Electrical Heater - any ideas?

Hi,
Im looking for any ideas/ preferrably schematics on an electrical heater. Nothing really major, just perhaps something on the scale of a school size project. Any help highly appreciated...thanks.

What were you wanting to heat? You can connect a battery and resistor and make a simple heater.

Hmm...well..basically, the apparatus provided include a power pack, constatain wire, 2 beakers..and a few others I cant remember but Ill post as soon as I do get hold of them. Its basically a model of a heater for a school proj. Thanks alot..help highly appreciated.

It sounds like your talking about a cartridge heater. It's a cylindrical heater used in chemical laboratories, and (as Seeker mentioned) it's basically just a big resistor within stainless-steel sheathing . For further help, you should post the specs on the heater: 1) what is the control voltage (e.g. 24VDC or 120VAC), and 2) what is the wattage?. But, typically, you control the temperature of these heaters using pulse-width modulation (PWM). Check out this website for a tutorial and example circuits. If the heater is DC controlled and it draws less than 14A, than use the first circuit and just replace the "fan" for with the heater.

http://www.cpemma.co.uk/pwm.html