Hot Nichrome wire foam cutters

Usually people adopt various techniques to power their hot wire foam cutters such as
supplying 110V by a bulb in a series with foam cutter, charger, battery, dimmer, switches
etc. There are several manners that can be implemented by people to power their cutters
however few are secured and few unsecured.
Secured
When you have a voltage supply of 110V to be provided to your cutter foam, it is potentially
hazardous. Only using dimmer switch that if you switch it on, your nichrome heating wire
receives directly 110V. In this case, your dimmer damages completely or vaporizes the
heating wire or could result into blaze. Moreover, if you unknowingly comes in contact of
wire or any naked terminals, joints or wires, you could receive a terrible shock that could
lead to your death. However using a fuse or circuit breaker in the input side might be
supportive but still it is not a secure execution.
NOT PREFERRED

For low voltage needs, required for smaller or thicker heating element, you would not be
successful to receive a sufficient low voltage through a dimmer switch. So this method is
only for limited use.
Suitable manner to supply power to a foam cutter
A transformer is used to power any foam cutter. It decreases the voltage to a smaller value,
hence disables you to supply linear voltage to the device that could lead to hazardous risks
as stated above. A transformer maintains voltage. Several foam cutters receive a medium
current with low voltage value such as transformer of 12V, enables you to give an input of
120V, however it releases output of only 12 volt. It is a 120/12 or 10/1 ratio. Current value is
increased ten times and voltage decreased to ten times. For cutters that need only current
of 3 amperes, then it needs only 1/10 or 0.3 amperes into the transformer that is nominally
higher than a bulb of 40 Watt. Voltage decrease and current increases and no shock voltage
occurs on the output side of cutter wire.
It is possible to construct your own foam cutter for which you require a suitable transformer
to supply a correct voltage, highly adequate to provide the current output that you are

seeking for. It is a simplest formula. In the following figure foam cutter Nichrome wire can
use the identical power supply as described latter in the article:

The issue with such above very simple design is that it doesnt assure any security of
transformer from short circuit and no option to control the voltage hence you cannot
control the heat production for the suitable foam cutting temperature limit. Determine the
wire suitable wire gauge and length that will be suitable however if you wish to alter the size
of wire, length and temperature or either of these, you cannot modify the voltage to get it
equivalent to others.
The recommended and suitable design will include a dimmer switch, fuse, breaker to the
circuit shown in above in diagram and will utilize the protective ground wire from wall plug
that is connected to the transformer as well as the foam cutter metallic frame.

Through these parts in your electric circuit, whole of the important properties for secured
and modifiable properties to power the hot wire cutter form are received. With the help of
dimmer switch, voltage can be modified from low to high rate, the step down transformer
decreases the voltage and increases current. Fuse takes the responsibility to secure the
entire components from the harmful short circuits and the protective ground connection
secures from electric shock in case of failure in any part or wire.
Role of Dimmer Switches

You can discover variety of dimmers, fan controllers, fluorescent, incandescent, sole pole,
triple way plug, rotary, combos and more components. Simply the easiest and least
expensive method is also excellent for hot wire foam cutters. For 600 watt output, solo pole,
rotary on and off and dimmer are adequate.
The popular kind of dimmer can be discovered in your local electric accessories store. So
when you set the dimming magnitude, it can be left there and when you supply or draw off
the current, you dont need to alter the setting. It is performed with another button or by a
push on or off. You may or may not find a rotary on/off at a local store, these will certainly
be push on/off style as it is basically used in domestic market.
By choosing push on/off rotary style, you will be unable to locate activity or inactivity of
your foam cutter just by observing it because toggle is used as a knob button. It is only push
again and again to turn on and off.
If dimmer is of rotary on-off kind, it is untraditional due to its anticlockwise nature. It is
clicked to turn it off similar to radio volume controls that turned off the radio when turned
to left. For no marks on the knob, it can be easily marked with a suitable felt pen or scratch
or through anyway. It is recommended to also mark the cover plate for your easy setting so
that you start it and turn to line up the two marks.
Including an indicator light and individual on-off button
For a push on-off dimmer, every time knob is pushed, current position can be nominally
altered. It attempts to be clockwise for a particular cause. Naturally, if you mark the suitable
position, you can always emanate the knob to the suitable position.
Second improvement, particularly if you have push on-off type dimmer, but also only an
improvement is to include an individual on-off button and indicator lights. First image
describes light among the light button and dimmer button. In this circuit, light is fully bright
all the times when power is turned on but doesnt provide any sign that whether or not
power reaches to foam cutter. Its benefit is that when the light is off, you under no power
effect across the circuit downstream of switch. In this manner you can leave dimmer on and
at the required position every time and not alter it and simply turn the power on and off
individually.
The indicator light is only a standard minor 110 V incandescent bulb. It can be a normal 40
watt bulb or smaller wattage equipment bulb or more. Include a common domestic outlet in
a box among on-off button and dimmer button or both switch and outlet can be placed in a
double box with a combo over plate and then insert the night light into the outlet.

