Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Thermostat + Dimmer = WWB prototype

DISCLAIMER: Copy and Build at your own risk!!!

Made a prototype for a wax warm box. This one have a thermostat which i can set the temperature and it will cut of the heat once the warm box reach the desire temperature. I also add a dimmer, incase, the box get too hot a dimmer would be able to dim the light.

Installatiion of these parts are fairly easy. The thermostat is Jaeger FST ZA110C, temperature range 30°C to 11°C. This termostat have a temperature sensing of +-5°C. I searched on internet about how to wire the thermostat but there isn't any. And the shopkeeper claimed that they don't know how to wire it, so a trial and error is all i have. The thermostat have 4 metal contact: "1","2","C", and Earth.
"1" is for 400V AC 15A and "2" is for 2.5A. "C" is the output and Earth is... well the name explain it all :-)

The wires were connected to the metal contact using the "female disconnect". From the 3 corded wire, connect the Earth to the Earth Contact, Live to "1", another Live from "C" to the Dimmer "in". The Nuetral wire shall not connect to the thermostat nor Dimmer, it should go direct to the bulbs. Another Live wire is connected from Dimmer Out to the bulbs.

After all wiring is done, the bulb were hanged insde the warm box, and the probe were insert in into the warm box.
I twisted the Thermostat to 50°C, and it cut off the light at 55°C, not bad at all, for a RM38 Thermostat...


Tuesday, April 14, 2009

H is not Homerun!

The pose is altered again. He is swinging his Gada.
Still not very sure of the property of FUSE wax, some of the big pieces felt off when i make major twist on the pose.
The wire amarture become the source of problem.
Looks like he hit home run :-D







Friday, April 10, 2009

Log of wax sculptor wannabe : The Silence of the LamP

For the pass few days I didn't do much on wax, instead, i am making a "one point silent wax warmer" that will focus the heat to warm up small part of the wax.

Those who know me, knew that i can't withstand high frequency noise, a heat gun is quite annoiying for me, yet, i can live with that, just, not in the midle of the night when everyone has make their trip to dreamland. So i figure, maybe a silent heat gun can be used in the night, and here we go.

I have plenty of computer fans from my old dead pc, i take out two, and dig out the old "AC to DC converter" with multiple voltage range. This two use 12V. I made a fixture to hold the lamp holder so it "float" on top of the fan. Epoxy putty work perfectly for this. The bulb is 100W, attached to an on-cord dimmer.

As you can see, the cover is just a thick plastic bottle. I cover the inner part of bottle with the tin(or aluminium?) foil which come with sticker back. This will bounce the heat along the inner wall of bottle, and keep the bottle slidely cooler.


Here is what it looks like when put together. Observe the bottle neck, it is from another plastic part i fix together using epoxy putty. This bottle neck can be detached incase i want a wider area of wax to get warmed. And another cone shape can be added to the tip of the bottle neck to further focus the heat. Because i can't wait, the detachable bottlebottle neck is not cover with foil. attaching the cover to the fan is easy.



and Jonestation said, Let there be LIGHT" - by switching on the dimmer switch. I get 45°C.

dimmer in action : i got 55°C (2 minutes)


When go full force i get 65°C (in 1 minute) and still increasing.

So, the wax get warm up on a focused point, and the device is compact and silent. Objective met! However there is a few draw back of this fella that need to be improved.

1. fan speed can not be controled.
2. heat reach the small tip too slow, and the shape of the bottle itself is not helping in pushing the hot air up. Instead, some air is "blackflow" from the bottom of the fan.
3. Fan and bulb using separate cable, which making the temperature control a bit trouble some.
4. the name is mega-lame :-D

Monday, April 6, 2009

Log of a wax sculptor wannabe

I will try to update this as frequent as possible, just want to share what i learn about Gary's FUSE wax from day-1 to day-N, where N could be :
1. the day i finish the sculpt, or

2. end up i keep the wax in the fridge :-).

Below is the wax warming box i made from a carton box. I add a 100°C termometer to the warm box, try to get the temperature at which the wax is workable for me.



I find that when the termometer shows 45°C on this warm box, the wax is very soft. Ofcourse the wax might not be 45°C because the termometer is place at the corner of the box while the wax is at the center. Here the thermometer is showing 37°C after i turn the bulb off so i can snap a photo.
I experiment with a few bulbs, and find that using a 40W on one side and 25W on the other side work best.
I put the wax on a candle plate from Tesco, so the wax stays in the plate incase they get melt. The ceramic tile help to distribute heat evenly.
Big piece of wax take longer to warm up, so i use the slicer to get small strings of wax. I use the same tool when conditioning age old SuperSculpey. It works for both medium.
here come the fun part. try to sculpt something totally from wax. this is Fuse and i wouldn't even call it a sketch yet, it is just some blob of wax covering the bonsai wire. I am one sturbon head and i want to sculpt the whole project-"H" from Fuse. Fuse doesn't require amature wire, but i use it anyway so i can play around with the pose easily. I didn't add wax on the joint area, this allow this fella to alter his pose easily.



Haven't got a clue how to clean up those tiny area like ears. Tried the alcohol torch it melt down large area. mineral spirit could be my better bet. here i repeat the same bad habbit again, going in detail too soon.

here is the Fuse "blob" standing beside his far relative made from Super Sculpey..

sshhhh.. the SuperSculpey tempting : "come to the FUN sculpey side"..
"Dang i hear no evil :-D. I will come back to deal with you after i am done with the wax!"