DIY Acrylic Heater

[niko5]

Are there any DIY Plastrip Heaters for acrylic? I hate to pay 50 bucks for something that seems would be easy to make.

[barebottoms]

Cut and paste from my localized version in our club forum. Too lazy to unlocalize it.

You can make your own strip heater easily.

Get a dimmer and nichrome wiring (its used to repair heaters).

Stretch your Nichrome wire out and attach to a suitable surface to withstand the heat. Ceramics would be good. Take 2x4 and tile it. At each end put a "screw post" to hold down the wire.

Put your dimmer in an electrical box, pass through the neutral to one screw post. Put the hot leg to the dimmer, from the other end of the dimmer to the remaining screw post.


WARNING!!!!

This setup can and will be very dangerous. If you're not comfortable with heat and electricity, do not try this.


Greg at Mr. Plastics taught me this trick. You can pickup Nichrome wire at Pastime Ace Hardware in El Cerrito.

Experiment with the heat you need for various thickness of acrylics, and mark you position on your dimmer for future reference.

Here is a safer version:

http://www.tapplastics.com/shop/product.php?pid=169

"Real Deal"

http://www.tapplastics.com/shop/product.php?pid=291

the controller:

http://www.tapplastics.com/shop/product.php?pid=290

[niko5]

Cool so then i would just lay the tiled 2x4 with the wire on it down on a piece of acrylic and wait till its hot right?

Thanks

[barebottoms]

yup. if the wire is above the plastic. You probably want something on the other side of the plastic that is heat resistant too.

I was thinking the plastic on top of the 2x4 with the tiles, the heated wire above the plastic.

Only reason is in case the plastic gets too hot and starts dripping.

[H20ENG]

You want the plastic away from the heat source by an inch or 2. The plastic will bubble and scorch before it begins to drip, at which point its already destroyed. Start with a low setting. The plastic SHOULD take about 10 minutes or so to soften. Also, be careful! That bare nichrome wire and screws will not only be very hot, but have 120volts on it!

[niko5]

OK im just getting around to making this... yea so its been a year :) Just wondering what GAUGE Nichrome wire to use? Checking out Ebay it comes in all gauges from like 16 ga all the way up to 30 or so ga. Any ideas?

[barebottoms]

Looking at this chart:
http://www.wiretron.com/nicrdat.html

I would say 16 is a good choice.

This article used 17 gauage for 1/8" acrylic, but didn't mention how high they had to crank up their "dimmer"

http://www.plasticsmag.com/ta.asp?aid=2586

[niko5]

Is that accurate to 120V? 10 Amps to hit 800 Degrees? That’s alot of power usage...

[Acrylics]

Niko
Also do a search using my name and "strip heater", I outlined the same thing that Barebottoms did. I use coiled nichrome that was a replacement part for GE dryers. Johnstone supply used to carry them but stopped carrying 'em a while back from what I hear.
Don't worry about drawing 10 amps, a standard dimmer switch will fry at 5 amps anyway.

Barebottoms,
hmm I wonder where Greg learned that trick... if you ever speak with Mr Greg Jefferies at Mr Plastics, tell him I said howdy :) We worked together many moons ago.

James

[niko5]

Thanks I looked it up good design I wish I could see the pic but the page is blocked here at work ill have to try when I get home.

[niko5]

So im guessing its easer to make a channel with the heating element in it so you put the acrylic on top of it rather than having the heading eliment above the acrylic on a hinge kind of setup so you lift it up place the acrylic on work area and lower the wire down on top

[Acrylics]

Yep, the wire will expand when heated and dip down onto the acrylic. There are commercial strip heaters that heat from both sides and have ceramic "holdfasts" to keep the wire from do this but they cost a few $$ :)

James