Another step complete. I built my hot wire foam cutter (in anticipation of cutting foam for my layout).
For less than $20 CAN, I was able to build a dandy little cutter (pictured below):
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The little white things are pieces of polybead foam insulation that I was breaking it in on.
I was able to build it out of some scrap I had around the garage, a shelf bracket, some aligator clips, old lamp cord, 19 gauge galvinized wire and one of my old Marx train transformers (here's a picture of that.)
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I fired it up, and with only just a little power, it cuts foam perfectly.
Now I'm ready to start cutting foam road bed, once I finish tracing out the track plan onto the module surfaces, that is.
If anyone is interested in the specific hows, let me know and I'll post same.
Back to work...
Cheers,
Jim R
Might as well go ahead and
Might as well go ahead and post the details, Jim...perhaps as an article so it would be more easly referenced?
~AR
Practical projects like
Practical projects like this always hold interest...
An article (story) would be great.
Will do...
Siderod and Bryan,
Will do.
Cheers,
Jim R
Thanks for this. I've
Thanks for this. I've spent a good deal of time researching these things online and everybody has a different approach - and your design makes the most sense. I think everybody has an old controller pack and some wire laying around.
I'm surprised that it didn't blow a fuse - I guess the wire is a sufficient load?
Looking forward to the article. (no pressure)
Works great.
No problems with it whatsoever. I have notice that I only need to turn on the transformer just a little, tiny bit to generate sufficient heat to cut.
I managed to peck out an article on this. Here is the link:
http://www.nscale.net/story/tools/2008/02/16/build-your-own-hot-wire-foam-cutter-home
Cheers,
Jim R