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modified 11 years ago

US Electric Heater Schematic

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01:41:18

The two resistors that can be connected together directly by the switch are the coils, 100Ohm adds to the 13.2Ohm to go from 1.3kW to 1.5kW, 100Ohm is fan motor

published 11 years ago

11 years ago

If fan motor is a small brushed one just add a small series resistance with motor armature to slow him down cuz brushed motors are best way regulated when u introduce active resistance in series with motor armature . If it is small induction motor with so caled "short turn starter " (it no use of cap) u can also in some degree regulate speed by any power limiting device. They are typically with high leakage and very low cosine factor so can operate with high ammount of slip without overcurrent taking place but those loose torque also when power is decreased and their speed became unstable. True is that induction motors of any type should be regulated through frequency so a frequency regulator even simple like hell is alays better than power regulation.

11 years ago

Power to heating elements u can increase by setting desired current whose match u desired power level through increasing voltage or instea decreaing resistance of heaters. ( unles u do not want to apply crazy mad science idea as to power u gizmo by radio frequency power modulated to take into resonance curvature of heater shape to excite some field effects and through extracting energy from nothing (means vacum) u boost heating by 3.6 watts more than before u apply "HF vacuum free energy productor"

11 years ago

I was hoping it'd be an easy answer but you never doubt to surprise me with the things you know my friend haha. It's an iron core with a spindle attached to a magnet inside the opposite end of the core, I tried reducing the windings of it at first, it slowed the fan but made less heat, so there's the kabosh on that idea haha. I might play around with a potentiometer and see if I can find the right resistance I want to fix my boo boo I made now xD

11 years ago

Looks like it's not an ordinary heater at all. Magnet in fan engine sugest a small synchronous motor but those cant slow down cuz they can only run at rated rpm or not move at all lol. How this heat is produced ?? Through resistance wire ?? (Typically in form of spiral closed in some metal tube or not closed at all shining red hot brightly during normal operation. Isn't this heater a some old martian spaceship fragment u found on field and u try to force us to believe you statement that it is a heater but it isn't !!!!!! It's from MARS ....or pluto

11 years ago

Hahahaha, this is why I love you my friend, your humor is awesome! Yeah, it's resistive steel coils that have a fan blow over them from the back, I'll post a link to some internal pics I take

11 years ago

Http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/1/view/q4lwhwzi3wbssfo/Electronics/IMG_20140307_222755020.jpg

11 years ago

Thats the fan

11 years ago

Http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/1/view/2ul5h09xyhhvrry/Electronics/Coils.jpg

11 years ago

And the coils

11 years ago

That's a shaded pole motor. And as far as I know you need a phase controller to alter it's speed unless you are willing to add a separate control winding or inject tiny amount of dc ie diode resistor ect sec is the man to answer your question in detail and will in all likelihood know how to do it in a novel or funky way that works. Lol.

11 years ago

Thats why I love Sec Pip, he knows damn near everything I dont xD

11 years ago

Secuture, pip, and recently hurz seem to be the trifecta of experience and probably retain the majority of the knowledge base among the users here. But I gotta hand it to Sec man-after all those years, finally making the hard decision to stop smoking banana skins. Cold turkey- that's gotta be rough...

11 years ago

As far as the heating coils go why not alter the switch so as to switch on both coils in one position and only one in another. Or add a rec diode in series with one and then switch on both coils and get full heat from one and half the heat from the other at the same time.

11 years ago

Didn't know that you could smoke turkey ! I bet it's foul. Lol

11 years ago

Really?? Smoked turkey is delicious! And pairs quite nicely with a mild cheddar- but that's not at all what I meant lol. Is it soley an american phrase?..

11 years ago

No it's travels well and is common here in uk. It was English humor on my part that doesn't travel as well as the phrase. { turkey / foul }

11 years ago

I'll admit that while I find it funny at times, I don't have a complete grasp of English 'humour'. However being a huge fan of comedy and loving the play on words I should have caught that one! Drat..

11 years ago

Well, In this unit the coils are put in parallel, but EC wont let us so that xD Plus I have no clue about the actual inductance, I took whatever wattage mode the switch said P=IV so 1.5k/120 gave me my hot coil, and 1.3K/120 gave me my warm coil haha, I figured a tad under an amp for the fan sounded reasonable to, meters blown so I cant be sure right now

11 years ago

For some reason the pics are locked now but if you can measure the resistance again you should be able to calculate the ohms per watt you have using ohms law then just snip off the amount of coil you want. But i would probably just snip 10 tp 20% of the end as 20% will give 25% more heatt and i wouldn't go more than 30% more heat.

11 years ago

The inductance isn't important here just the resistance as they are air coils no permeable core. So see them as big power resistors. They are coiled to increase the surface area and it helps fit into the physical space. Also I would find it unlikely that the fan would be much more than 50 watts and and maybe only 20 to 30 watts so less than half of an amp probably.

