Power supply for hot wire foam cutter |
Well I would like to say that I worked this out all on my own. But it was a bit of trial and error, a lot of web searching. And paying way too much for a hot wire power supply. Before I found out how cheap and easy one can be put together. There are a lot of ways that you can apply power to a wire. Battery chargers bell transformers etc etc. But keep the voltage low 6 to 25 volts for safety. I use a 10-amp 6an 12-volt battery charger one with an amp meter is nice but not needed more on this later. This will power wire from. .02 dia 6 volt range to .035 dia 12volt range. The key to getting a clean cut in foam is temperature. You want it just hot enough that you hear a hiss as the wire passes through the foam with no smoke. The easiest way to control the temperature is to use a light dimmer on the 110-ac side of the battery charger . |
What you need will be a light dimmer a 110 replacement cord an plug and a 110 outlet and box to put it in |
. Wire nut the black wire from your cord to one wire of the dimmer. The other wire on the dimmer goes to the brass screw on the 110 outlet. The white cord wire goes to the silver screw on the 110 outlet. The green wire goes to the green screw. |
Now you can control the power output from 0 to full. If your charger has a amp meter. When you find the right temperature for the wire your using. Note the amps being drawn and you can go back to it again saving time on set up. One nice thing about this setup is I can use the battery charger for its intended purpose when I am not cutting foam. What ever you do don't try to power a cutting wire straight from the controller. That would put up to 120-Vac in the open burn up wires and blow fuses so DON'T DO IT. If you think safety first an use commonsense. You wont have any problems building and using this controller. |
Now plug in your new controller an plug the battery charger in to the controller. |
