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looking for heating pad that produces infared radiation

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hizzo3

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ok. I am on a quest. i want to make my own heated gear for my motorcycle. Initially i was looking at using nickel wire and thread a vest to get the heat.... but then i came across one that produces infared radiation. the difference is that with the nickel wire, the vest would suck down 45-65 watts to heat, vs with the infared radiation emitting device, <35 watts is needed. it seems to be some sort of carbon with ceramic fibers or something.... curious if anyone could shed some light on this... the vest that has this new technology is 300 bucks.... yeah, i know i can make it cheaper...:p
 
Heat is transferred from higher levels (usually indicated by temperature) to lower levels. Heat can be transferred by conduction where the warmer object touches the colder object. Heat can also be transferred by radiation from the hotter object to the colder object with a relatively transparent space or spaces (vacuum, air, gas, glass, etc) in between.

When you touch a warm object with your finger - the skin warms so you feel the warmth by conduction. When the sun shines thru a window on a cool day and you feel warm - the heat is being transferred to your skin via radiation.

Infra-red describes the wavelength where a lot of heat energy is transferred. Just about everything that isn't stone cold radiates IR- which is why they use IR cameras to see temperature differences or hot spots.

If your vest touches your clothing then heat is transferred by conduction. If the heat from the vest warms the air between the vest and your skin or clothing then it's still conduction. Sure, some heat is transferred via radiation thru the air to your clothes or skin but unless an element is really warm, conduction is likely to be dominant. Usually IR elements are extremely hot - too hot to be near your skin.

That makes me wonder about a vest that produces IR. It is reasonable to think that any heated vest will look hotter from the outside when viewed on an IR camera. It would seem that inside is what really matters.

Have you been able to determine how much heat you need? It would seem that vest design ultimately determines that. Presumably a better design results in less wasted heat.

Just for fun, look at heat trace tape materials. They make material (the carbon fibers may be one) that are conductive but that are less conductive (more resistance per foot) that nickel or nichrome wire. Some heat tracing materials are such that their resistance increases dramatically with temperature which helps to reduce hot spots and improve safety. Some electric blankets may be made with materials that would interest you.
 
Resistive losses are losses due to heat. If one method of heating is consuming 35 watts vs. 45-65 watts, it is also producing less heat, plain and simple. If you want your wire-heated system to use 35 watts instead of 45-65, then just design it with less heating capacity. Any performance increases in either case are probably due to better jacket design and insulation. The claims that it uses IR radiation with special carbon/ceramic fibers sounds like marketing hype to me; radiating heat (vs. conducting it) from a jacket to the body that it is closely wrapped around doesn't make much sense.
 
https://www.webbikeworld.com/r3/heated-vest/battery-heated-vest/

here is a review on the vest i am reffering to.^^^

https://www.webbikeworld.com/r3/heated-jacket/
https://www.webbikeworld.com/r3/heated-vest/

these are jackets using your typical resistance heating^^^

The reason i am interested in the infared technology, is that is much more efficent for what it consumes.... if you took the battery from the top vest and ran it on either of the bottom ones, you would get much less heat (considering all things equal), and run time would be around 2 hours, not the 6-8 you can get with the top vest. this is why i am so interested in it. i tried googling this stuff, can only find a hand full of suppilers (must be reliative new).


initially i was going to do my vest in the old school wire. but now i want this new stuff....help?
 
According to that first review, the FIR heater vest applies heat only to your back, and relies on your body to distribute the heat elsewhere, so that probably reduces its power use a lot. Some quick googling of FIR heaters has led me to think that the whole idea is generating as much radiant (FIR) heat as possible and as little conductive/convective heat as possible (duh). This makes sense, as it is probably easier to simply reflect radiant heat as you would light, to direct it at your body, than it is to completely insulate a conductive/convective heater, thus by using primarily radiant heat, less heat is lost to the outside world. So I don't think the heating elements themselves are any more efficient as far as total heat output, just that they produce heat in a way that makes it easier to focus the heat on your body, without requiring a ton of insulation, and thus less heat needs to be generated in the first place, so it's generating 35W of heat and most of the heat is actually making it to your body, whereas the wire heated vest might be generating 45-65W of heat total, but more is being lost so less of it makes it to your body. But, stepping back from the technicalities, I guess that practically speaking, the effective efficiency in terms of amount of useful heat (heat that makes it to your body) vs. energy consumed would in fact be better.

