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heat blankets

Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2012 3:56 pm
by tippie53
I have been getting some emails about heating blankets and what makes for a good one. The best I can tell you is Wattage. 2 1/2 watt per square inch will get as hot as 5 watts per inch , it just takes longer . The part that makes them the wrong choice in bending machines is thermal load.
The cool wood will take the heat out of the blanket and the thermal loss will take longer to regain than in a 5 watts per inch. I only use 5 watts per inch for this reason. I don't have to worry about thermal spikes.
My experience in these goes back to my machinist days when we used them for thermal wraps on extrusion equipment. We used many brands and wattage and found that matching thermal load is critical. Too much wattage and you spike too high and not enough wattage you can loose thermal control and have a negative spike.