Hi all,
I wonder if someone here can help me with a small project of mine. I need to heat treat a piece of very thin copper wire with a DC current, namely, by using the wire resistance to make it hot. I thought it could be done with a 12V DC dimmer, so I bought one, connected the thin wire (45 AWG), and slowly turned the knob on. The wire got a few degrees warmer (really negligible temp) and towards the middle of the turn, something on the dimmer started to smoke (it is rated 12V 8A). Obviously, I was doing something very stupid... Can someone tell me what would be the right way of doing this? The idea is to take a 3 feet piece of 45AWG wire up to about 500 Fº. The wire MUST be copper, not nichrome, etc.
Thanks a lot for any help with this.
Marcel
I wonder if someone here can help me with a small project of mine. I need to heat treat a piece of very thin copper wire with a DC current, namely, by using the wire resistance to make it hot. I thought it could be done with a 12V DC dimmer, so I bought one, connected the thin wire (45 AWG), and slowly turned the knob on. The wire got a few degrees warmer (really negligible temp) and towards the middle of the turn, something on the dimmer started to smoke (it is rated 12V 8A). Obviously, I was doing something very stupid... Can someone tell me what would be the right way of doing this? The idea is to take a 3 feet piece of 45AWG wire up to about 500 Fº. The wire MUST be copper, not nichrome, etc.
Thanks a lot for any help with this.
Marcel