Services

Furnace Installation and Service Support

OPDEL provides installation, commissioning, operator training, spare parts and after-sales service for the induction melting furnaces, casting machines, heat treatment furnaces and finishing equipment it supplies to jewellery manufacturers, gold and silver refiners and precious-metal casting houses. Support covers the full life of the machine: site preparation advice before delivery, electrical and cooling hook-up and first melt on site, hands-on training for the operators who will run it, and replacement parts, repairs and process troubleshooting afterwards. The service function is run from Vadodara, Gujarat, India, alongside in-house melting, casting, finishing and refining laboratories used for training and for testing customer samples.

What the service programme covers

Installation and commissioning

Induction melting equipment is not plug-and-play. Every machine has a defined supply voltage and phase, an absorbed power figure the incoming circuit must carry, and — on almost every induction unit OPDEL supplies — an external water cooling requirement with a minimum flow rate and a maximum inlet temperature. Commissioning means confirming those conditions are actually met at your site, connecting the machine, verifying coil and cooling circuit integrity, checking the temperature measurement chain (thermocouple probe or IR pyrometer, depending on model), and running a first supervised melt or casting cycle with your own metal so the machine is signed off against a real result rather than a factory test sheet.

Operator training at the Cast-Lab and Finish-Lab

OPDEL runs two dedicated laboratories for customer training. The Cast-Lab is a working melting and casting laboratory used for start-up courses and instruction of operating personnel on belt furnaces, static furnaces and melting machines, and for running trials on customer samples before or after purchase. The Finish-Lab does the same for finishing equipment — vibrators, tumblers, polishing and blasting lines — again including test runs on customer parts. Both exist for the same reason: to confirm machine capability and the finished-product result on your material, not on a demonstration piece.

Training matters more on this class of equipment than buyers usually expect. Most yield and quality complaints on induction melting and investment casting traceback to operator technique — crucible handling, charge sequence, flask and metal temperature, cycle timing — rather than to a machine fault.

After-sales service, spare parts and repairs

The after-sales function handles installation follow-up, replacement parts, breakage and accidental damage, and responds to production difficulties and questions about the most profitable operating procedure for a given job. Consumable and wear items — crucibles, graphite inserts, ceramic parts, finishing media — are handled through the same channel; see the range of graphite products for crucibles, moulds and furnace linings for what is stocked as a standard line.

Refining and recovery support

Recovering and refining metal with minimum loss is the point of the whole process chain in a precious-metal plant, and OPDEL provides refining and recovery solutions alongside the equipment. This is treated as a service and process question, not only a machine sale.

Installation prerequisites by model

Use this to size the incoming supply and cooling before delivery. Every figure below is taken from the corresponding product page.

Two practical notes that follow directly from the table. First, the bench units in the OPUMelt 4/5 family run on single-phase 230 V, so a small workshop does not need a three-phase connection to start; the 12 kW and 16 kW machines do. Second, “external water” means the chiller or cooling circuit is your responsibility to provide unless it is quoted in — on the OPSPRCast machines the water cooling system is included, on the OPUMelt units it is not.

What good installation and service support is worth

For a capital-equipment buyer the case is straightforward and it is about running cost, not features.

• Metal loss. Overheating and metal burning are the expensive failure modes in a precious-metal melt. Correct commissioning of the temperature control chain — thermocouple probe or IR pyrometer with emissivity set for the metal — is what keeps that under control from day one.
• Yield and consistency. Repeatability comes from operators running the same parameters the same way. Trained operators plus stored machine programmes give you a process you can audit; untrained operators give you a different result each shift.
• Cycle time. Correctly sized supply and adequate cooling flow let the machine run at its rated power. Undersized cabling or a marginal chiller shows up as longer melts and thermal cut-outs, not as an obvious fault.
• Downtime. Wear items on this equipment are known and predictable — crucibles, graphite inserts, cooling hoses, seals. Holding the right ones on your own shelf is cheaper than an idle casting line.
• Safety. Molten metal at up to 2000 °C, three-phase power and water cooling in the same cabinet is a combination that rewards a proper hook-up and a proper handover.

Equipment supported

Melting: the OPUMelt 4/5 bench induction melting furnaces, the higher-capacity OPUMelt 12/16 induction melting furnaces, the OPUMelt TLT tilting melting station, the OPUmelt TF furnace, the OPEMelt compact desktop induction melter, the OPEM Air induction melter and the modular OPUM ITC industrial induction cube furnaces.

Casting: the OPSPRCast D universal casting machine, the OPPressCast OP3 and OP5 casting machines, the OPCast D centrifugal casting machine and the OPCS Digital casting system.

Also supported: heat treatment furnaces including the FR, FN and FRC series, induction heating power supplies from 5 kW to 35 kW, and finishing and consumable lines.

Frequently asked questions

How do I choose the right melting capacity?

Size on the largest single charge you actually pour, not on annual throughput, and check the crucible capacity for the specific metal — the same machine is rated differently for gold, platinum and stainless steel. The OPUMelt 12/16 range illustrates this clearly: OPUM-12G is rated 10 kg Au 24 kt, while OPUM-12U on the same 12 kW frame is rated 8 kg Au, 0.9–3 kg Pt or 0.6–2 kg SS. If you are between two sizes, run your own charge at the Cast-Lab before deciding.

What power supply do I need?

Check the model’s AC line and absorbed power in the table above. The OPUMelt 4/5 family and both OPSPRCast D models run on single-phase 230 V ±10%. The 12 kW and 16 kW OPUMelt units need three phase; the 16 kW models require 380–480 VAC. An optional transformer is available on the OPUMelt 4/5 and 12/16 ranges to support 3-phase / 230 V AC line requirements.

Is installation included, and who does it?

What training is provided?

Start-up courses and operator instruction are run at the Cast-Lab for melting and casting equipment and at the Finish-Lab for finishing equipment, including trials on your own samples.

Which crucibles fit my furnace, and how often are they replaced?

Crucible type follows the machine and the metal. The OPSPRCast D models, for example, take a 10 cm³ graphite insert or a 30 cm³ ceramic crucible, and the choice depends on whether you are casting gold, platinum or titanium. Graphite crucibles, moulds and linings are supplied as a standard line.

How quickly can I get spare parts?

Parts, breakage and accidental-damage replacements are handled by the service centre.

What is the delivery lead time and what warranty applies?

Can I get help with a production problem on a machine I already own?

Yes. The service centre responds to difficulties in production and gives advice on the most profitable operating procedures, in addition to handling parts and repairs.

Request a quote or arrange a site assessment

Tell us the metal, the charge size, your available supply and whether you have cooling water, and we will come back with the right machine and a clear list of what your site needs to prepare. Sample trials at the Cast-Lab and Finish-Lab can be arranged as part of the same conversation.

Contact the Vadodara office by phone or email, or use the details on the OPDEL contact page to start a quotation.

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