Easy USB Hot Wire - Simple Circuit: (applying Ohm's Law)

Few things are more enjoyable than heating a wire. Today, we're applying Ohm's Law.

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[km]

yes! the whole:
- applying Ohm's Law with desired voltage and current to get needed resistance
- using a multimeter to determine the resistance of a certain lengh of the wire
- having thin wire for higher temperature and less wire lengh without changing desired voltage nor current
was all I needed, but couldn't get anywhere. thank you

[thomaslamora]

We (our high school robotics team members) use hot wire to soften Lexan for shaping - use the hot wire to heat up an area of the lexan until it melts...when it cools it retains the new shape.


We have made several iterations of the Lexan bender (affectionately dubbed "Firestick" 1.0, 2.0). After watching this, I am embarrassed to say that we are using a toaster oven heating element (120V AC)... I see a Firestick 3.0 using low voltage DC like you have here.


This application of Ohm's law will be a great lesson, practical application and improve our safety in the shop.


thanks so much. Keep up the great work.

[Beschaulichkeit]

Thank you for this! It helped solidify what I thought I knew about resistive wire heating. Very clear and complete.

[embie]

I used some nichrome wire and a wall wart power supply to create a foam cutter. I lined the wire up with the blade of my table saw (inline) so I could use the fence of the saw to cut rigid foam pieces to size. Basically lower the blade and feed the foam through the vertical wire just as if it were a spinning blade. Worked wonderfully.

[PeakyBlinder]

Been trying to make a nail hot out in the field for my thermal scope,
I now use a 9v battery with the wire wrapped round the nail the protrudes the steel plate so the warm nail is picked up by the thermal scope
Thanks for this simple idea.

[CCCfeinman]

Yup, basic electronics. Foam cutters are very big on this kind of thing. Wings for model airplanes, large format cutting platforms that turn foam into statuary and fancy add-on to buildings (ever been to Vegas? All those fancy architectural embellishments are built over cut foam cores....).
Then, of course cars. I met a guy that built a CNC foam cutter to cut out model car bodies for making molds for vaccines-forming the bodies that go over RC cars. His boss was so impressed, he commissioned him to build a full size car body core of a design he came up with for oval track cars (the boss has far more expensive hobbies!). Of course he had to build a BIG cutter, but it worked very well.
Thanks for sharing.

[martinhudec]

thank you heaps, you clarified the electrical world to me ;)..
.

[ObsequiousV]

yo thanks! I bought some of this wire a while ago to experiment with but didn't realize how sharp the thermal energy cutoff is. It really doesn't seem like it heats up outside of the terminal contacts. Huge difference from what I was imagining. Cheers!

[Kactapuss]

Thinking of using this technique as a remote trigger for igniting a sparkler for a TV prop! Thanks for posting

[ajitmishra]

Smart way to find out the length of the wire appropriate for your power supply!!!

[jiyounglee]

I was looking into making a hot wire to cut the glass jars/bottles in a safer way than using 220v plug since I have no knolwdedge of any basic of electric. By using my potable battery charger, it won't burn down my house at least. I have used glass bottle cutter and heating/cooling the bottles but it didn't give nice clean cut edges. i got to try this one. thank you for making this,

[emirustichelli]

Thanks for the video. Is very interesting and the much help

[seanstraw]

Thermal register tape is a decent way to check for heat when the wire isn't glowing without subjecting your fingers to a burn.

I have a circuit with a µC and a potentiometer that sets the duty cycle for PWM to the gate of a FET switching the output of a 19V laptop supply. I've used this for running a straight filament for cutting rigid foam insulation (slightly oscillating the wire as you go to move the cooled part away and introduce hot wire, and back as you feed the foam though), as well as trimming flight feathers from chickens (versus scissors). Same driver PCB design drives a coil (longer total wire, but packed into a smaller space) of Kanthal filament mounted in the bottom of a clay pot with wood pellets in it for a homebrew food smoker (which also runs a small airflow to keep the pellets smoldering). I have also used a hot wire for cutting into wire insulation, but it generally produces too much smoke to be pleasant to use (but cuts nicely without nicking the conductor). The same approach can be used for driving heater wire (non Kanthal/Nichrome insulated, for generating heat for seed germination for instance, not igniting things).

Short pieces of Kanthal or Nichrome can be used to ignite rocket motors. That's basically the premise of the Estes igniters of some of our collective youth.

[dainielmaldo]

Helped me a lot thanks! The last time I did this the wire exploded lol

[MortifiedU]

Needed a heating element for a diy chicken incubator.. this gives a few ideas 👍🏻

[willb.]

Is there a way to determine how hot the wire will get given a specific length of wire?

[yukichan]

So...I'm looking to make a heating element for my driveway in the winter. I've seen all the expensive ones that are out there, but haven't found anyone trying to DIY that, trying to save as much money as possible. Do you think using this type of wire would work...and what type of power would I need for a 100 ft stretch of driveway to make this happen?

[angler]

I have a small project in which I need to reverse engineer a circuit based on these principles, but I don't need the wire to be glowing. Is there a way I can figure out the power needs and circuit design based on the initial temperature requirement?

[wooterXL]

Hello, I'm looking for a Kanthal wire that heads up just enough to melt ice cream (like at -15°C). My goal is to make scooping ice cream easier. Or is there simply no Kanthal wire that may be able?

[baporwave]

The only reason I know about ohm’s is because I used to build my own vape coils, and it’s all about having a wire that won’t burn your cotton.