Voltage control for Tippt Hot Foam Cutter!!

[wd8jik]

As the Tippi Foam Cutter has just an off on switch and depends on the one using it to control the heat by turning the switch on and off. It's workable but a pain, ether to hot or cold.

While at Lowe's, again, I picked up a light dimmer switch to try and control the heat of the cutter.

I used a 4X4 Square electrical box, a switch extended plaster ring, male and female plugs and 4 foot or so of 3-conductor rubber cord. Two Romex wire connectors and a half-hour of time and made a heat control box for the foam cutter.

Using the box and plaster ring as I have, it is not waterproof and not for wet locations.

Caution: if you make on of these devices be sure that all grounds wires are used. And the source is grounded too.

You can't be too careful with electricity.

Everything worked fine. A little playing around found the best setting for the heat I wanted.
While make long cuts with a straight edge I didn't need the Depth Gauge as before because the wire didn't get as hot and dig deep into the foam.
Since the wire wasn't as hot the cut was just the width of the wire.

There was no noticeable temperature rise in the Dimmer Switch or the step down transformer in the half-hour I used it.
During normal use of the tool the transformer does get warm to the touch.







All in all I'm satisfied with the temperature control

If there is a problem with the set up later on after continued I use it for a while I will post it here.

Remember you are working with high voltage. Check everything twice.

[RhB_HJ]

There won't be a problem!

I use the same type of switch for my resistance soldering / hot wire cutting outfit.
The important part is having the dimmer switch on the primary side of the transformer.
Foam cutting requires relatively little current. Resistance soldering requires considerably more; for that reason I added a circuitbreaker to the primary side.

With foam cutting you have to watch the fumes, they are not healthy!

[wd8jik]

The out put from the transformer is 1.1 Volts ~ 8.5 amps.
That is a little over 9 Watts.
so it should as you said work OK.
Never thought about using a dimmer for resistance soldering.

[RhB_HJ]

QUOTE: Originally posted by wd8jik

The out put from the transformer is 1.1 Volts ~ 8.5 amps.
That is a little over 9 Watts.
so it should as you said work OK.
Never thought about using a dimmer for resistance soldering.

Hi,

The dimmer regulates the power and of course there is a foot operated on-off switch in the primary.

My res soldering outfit delivers ca 300VA - it does everything from the small stuff like catenary in HOm to the big stuff in LS i.e. solder rail joints!
For the tiny stuff I have an American Beauty tweezer set, for the BIG stuff I built my own soldering probe and use a really HD alligator clip. The wiring is the heat resistance type used for stoves and the plug/socket is the 220V "pu***hen twist" type.

Build it once, then use it for the rest of your life.[;)][:)]