Continue to Site

Welcome to our site!

Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

  • Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

Heating Element for battery operated heater

Status
Not open for further replies.

strunzo123

New Member
Does anyone know how i can create a low voltage heating element. I took wire and coiled it and it seems to be working but the resistance across the coil is only about 1 ohm, and i am afraid that it will drain the battery too fast. Any idea on how i can raise the resistance of the coil or how to make a different heat element?
 
This depend from battery voltage and heating power requirement.
If You have a 12V 60Ah battery, the 1ohm wire suck 12A, this is 144W.
With the full carged good battery can work about 5 hours.
 
How much heat do you want - if you know that you can predict battery life.

Ni-chrome wire is one way to get the job done. It has a very high resistance per foot.

An alternative could be as simple as a resistor of the correct value. A light bulb is another.

Let us know more about what you are doing and maybe some other ideas will surface.
 
its funny i asked someone who works with heaters last night at work and they also mentioned ni-chrome....where can i buy some of that wire though?
 
Wholesale Parts and Film in Readyville, Tennesee, USA lists a bunch of it on their website. I am sure there are plenty of others.

I picked up a 500 ft spool of 30 ga for $1 at a junk sale.

There should be information available on the resistance per unit length for various diameters of wire. You can then determine how much wire you need. Note that if you intend for the wire to get very hot then the resistance will change with temperature. My guess is that the manufacturer's might have the data you need and possibly some applications information.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest threads

New Articles From Microcontroller Tips

Back
Top