incubator heating elements

[ga_goat]

The old incubator I bought last week has a wire heating element and when it is on it does not glow red hot like the one in my homemade unit , it heats up the box pretty quick just don't look like it's getting hot , I like this better because by not getting glowing red it don't stretch with heet the way my other one does , does anyone know what kind of wire is needed for this no glow heat ?

 

[tazcat70]

Hmm, I don't really know, maybe someone else will see this.

Good luck!

 

[aprophet]

Quote:
Nichrome wire was probally used in the bator their is a forula for how long a peice of wire for what voltage to put to a given lentgh of wire I do not have it though HTH

 

[ga_goat]

bump

 

[muddstopper]

Most likely the wire is nichrome. Its the same type of wire you would find in a space heater, hair dryer or cloths dryer. Diameter and lenght of wire determines its resistance values. The longer the wire the more resistance, and the less heat, it will produce. The best way to measure how long of wire you need is to use a ohm meter and measure the resistance along the lenght of the wire. If the wire is coiled up like a spring, you will need to stretch it out so that the coils donot touch each other before measureing the resistance. If the coils touch, this will lower the resistance readings and result in using a longer piece of wire than is necessary. Just dont strectch it out of shape. Usually a reading of around 60ohms will yield about 250 watts of heat using 110volts of electricity. In comparison, a 110v spaceheater is usually around 1500 watts.

In the past, I have used the heating wire out of space heaters to make a heater for incubators, but this sometimes means spliceing more than one piece of wire together to get the resistance reading I am looking for.

 

[ga_goat]

with that info and a micrometer I'm finding that the wire that don't glow red while heating up
is nearly double the diameter of the one that does , and unless the glowing wire is stretched real tight
it will fall off of the insulators if it stay's on very long .
I have the emergency heat unit that I didn't install on my home heat pump ( no need for one here )
and the diameter of that wire is slightly larger than the non glowing wire in the old unit .
will post on how it works when I strip the unit down and use some of the wire in my homemade ( handbuilt ) unit .