Random thoughts on hot wires

.012" diameter control line. Granted, stranded stainless steel is a bit oddball, but one accumulates lots of it as one retires old sets of lines.

Do you grunt & yell MORE POWER!!! when you turn it on? ;-)

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EMI! I was surprised to find a SPARK GAP used to generate the high frequency. I had a welder buddy on a job trying to high frequency weld and he was having a problem. The problem: The gasoline powered welder was on a trailer along with the coiled up cables. He was welding near the trailer so didn't stretch out the welding cable. The loops of cable created an inductor that limited the high frequency, causing his welding problem. Uncoiling the welding cable solved the welding problem. Mikek

I think a few audiophools have done the same with their speaker wire.

I've already posted that I found some nichrome wire on ebay that turned out to be ideal for a styrofoam cutter with a 12V wall wart. It listed some "ohms per foot" and I found some info on it; I cut a piece to about 7 inches (17.5 cm?) and held it in a couple of alligator clips that had plastic banana jack handles. The cuts weren't straight, because I did it freehand.

I think it was #36 AWG, and it was less than ten bucks for about 100 ft. of it. (ISTR it was about two bucks + S&H, but recently prices seem to have gone up.)

Just go to ebay and search on "nichrome wire" (with or without the quotes.)

Good Luck! Rich

My office opens onto a weld shop, and sometimes when they're doing large weldments, the magnetic field from the weld cables distorts my CRT monitor. ;-)

Cheers! Rich