I would suspect that this special carbon - ceramic filament stuff they use for heating is probably not going to be anywhere near as cheap or easy to work with as wire though, if you can even find a place to buy it... and since info seems to be scarce on it, it might not be easy to make sure you use it safely...
 
hummm.... that update wasnt there when i read it initially, about 2 months ago. But that helps alot... there are FIR heated seats that plug into the cig adaptor. I can get them for about 20-30 bucks.... sounds like it would be a good investment. then just wire it into the liner i have, and run it on some poly lith's. for the control, i will rig up a PWM circut, figure out what values are too high and set that as max (as i ride some days in 20 deg weather), and go from there....
 
The only reason FIR would be used is because it penetrates normal matter better than simple conduction does, so heating your rear on a FIR seat will actually heat several CM's bellow the surface (IE the blood and fat tissue) which will cause a greater transfer of actual heat energy into the body as opposde to emmited outside of it. Why would you use a battery on a bike? Hook into the bike electrical system, efficiancy is pointless then as you're going to only end up spending a little extra to power the alternator.
 
Make sure your alternator can supply the extra power before you do this. Unlike cars, bike alternators tend to be only desgined to power the bike's existing electrical system with no regard for accesories.
 
Most Bike Alternators also don't produce power at idle, once the rev's drop bellow a certain point the battery takes over until the bike starts moving again.
 
I think bikes use permanent alternators (unlike cars) so when the revs drop there's no way of getting increasing the feild strength to get more power.
 
Hero999 said:
I think bikes use permanent alternators (unlike cars) so when the revs drop there's no way of getting increasing the feild strength to get more power.

Certainly historically they did, power output was entirely related to engine speed - at low revs the battery supplies power, and at high revs (when the lights aren't on) the surplus power charges the battery. Overcharging has been dealt with in various ways, specially designed alternators that flatten out above a certain speed, or even large zener diodes to dissipate the excess power.

I would hope that modern 'super bikes' now have better electrics?.
 
High end touring bikes might, but on say a crotch rocket or typical motorcycle probably not. Bikes aren't like cars where there's a lot of room inside for pop down LCD's interior lights big sound system etc... 'high end' electrical systems are nothing more than a waste of space for about 99% of riders. Though I'm sure there are some specialty products out there somewhere.
 
Hero999 said:
Make sure your alternator can supply the extra power before you do this. Unlike cars, bike alternators tend to be only desgined to power the bike's existing electrical system with no regard for accesories.

I've already addressed this issue. the bike stator was wound in on 17.5 gauge (very odd size, but i guess you can mass order anything if u have a large enough qty.). I used 16 gauge, and added a few turns as well... I now have a healty charging voltage at idle, and havent checked the amps, but making an educated guess that i went from 330 watts to around 400 watts now. at 330 the bike had <70watts to spare... now i have 125+ easily.

the reason i want to run the vest on battery is so it isnt only limited to a bike...i also work in a warehouse without heating or cooling.....not only that, but that way i wont forget to unplug it, get off the bike and end up ripping the plug, or pulling the bike over.... i plan to use poly lith's....
 
Adding turns won't increase the current capacity, it will increase the voltage output. Your battery might overcharge, bulbs might not last as long and the alternator could over heat because the higher voltage will cause more current to flow which it isn't designed for.
 
sorry i guess i should have gone into further detail... I already have a voltage regulator/rectifier on the bike. the thicker gauge wire is producing more amps, and the extra few turns give charging voltage to the idle engine range. the bikes voltage fluctuates from 13.2 at idle which is higher then factopry spec, to 14.5 at redline which is lower then factory specs. I also was able to change the way the coils were wound, making for much much tighter coils, which further boosted voltage and ampage..... everything is running great, and so far have more then 1000 miles on the stator and r/r set up.... so that is all taken care of.
 
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