PeterW Posted January 21, 2018 Share Posted January 21, 2018 3 minutes ago, Triassic said: After years of thinking and prevaricating, the basement hole has finally been dug, mind you it’s cost us twice as much as budgeted due to the hardness of various layers of limestone, hence my other question about value for money EOS sheets, which I’ll be ordering tomorrow. I’ve also ordered a length of nichrome wire for a home made hot wire cutter. Let the fun begin. Blog...?? Photos...?? Enjoy.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted January 21, 2018 Share Posted January 21, 2018 (edited) 51 minutes ago, Triassic said: After years of thinking and prevaricating, the basement hole has finally been dug, mind you it’s cost us twice as much as budgeted due to the hardness of various layers of limestone, hence my other question about value for money EOS sheets, which I’ll be ordering tomorrow. I’ve also ordered a length of nichrome wire for a home made hot wire cutter. Let the fun begin. What dia Nichrome have you gone for? I faffed making one with Kanthal wire from an online vape store. Although it worked for a bit the wire kept breaking and I burnt the wall wart psu out! I had even done some rough Ohms Law calcs as well. Figure it needs a constant current psu maybe. Got bored and gave up! Even my missus had a go... Edited January 21, 2018 by Onoff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 21, 2018 Share Posted January 21, 2018 Last time I made a hot wire cutter, I used a bit of wire from one of those very old bar heater elements, the sort where the wire spirals round a ceramic former. They were 1KW elements so about 4 amps will get them glowing red. I just fed whatever length I was using from a bench power supply using the current limit facility and adjusting the current to set the wire temperature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterW Posted January 21, 2018 Share Posted January 21, 2018 I use D'Addario Plain Steel Strings from eBay to make mine - cheap and easy and you can get them in various thicknesses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triassic Posted January 21, 2018 Author Share Posted January 21, 2018 I found a design curve for the nichrome wire based on the volts and amps of the power supply, it suggested I need a 32 SWG (0.2743 mm) wire, 8 inch long, to suit my power supply. The power supply will be a low voltage lighting transformer rated at 12 volt and 5.4 amp. We will see how it works. I’ve bought 1 metre of wire so I can afford to burn and break a few ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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