Another circuit described following includes indicator bulb among the dimmer and
transformer. In such condition, light bulb will provide a sign of the extent of voltage passing
to the transformer. The benefit is that it describes if dimmer is on-off that is easy if you use
push on-off kind dimmer. In case dimmer is kept at the lowest point, it might be tough to
observe if light is on at all but in this condition, there is not considerable voltage output
received from the transformer. Light can be placed in both locations, if you require.

As the diagram shows, a power outlet can be included and insert night light into the outlet.
In such condition, dimmer switch and outlet into a double box with combo plate can be
used. It is easy as you are allowed to keep a standard 110V plug on the input side of
transformer and plug it into second outlet. If you wish to alter the transformer later or even
if you wish to utilize two individual transformers for various foam cutters, you only unplug
one and plug in the other. You can accumulate double transformers on single board with
dimmer, switches and outlets.
Confirming voltage and current or either
You can analyze either the voltage or current from output of the transformer. A fasten on
ammeter can be utilized to analyze the current moving through your foam cutter hot
Nichrome wire by fastening it surrounding any wires coming from the transformer as output
is AC. For ammeter kind of panel, you can join it in any of the output wires. You can
determine the output voltage by clipping the alligator chips or connecting the test probes to
double output wires.
It is better to keep digital panel voltmeter and panel ammeter mounted in a metal box with
other parts for a suitable self-containing apparatus but it has limitations. The panel meters,

and analogs are costly. The panel meters have just one series therefore if you are using 1
amp or 2 amp limit, the panel meter wont be identical as single for single in 10 ampere
limit. It is identical to voltmeter, if you are using three or four volts, it wont be in the
identical limit of voltmeter for 12 to 24 voltage limits. The small multimeters and clamp on
ammeters possess limits hence one device can be utilized for any limit.

Insulation of power circuit

Mount your light and dimmer switches and plug in to receive output from your dimmer
switch and transformer on a single sheet of a board. Then place a plug on the input wires to
the transformer and plug it into single outlet and power indicating light in the other as state
above and it will provide a clean circuit. The following image describes banana shape jack
and a panel mounted fuse holder in an empty cover plate on the left corner. Transformer
output moves to the left side and connects to the banana jacks. The foam cutter is then
inserted to banana jacks. A plug of 110V and wire also moves to the box on the left side, the
warm side moves to the fuse holder.

It is also possible to install all parts on a metal plate having rubber ends with handle for
good looking circuit. The metal boxes adequate for transformers might be costly also. It is
tough to get an exact box. Find electrical box or equipment box online so that you can locate

the variety of boxes that can be utilized in domestic wiring to install switches and electrical
outlets.
Heating wire calculation for foam cutters
Using the below stated formulae you can determine the wire diameter for specific voltage
as well as capacity.
D = (4 x 10(5) pP2/pie2U2W)1/3
L = U2 pie d2/4pP x 10(3)
Here d refers to heating wire diameter, it is measured in mm. p refers to resistivity, it is
measured in ohm.mm2 per m. P refers to power per phase, it is measured in kilowatts. U
refers to voltage, it is measured in volts. W refers to surface loading, it is measured in
W/cm2. L refers wire length that is measured in meter.