On 7/6/2011 10:21 PM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

wrote:

On Wed, 06 Jul 2011 11:13:14 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


DougC wrote:

On 7/1/2011 7:39 AM, DougC wrote:
For a project I am working on, I need to heat a roller.
......
You guys need to look at the fusing roller of a laser printer for
inspiration. I have not seen the original post, so don't know what
size roller you are looking at - but a halogen lemp in the center of a
metal roller is a fairly simple and efficient way to attack the
problem.


He still needs to control the temperature.



It will be a 2-3 weeks before I have the money to play with this, so I
have time to look around.

Right now it looks like I may try using the (1800w) Harbor Freight speed
controller to run ..... something. A automatic temperature control (or
at least an alarm) would be nice, but not necessary. Mainly I just want
a way to throttle the power. I'll get an IR thermometer to check the
temperature.

Eight or ten 200W halogen bulbs in series might work well enough, if the
filaments don't have breakage problems.

The heat cable I don't think now is going to work well, on a cost/watt
basis... It doesn't put out much heat, only 5-10W per foot, unless you
buy the expensive industrial stuff--and that can still do 15-20. Either
way, it would take a whole bunch of it to reach even 500 watts.

I have not been able to locate any straight + long metal heating
elements online that are inexpensive; all the lower priced ones are for
stoves or dishwashers and are coiled up or curved. I'd need at least
two, around 3 feet long each. I don't know what would happen to the
curved ones if they were bent out straight.
,,,,
I could just try making my own heating elements out of some 1/8" music
wire, I suppose. They'd need to be electrically isolated inside the
tube, but that's not a major task.

There's flexible-wire clothes dryer heating elements very cheap and they
put out more than enough heat for this use, but I think (?) they are all
for 220V. I don't know what they'd do on 110V (half as much heat?) Part
info doesn't give the wattage output, but I'd guess it'd be at least 1K...