Power for a Hot Wire Cutter
 

I have a 24V power supply for my hot wire cutter but it doesn't heat the wire enough. Should I connect a 12V battery on parallel or series to get a hotter wire?

RE: Power for a Hot Wire Cutter
 

Is the 24V from a mains supply via a transformer to give the 24V or is from two 12V batteries? If it's batteries, then adding another 12V one in series will give you 36V, which should be enough to heat your cutting wire red hot. If your 24V is coming via mains power, I'm not sure if that'll have the same effect. I'd guess it would, but not 100% sure.

RE: Power for a Hot Wire Cutter
 

Hello Ron, I built my Hot wire foam cutter with 2 transformers - one for slow cut and one for fast cut by switching the power supplies.
1 - a 16v running 2 amps from 120v household on 34" nichrome wire and it heats enough to slow cut the foam.
2 - a 28v running 4 amps on same cutter which is with a "Variable light switch potentiometer" Coming from 120v house hold outlet.

Running the straight voltage- of 24 to 36 volts battery current will heat the wire but might heat the wire to hot and will give poor cutting- will excessively melt the foam and give poor results.

Found this statement on a website "Here is how to calculate the necessary power supply voltage (AC or DC is fine): measure the resistance of the desired length of nichrome wire and multiply this resistance by the length in inches. Now take the square-root to get the required power supply voltage." Thought it might help you

If you are familier with some basic electronic skills I have some plans for the cutter and how to set up the voltage and potentiometer that I built and there is a couple of good sites to look at that have some good suggestions.
Good "Principle" site is http://www.dansworkshop.com/Hot%20wi...0cutting.shtml
Is your transformer a "wall wart" voltage converter that plugs into the wall with leads or an "actual" transformer that must be wired. 24v transformer running 4 amps should be plenty "hot" to cut the foam.
Hope this helps -Jeff

RE: Power for a Hot Wire Cutter
 

http://www.nsrca.org/technical/tip_t...wer_supply.htm

RE: Power for a Hot Wire Cutter
 

I'v built this one. Works extremly well. I've changed the fuse to a curcuit braker from an aiplane.

RE: Power for a Hot Wire Cutter
 

You can go to sears an get a 10 amp battery charger an use that as your power source, it will work just fine