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Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 4:18 pm
by TurboSuper
Be careful when using hair dryer/heat gun elements, they use the fan as a resistor, and without it go kaboom.

Wrap a few turns of this around your crucible:

http://cgi.ebay.com/165-feet-Nichrome-H ... 7C294%3A50

:wink:

(I'm really just guessing here, btw)

Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 4:44 pm
by rp181
Lol. Its called "nichrome heating resistance wire" =p
Just find the resistance of the wire. With your voltage, use ohms law to find the length needed to stay in the wire's power range.

Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 5:00 pm
by john bunsenburner
I am searching for and old oven, but after baout 3months i still have not found one. Waht are these heating elements made of/ could I make my own?

Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 5:26 pm
by rp181
you could make your own if you could melt metals and alloy them together =p

I was joking about a oven. Oven elements are thick, you can wind them. They consume LOTS of power (my oven consumes 100A (apparently at 240v)) Thats 24kW. Home depot does have water heater elements though.

Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 5:30 pm
by john bunsenburner
Home depot doesnt exist in my continent...and what do you mean by you where joing, oven elements are pretty good, oh and what alloy would i need?

Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 7:32 pm
by rp181
I was joking, its not practical to use oven elements. I dont know what alloy, the point is you would need to melt metal, which you can't do due to the fact this whole project is to melt metal. look up nichrome wire.

Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 9:36 pm
by john bunsenburner
Ok, i know what it is now, if i could get my hands on some oven elements wouldnt they provde lots of energy for a furnace?