beefier element in Shanghai but that was some time ago. They can get up to an inch in diameter.

[Eric Trulson]

Thanks for the input all.

Ended up getting a quote back from ISquaredR a few days ago - for those who like to keep track of these sorts of things, for a small 6kW SiC furnace, x6 straight (type RR) SiC elements were ~$400, x3 U-shaped SiC or MoSi2 elements were ~$800. Same overall power output for all of the configurations, despite the different number of elements.

The person who's doing this retrofit has three-phase power, unfortunately, so the cost of transformers for running moly elements is prohibitively expensive, $4.5k or so on top of everything else. Planning to go with silicon carbide because of that. An SCR able to run them is still $2-3k though, and you need that no matter which element type you go for, SiC or MoSi2. Nothin's cheap anymore

[Pete VanderLaan]

IR squared is an extremely expensive source for this stuff.
Three phase systems were a constant source of difficulty over the years with the Moly units Steve built. I don't know why. When I was having transformers built, they pretty much topped out at 3K, but time flies.

[Brian Wong Shui]

Eric, I have two Watlow Power Series SCR's in storage that are looking for a good home that I can part with for a good price. These were pulled from a piece of equipment that was not put into service and I had them on hand to build a slumping kiln.

Watlow Part Number is PC30-F25B-0000
Voltage 200-480VAC
AMPS: 140A

https://www.watlow.com/-/media/docum...er-series.ashx

These will not run a moly furnace since it is not current limiting but may be good for SiC elements (not sure here since I've never built a furnace using SiC). I also don't know how it will play with 3 Phase-Wye. All our equipment was 3 Phase Delta.

PM me if interested.

--Brian

[James Burts]

I'm looking at perhaps taking on a similar build project.

Eric, I'd like to pick your brain on decisions you made, and sources you ultimately went with. Could you pm me contact information?

[Pete VanderLaan]

James, Is there an issue with the moly set up you got from me?

[James Burts]

Originally Posted by Pete VanderLaan

James, Is there an issue with the moly set up you got from me?

I'm likely establishing a separate shop. I'll PM details.

--James--