Vacuum Form Oven

[chris08234]

I have yet to take temperatures, but I have built a vacuum form oven (using TK560's Turtorial) and although it gets hot I don't see the Niochrome Wire glowing red. My thoughts are that I have too much Coil or a bad connection somewhere. Anyone have a similar situation or know how to trouble shoot?

 

[BlindSquirrel]

I also built mine to those specs. My wires didn't glow until I looked at it at NIGHT. Mine heats up slowly but does the job.

 

[3D-builder]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(BlindSquirrel @ Dec 13 2006, 10:59 PM) [snapback]1377249[/snapback]</div>

I also built mine to those specs. My wires didn't glow until I looked at it at NIGHT. Mine heats up slowly but does the job.
[/b]

Just wondering did you guys build ovens because of the size vacuum plugs you had.Basically wondering if the ovens you built are larger than a in house oven? Thanks for the help,
Regards,
Michael

 

[BlindSquirrel]

The oven specs on TK560's site are wider than a home oven. I built it that size because he had all the math figured out...why re-invent the wheel?

TK560 Vactable tutorial

I have heard of the home oven working just fine, though it limits your pulls to a size smaller than the width of the oven.

Someone here had a great tutorial for making a mini-vacformer out of a toaster oven and tiny vac table. I use mine for smaller parts.

 

[clonesix]

Can you show a picture of how you have it wired? That might help.

It is better to use an ohm meter to measure the resistance in each circuit and use V=IR for your math.

 

[chris08234]

I built an oven mainly because I only have a wall oven.....The biggest working area of ABS was about 14 1/2 " by 20 " once you subtracted for the holding frame. Basically ....size matters.

I'll try to get some pics this weekend, but it is wired exactly as in TK560's tutorial. I know it is producing some real heat but I need to get some temperature readings. As for the glow, I had the lid on and just peeked in and saw no glow.

I am wondering if the zinc coating on the bolts I used is causing a weaker than normal connection.

 

[chris08234]

Okay, I ended up moving a terminal so less coil was between a neutral and hot wire and it ended up glowing nicely. Now my question is do I stretch the Nichrome coil wire to have less turns per inch and remove the excess?

Keep in mind, electric is my worst trait and my ohm meter just crapped out.