Development of a glass melting furnace with online control systems

Abstract

In this research, intended to fabricate an electric furnace was built with Insulation such as fiberboard fiberglass blanket and light brick. The tracking and systems remote control was developed using the Arduino WeMos D1 WIFI ESP 8266 board running through an appication blynk on a smartphone. The device used to measure the temperature inside the glass melting furnace is the Audino MAX 6675 module, together with a thermocouple to control the electrical current control the electric current going to the heating coil to heat the set temperature. The 1. 2-mm wires were twisted into the 8. 3- mm heating coils with a resistance of 12. 0 Ω. When 11.0-A current was applied to the heating coil, the furnace can be operated at a maximum heating rate of around 6 ℃/min. and max continuous operating temperature at 1200 oC. After the test run of this furnace and control system, it was found that this apparatus can be used as a replacement for a traditional one. Furthermore, the cost of the temperature controller this furnace is cheaper than a traditional one up to 17 times.