Converting something from steam heated to electric

[adam-aussie-vac]

Hey guys, so my industrial machine is going to be coming in about a month and I want to convert it from it being steam heated to electrically heated as I’ve got no facilities to heat it using steam, what’s generally a good Watage for heating a large amount of water somewhat slowly? (I have up to 15 A at 240 V available.) I even thought about using a small Pump sucking water from where the old steam port used to be humping it through a filter through the Pump up into a cheap little hot water system, one of the miniature instantaneous ones, but I’m probably instead gonna see if it is possible to fit a 240 V waterproof heating element in

 

[launderess]

You're likely going to require two or maybe three 2500 watt heating elements.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/223969713822

https://www.huoltopalvelu.com/Elect...shing-machine-heater-2500W?PageSpeed=noscript




Much is going to depend upon programming available for wash cycles.

That is if max wash cycle is say 12 minutes you're going to need lots of power to heat water quickly.

Then there is will you be doing starting from cold (expensive and time consuming) or beginning with hot water and boosting it up to 140F or above.

Most commercial laundries don't bother with starting from cold, but have hot water from tap and use heaters to boost temps to desired range.

Where available commercial/industrial laundries will go with steam because it's usually faster and cheaper. Of course such laundries are also using steam for ironers, dryers, ironing, steam tunnel finishers, so they have other reasons to have onsite boilers.

Contrary to what many would believe commercial/industrial washers actually inject steam into wash water for heating. In past this was done manually by opening and closing steam valves. Modern machines however have built in controls to operate said steam valves.

One consequence of injecting steam is water levels are slightly below what ought otherwise to be, this is to take into account steam injected into washer will condense back into water, which in turn will raise level.

 

[adam-aussie-vac]

Oh, this machine does not have any set program, it’s literally just on and off and it only Tumble, fill and drain are completely manual as well as timing so I’m assuming shouldn’t it be better to let it sit and heat or tumble and heat? I’m almost thinking about having The set up start tumbling after it’s done heating to make it slightly more automatic. That means all I need to do is fill it up after closing and locking the door, and adding detergent.

 

[adam-aussie-vac]

Great news I’ve got an idea of how I can convert it from steam heated to electric heated

This means that I can use the original fittings instead of having to cut a hole in the machine,

probably the easiest solution would be using the rod style immersion heaters like the one on the first image that way I can unscrew the steam pipe and screw in the heating element,

of course I’ll probably pick up two that way I can use at least 10 A while leaving 5 A to make the motor run so it can heat and Tumble

I’ll have it on a separate switch with a temperature controller even though it’s got its own temperature gauge, I want it to maintain the temperature by itself instead of climbing past it, and I’ll probably have it set up to lockout and probably even start tumbling after the heater has reached temperature, similar to the Wilco Matic that I have where it will start tumbling after it’s done heating