Limescale removal

[ElectricUK]

Hi i wonder if anybody can help, I'm looking for a circuit to build a unit that prevents the limescale build up in water pipes etc.
It is an oscillator circuit with a coil that wraps around the mains water pipe

many thanks in advance

Darren

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Hi i wonder if anybody can help, I'm looking for a circuit to build a unit that prevents the limescale build up in water pipes etc.
It is an oscillator circuit with a coil that wraps around the mains water pipe

EPE have done a couple of them, one using a PIC.

 

[ElectricUK]

??

Hi Nigel,
As you can probably tell i'm new to these forums....EPE????
What's EPE?

Regards

Darren
:?:

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Re: ??

Hi Nigel,
As you can probably tell i'm new to these forums....EPE????
What's EPE?

'Everyday Practical Electronics' - the UK's leading electronics magazine.

 

[Oznog]

Hi i wonder if anybody can help, I'm looking for a circuit to build a unit that prevents the limescale build up in water pipes etc.
It is an oscillator circuit with a coil that wraps around the mains water pipe

many thanks in advance

Darren

How's that supposed to work? The stuff I know of is a magnet on the pipe- and it does nothing, it's a fraud. Same for magnets on the fuel line which are supposed to increase your gas mileage. I'd look into how it's going to do what it's supposed to be doing before you spend time to build one.

Generally magnetic fields don't do anything interesting to water until you get into the microwave range, where it can heat it as you are probably familiar with. Also extremely intense fields can make it react (actually you can levitate it), but even still, the water is unchanged as soon as the field is removed.

 

[pike]

what your trying to do is stop corrosion from happening in the first place, yes??

well you have 2 options:

-Place an inline filter to filter the rubbish coming in from the water mains.

-Provide a sacrificial anode for the rubbish to collect on. This means placing a more reactive metal in the water so the water is more likely to react with the sacrificial metal instead of the copper pipe.

 

[ElectricUK]

check this link
https://www.seemans.co.uk/kitchen/aquamag.htm

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

check this link
https://www.seemans.co.uk/kitchen/aquamag.htm

Doesn't mean much though does it?, it's simply an advert for a commercial product - it even includes the line "has been shown in manufacture's test ", which presumably means no one else has been able to confirm it (and doesn't look good, when they can't even spell!).

The EPE articles were listed as experimental, and they made no claims for their effectiveness.

 

[pebe]

Hi i wonder if anybody can help, I'm looking for a circuit to build a unit that prevents the limescale build up in water pipes etc.
It is an oscillator circuit with a coil that wraps around the mains water pipe

many thanks in advance

Darren

How's that supposed to work? The stuff I know of is a magnet on the pipe- and it does nothing, it's a fraud. Same for magnets on the fuel line which are supposed to increase your gas mileage. I'd look into how it's going to do what it's supposed to be doing before you spend time to build one.

Generally magnetic fields don't do anything interesting to water until you get into the microwave range, where it can heat it as you are probably familiar with. Also extremely intense fields can make it react (actually you can levitate it), but even still, the water is unchanged as soon as the field is removed.

I can vouch for the effectiveness of a permanent magnet on the pipe. I used to live in a very hard water area and the kettle needed descaling evry week.

A heating engineer recommended a Swedish magnetic system and I installed one. When the kettle boiled, lime was preciptated as a white powder on the surface of the boiled water. I never needed to descale the kettle again.

As for the AC coil round the pipe - I cannot see how it works, bearing in mind the copper pipe will act like a shorted turn to the coil. Perhaps someonr can come up with an explanation.

 

[ElectricUK]

As for the AC coil round the pipe - I cannot see how it works, bearing in mind the copper pipe will act like a shorted turn to the coil. Perhaps someonr can come up with an explanation.

The coil is obviously insulated from the copper pipe, so won't be shorted. From what i have found out it's a sweep oscillater circuit

Darren