To Charles upstate new york

[digger barns]

Dear Charles, can you give me some idea what you use to heat up the plastic on vacuum forming machine

regards Digger

[Charles (Upstate NY)]

Well you need an infrared heat source and so you have three basic choices...

1. Various professional ceramic/quartz heating elements designed for thermoforming. All you tend to get is the element itself and so housings, wiring, unsulation, reflective backs, are extra. You can drop $1,000 without trying on these elements.

2. Oven type heater elements e.g. the resistive tubes you see in your average appliance. An actual oven element won't due of course because its just a big open loop, you need more even coverage than that. You can have these made up for several hundred dollars.

3. My choice to get started in vacuum forming...this is an example of economy of scale, e.g. if you build a million widgets you can build them cheaply. Check out this link...

http://www.heatershop.com/7060_overh...ce_heater.html

These are dual quartz infrared overhead shop heaters. They are 110vac and 1,500 watts each. You get the switch, reflective back, housing, and elements all included and assembled for you. And they cost a paltry $59 each compared to the above options. Vac machines are usually either 16 inch or 24 inch (sheet size) as these divide evenly in a 4x8 foot sheet of plastic with no waste. You will need two heaters for a 16x16 sheet size, 3 for a 24x24 sheet size.

The fit is not perfect as the heating footprint of each heater is about 11x18 inches. If money were no object I'd go for professional ceramic or quarts elements in a 24x24 grid that would produce the most even distribution of heat. But if cost is a consideration then $180 for shop heaters is cheap compared to $1,000 for the pro elements.

You didn't ask but lets talk vacuum pumps. You want something like this or better. I use two of these plumbed in parallel. Forget all about trying to vac form ABS with a shop vac. You need to get to 28 inches of vac fast, like within 1 to 1.5 seconds and so two of these babies will get it done if you have designed your vac table with the absolute minimum air space to evac.

http://www.thetoolwarehouse.net/shop/ROB-15600.html

By the way this is the cheapest place to get these pumps.

[digger barns]

Thank you for your detailed reply charles

Digger

[MojaveRed]

Charles,

While we have you on the hook, I've wanted to ask: is there some business related reason that so many of your photos are no longer available, even on your site?

I was reminded of this when you posted an array of thumbnails during the recent skirmish with Nexus.

I think it would be great to have them posted somewhere as they're both instructional and inspirational.

[digger barns]

I would like to see them again also. Missed them last time


digger

[Charles (Upstate NY)]

Charles,

While we have you on the hook, I've wanted to ask: is there some business related reason that so many of your photos are no longer available, even on your site?

I was reminded of this when you posted an array of thumbnails during the recent skirmish with Nexus.

I think it would be great to have them posted somewhere as they're both instructional and inspirational.

No business reason, I just checked my server and those pics are gone for some reason. I still have them on my local PC, I'll see about reposting them to the server.