Ozbow

So I brought a young Feather burner, now I need a step down voltage converter, but I need to know how many amps or watts it draws to buy the right converter.
Anyone got any idea ?
All it's got printed on it is 110-115 volts 50-60 cycles only.

Try Jaycar, they are very helpful.

http://search.jaycar.com.au/search?w=st ... ransformer

I bought the $129.00 unit to run my 110 volt heat strips. The outlet socket handles the odd pin setup on the strip plug.

Daryl.

Thanks Daryl, I have been in contact with Jaycar here, but with out an amps or watts usage they can't say which unit I need to run it.
Will keep investigating.

http://www.3riversarchery.com/Product.a ... faq&i=4171
click on the '1 answer' under the question and they say 100 watts

Google is your friend ... 100 watts (100VA step down transformer, probably fused at 1 amp). That is surprisingly light fro a heating element but I would surmise that 3 Rivers are much too careful to post a wrong answer about this.
There is also a guy confirms this rating on another forum.
DO NOT buy a cheap chinese transformer rated at 100w, it will probably only be safe at about 50 to 80 watts

BUT this $40 (inc. express 7 days postage) one below should do fine and gives you a price point to check against jaycar etc. where you will probably have to pay $100!

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/200W-Step-Do ... 4a912b0505

I would get this one myself for that job but although I have electrical/electronic background I can only suggest as I am not certified in Aus.

G'day Gary,

I bought one similar to this http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/240v-110v-St ... 5aed19935b except it is white and cost $123 posted a couple of years ago. IMO a 2000W unit for $75 posted is worth the gamble. Mine has spent quite a few hours hooked up to bow making heat strips with no problems.

I bought some spare burner wires for a Young's burner and used them in a home made burner. From memory it took about 10 amps at 4 volts ( = 40 W) with a bench top DC power source to get them hot enough to do the job, not as hot as they show it on the 3 Rivers video though. I found that hot melted the fletch tape at both ends

Daryl, I don't know what temperature is inferred, but my Bingham's heat strips are stamped with 270 W for the 1.5" and 360 W for the 2" strips. I can't imagine they put out anywhere near that much though at 65 C.

Cheers.... Rod

PS. If you have a mulitmeter you could measure the output voltage of the burner and the resistance of the NiChrome heat strip and estimate the power required using Power = VoltsxVolts/Resistance ( P = V^2/R ). Just be bloody careful not to get yourself burned

rodlonq wrote:Daryl, I don't know what temperature is inferred, but my Bingham's heat strips are stamped with 270 W for the 1.5" and 360 W for the 2" strips. I can't imagine they put out anywhere near that much though at 65 C.

Rod, my 1 1/2" strips are marked 270w and the 1 3/4" strips are marked 320w. Do the rate them depending on surface area / resistance?

My transformer has a frequency range of 50 - 60 hertz and operation current is sine wave.

Daryl.

Daryl, I assume the power rating on them is the power draw at maximum temperature. According to the flyer at this website http://www.watlow.com/downloads/en/spec ... rh0311.pdf (from a different manufacturer) wire wound silicon pads can be used up to 260 C and may be made in power density up to 12.5 W/sq.in. For comparison, the Bingham's heat strips have only 0.6 W/sq.in.

Cheers.... Rod

rodlonq wrote:I bought some spare burner wires for a Young's burner and used them in a home made burner. From memory it took about 10 amps at 4 volts ( = 40 W) with a bench top DC power source to get them hot enough to do the job, not as hot as they show it on the 3 Rivers video though. I found that hot melted the fletch tape at both ends

Good memory Rod. I just looked up the thread we had on this a while ago:

http://www.ozbow.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=10774

and 4 volts at 10 amps was what we both found, though these days I'm using 5.5 volts - I haven't measured the current.

Thanks guys, yes 100 watts is more than enough. I now have spoken to plenty of people running them successfully with 64 watt converters.
Buying online is far cheaper, but if you can't wait & you just want to use it (this is me) $99 for a 125 watt unit from jaycar gets you going

Very very happy with it, so much uniformity with the feathers, looks much neater than using a chopper.

alaninoz wrote:

rodlonq wrote:I bought some spare burner wires for a Young's burner and used them in a home made burner. From memory it took about 10 amps at 4 volts ( = 40 W) with a bench top DC power source to get them hot enough to do the job, not as hot as they show it on the 3 Rivers video though. I found that hot melted the fletch tape at both ends

Good memory Rod. I just looked up the thread we had on this a while ago:

http://www.ozbow.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=10774

and 4 volts at 10 amps was what we both found, though these days I'm using 5.5 volts - I haven't measured the current.

Al, they must have a nice red glow at 5.5 V?

Cheers.... Rod

rodlonq wrote:Al, they must have a nice red glow at 5.5 V?

Cheers.... Rod

No, still quite dark. To get a glow on my set-up I need to go to about 8 volts (from memory, might only be 7). I get up into that region, and higher, every so often to clean the muck off the strip and so get a clean profile.

I've been using one of these stepdown transformers with my Young Feather Burner for years. Works fine.

Thought pics might help. Just in case the label is unreadable, it's a Dick Smith M1151 Stepdown Transformer Adaptor. Input: 230/240 V AC. Output: 115V AC 65 VA.

Hope that helps.

Andy