11 years ago

Fan coil is 100ohms on my meter when stationary, 1.3kW coil weighs in at 13.2Ohms and that drops to 11.5Ohms when in 1.5kW mode

11 years ago

Forget what I said about the inductance i see you have changed the diagram to resistance I was under the impression that you thought they were inductors as seen in the first diagram. But what i said about the sniping still valid. Lol

11 years ago

I knew they were resistive steel wires, just thought since they were coiled they'd have some inductance too lol

11 years ago

Well if you can cut 3 ohms off of that 13.2 ohm you will increase the heat output by 44% and i wouldn't go any further than that. You don't want to much heat generated in there as if that fan failed the heat must be able dissipate passively otherwise there would be a fire risk. So 45% would be safe max.

11 years ago

Here's a pic of the coils pulled out of the device, about how far back do you think I should go on which coil? https://www.dropbox.com/s/gm2flhg26ijra7h/Coils.jpg

11 years ago

Well if that big bunch of coils in the centre of the pic is the 13.2 ohm the length will bet proportional to the resistance it will be X fractions of an ohm per inch so each one of those coils in centre of the picture should be just over 2 ohms but best verify that. So if that's the case then remove a compleat coil. However while removing a complete coil is less work ideally you should remove half a coil from each end. And i am assuming that there's no other electrical connection any were else along the length of them coils or that would change things.

11 years ago

But it's best sneak up on the amount of heat you need so I would just remove 1 third from each end coil then re assemble and test. More work but better safe than sorry it's easier to take it off than put it back on. Resistance wire won't solder so you will have to clamp the cut ends some way.

11 years ago

I rewired all the guts of the device with 20A wire, I did that to another and the heat output picked up a bit so I'm trying that in this also, but I trimmed about a 1/3 from one of the big coils too so we'll see how that goes also haha

11 years ago

That should give you another 350 watts. Sound okay.

11 years ago

Oh hell yes, it's beautifully hot now, and a wee bit quiter now that I cleaned up the fan and re greased it haha, the coils actually get a wee bit red now too :) Thank you all of you for helping with this, this is why I love EC and all you guys on it :)

11 years ago

Here's a nice view of the heat I'm producing :) https://www.dropbox.com/s/u1bnfb803k9pnu4/HC.jpg

11 years ago

Nice one. Just keep an eye on the dust build up over time if the unit is left off for a long time over summer as it could be a combustion hazard now the coils are cherry red.

11 years ago

Yeah I'll keep a watch for that, thanks Pip :)

11 years ago

Update: It was decently cold in my room tonight, fired the heater up to 1.5kW mode and within 2 minutes the chill was gone, 5 minutes being on room was nice and warm, 10 minutes I started sweating lmao

11 years ago

You must be feeling good about now. Knowing that something you done works like you want and makes a big difference to your room. Have you measured the load current so as to know the final output watts ? It's a nice job and glad you are happy !!!!

11 years ago

I wish I could but my little meter is only good to 10A, it used to be 12.5 if you do out the math, but I can't draw more then 1.8kW without breaker trippage, so I'm hoping that it's around the 13-14A mark which would mean around 1,560-1,680W of power roughly come out of ot

11 years ago

It*

11 years ago

You could use some of that left over coil you cut off. If you straitened it out and can measure 0.1 ohms with your meter you can put the resistance in series with the fan and read the voltage across it at 0.1R and 15 ampsy you should see 1.5v / 1.2v for 12 amps and 1v for 10 amp's or if you happen to have 22 watt 0.1R resistor just hanging around in the junk box you can use that lol

11 years ago

Yeah. Build my own shunt, not a bad idea, but one of my buddies has an actual Watt meter and he said he'd come over and measure it for me, I'll let you know the results :)

11 years ago

Nice

11 years ago

Probably i am wrong, but the resitive value should increase with temperatur, so a positive tk (tc) correct?

11 years ago

Yeah it will but only marginal 1% or 2% still makes a reasonable shunt even if it's 5%

11 years ago

Correct, for the low ohmig shunt it doesn't matter. I was thinking about the heater resistors i saw them red glowing on one picture. I remember a way to measure the power of a water boiler/heater - measure the water temperatur, start heating, stop the time whenthewater is boiling. Probably something similar could be possible with an air heater. Problem would be a closed room and a homogen distribution of warm air..... just an idea....

11 years ago

So we measured and it draws a toasty 1.65kW :), nice little boost in power, not too much, but enough :)

11 years ago

Have you measured the unaltered one you have for comparison.

11 years ago

I didn't, but it should have been right around the marked 1.3kW-1.5kW

11 years ago

Its enormous tangents like these that turn EC into social networking lol

11 years ago

I know I love it haha, we need forums/pming to allow better social interaction :p

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