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Picked a copper coil over a store bought heating element and it was a mess
I was building my first fog machine about 6 months ago for a Halloween party I was throwing in my basement. I got to the part where you need something to heat the fog juice and I had two choices. I could either buy a proper heating element from an online shop for like $30 or I could wrap my own copper coil around a propane torch like some guy on YouTube showed. Well I went with the copper coil because I thought it would be cooler and cheaper. Let me tell you the coil worked but it took forever to get hot enough and I almost burned my hand off trying to adjust it while it was running. Plus the propane torch made this weird hissing sound that scared my cat. I ended up ordering the store bought element anyway after three failed attempts at getting a good fog cloud. Has anyone else tried making their own heating setup and just gave up?
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masondixon1mo ago
The copper coil thing is such a classic YouTube trap. I tried something similar when I was younger building a soldering iron from scratch (don't ask why, I was bored and thought I was being clever). I used a nichrome wire wrapped around a ceramic tube and powered it with a computer power supply. That thing got so hot it melted the solder I was using. Not in a good way either, it just turned into a puddle of goo on my desk. My dad walked in and asked if I was trying to burn the house down. I just threw the whole thing in the trash and bought a proper iron for $15. Sometimes the store bought stuff is just the safe and easy way, you know?
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jake_martin161mo ago
That "tried to burn the house down" line hits way too close to home, @masondixon. I once "improved" a space heater by wrapping it in extra coils and almost melted the extension cord into a puddle of plastic on the carpet. Sometimes YouTube makes us feel like we're geniuses when really we're just one step away from a fire extinguisher moment.
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charlesowens18d ago
Huh, wait, you melted the solder just from the heat of the thing?
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