Many modern industrial plants, which are designed for the preparation of fish and meat in large volumes, operate on the principle of electrostatic smoking. It has been tested for many decades and is approved for use by strict sanitary rules and regulations. If you decide to make an electrostatic smokehouse with your own hands, you should know that it is a complex structure, complemented by an electrical part.
The scheme is quite simple, and making it yourself is not at all difficult. A cold-smoked plant will be as effective and efficient as an industrial model, because the fish will only be cooked for half an hour, and as for meat, it comes to readiness in such an installation in an hour.
Making a smokehouse with an electrostatic circuit
Many home craftsmen make electrostatic smokehouses. With your own hands, you can also perform such an installation. The design can be divided into 3 parts, among them:
- electric camera;
- smoke generator;
- high voltage field generator.
In order for the work to be completed in a short time, you can use a metal box as a case, usually its dimensions are 1x0.6x0.5 cm. If it is not possible to make the case yourself, you can adapt a wooden / metal cabinet or a refrigerator. Work on the manufacture of the case will take several hours, this is true even for those craftsmen who do not have the high qualifications of a carpenter. However, the case in such a device is not one of the important parts, because inside there is no increased humidity and high temperatures.
A prerequisite is that the electrical components must be well insulated and the housing grounded. In order for the smokehouse to be conveniently used, it must be divided into 3 compartments. The smoking chamber will have the following dimensions: 45x45x50 cm. It must be positioned in the upper part. This will allow you to suspend products and control the process of their preparation.
Before you make an electrostatic smokehouse with your own hands, you should consider its design features. The lower part should be divided into 2 compartments, which will be approximately equal in size. The partition will act as a separation. In one part there will be a smoke generator, while in the other - electrical equipment.
Production of a smoke generator
When performing a smokehouse, you must take care of the presence of a smoke source, which can be any smoke generator made by yourself. The most common smoldering type installations are those that have a heating element or an ejector.
The electric element for the described smokehouse will be more suitable, because it has a compact size and allows you to get as much smoke as you need for cooking in a short time. After the current is turned off, combustion will stop. The smoking process in an electrostatic field lasts a short time, so a long-acting generator is almost not needed.
Work on the chimney and filter
If you will be doing the electrostatic smokehouse with your own hands, then you should consider the location of the chimney. It will be in the upper part, and smoke will enter the smoking chamber in a natural way. Convection flows will contribute to this, so a fan is not required. In the smoke path, it is necessary to install a removable filter, which should have a labyrinth type. This will clear the smoke from the resin and cool the flow.
The filter works according to a simple principle, which consists in the condensation of fractions on a cold metal. The filter can be made from steel segments that are pre-cut according to the parameters of the smoke channel. When making cold-smoked electrostatic smokehouse with your own hands, it is important to take care of even distribution of smoke in the chamber. For this, a diffuser, which will be a perforated plate, must be placed above the chimney outlet. It should have a hemispherical section.
The generator will start 15 minutes before the start of the electrostatic field. During this time, the chamber volume will be filled with cold smoke, the volume of which will be enough for cooking. During installation, you only have to maintain its level.
How to create an electrostatic field
The most important condition for the described smokehouse will be the creation of an electrostatic field. To do this, three grids should be installed inside the camera, one of which will be located in the center, while the other two - on the sides. They should be connected to the cathode of the DC generator. It is important to isolate the mesh well from the case, because the generated voltage will be 20,000 V.
The needle electrodes must be fixed or welded to the nets. You can use any other contact method. To install them, it is recommended to use pointed pieces of wire, tin triangles or nails. They need to be distributed over the entire area of the grids.
When an electrostatic smokehouse is done with your own hands, the scheme is necessarily prepared. It will allow you to understand that connecting the anode to the hooks is carried out in the next step. The current generator circuit is not complicated, so you can pick it up yourself. The cost of individual nodes is low. You can make a smokehouse, the price of which will be equal to a quarter of the cost of a new installation. In this case, cables, temperature sensors and switches are taken into account.
Work on a voltage generator, or Creating a smokehouse from an ignition coil
The generator output wire must be connected to the hook, while the other wire is connected to the high-voltage chamber. If you want to make an electrostatic smokehouse from an ignition coil with your own hands, then it can form the basis of a generator. The coil can be borrowed from a motorcycle or car. An alternative solution is a transformer from the horizontal scan of the TV.
To generate voltage, you need to assemble a simple electronic circuit. It provides for the presence of an electric key from a transistor or relay. It is important to remember that the coil will create ultra-high voltage, which can be life threatening. It depends on several parameters of the electronic circuit. Specialists do not advise engaging in its manufacture unless you have the appropriate knowledge and skills.
Making a smokehouse from a TV
The described smokehouse will differ from the traditional one only in the presence of an electric circuit. Electrostatic smoking is carried out at voltages up to 20 kV DC. If we are talking about industrial equipment, which has high power, then it can be designed for a volume of products up to 100 kg, special transformers are used in such units . But if you yourself decided to make your own electrostatic smokehouse from a television scan, then a conventional transformer from a household appliance will be enough. In addition, you should prepare:
- voltage multiplier;
- transistor;
- insulating rings;
- resistor;
- insulated network cable;
- metal mesh.
Features of manufacturing a smokehouse from the new TV
When it is planned to use the TDKS transformer, borrowed from the new TV model, which has a vacuum picture tube, then the reducer is not needed here, since it is already built-in and generates direct current. There is no need to invent anything here, and the transformer is connected in the same way as on the TV board.
Assembly
Before you make an electrostatic smokehouse with your own hands, you must assemble a power supply based on a transistor and a limiting resistor. These two nodes are connected to the transformer outputs. High voltage will be removed from the output stage. It is important to ensure that the polarity is not mixed up - when installing the transformer, you should remember where the negative and positive terminals were connected.
If your smokehouse is designed to cook 10 kg of fish, poultry or meat, then a high-voltage generator is also suitable for it. If we supplement them with equipment of a more impressive size, then although it will work, the smoking process will be quite lengthy.
If you decide to make a cold smoked electrostatic smokehouse with your own hands, the drawings should help you with this. From them you can find out that among the components of the device the following nodes:
- smoking chamber;
- high voltage unit;
- smoke generator;
- Control block.
Insulation
Products must be well insulated from the body if it is made of metal. For this, the fasteners for the rods are made of dielectric. The most suitable option is ebonite. This is true for metal bar pins. They can also be made of durable wood, the diameter of the stick should be approximately 1.5 cm.
Finally
When assembling an electrostatic generator for a smokehouse with your own hands, you should use ready-made schemes. Typically, the described installations for use at home are made at the rate of 10 kg of products per smoking session. With so much high-voltage generator can handle pretty quickly.
If the bookmark is carried out in a larger volume, then cooking will take more time. In addition to the generator, the installation will include a smoking department, a smoke generator and a voltage unit. Having examined the factory model, you can find the control unit there, it allows you to control the smoking process.