Crock Pot Surgery!

[J M Fahey]

@ JoeM: it's a small world indeed !!

[tedmich]

Wouldn't a harbor freight router speed control ($9.99) keep a lid on a crock pot.
Someone needs to bite the bullet and hook up a PID controller PID controller - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (about $20) and take care of this problem in the most elegant way possible.

damn overly long threads! David I suggested just such a solution a couple months ago:
Crock Pot Surgery!

[David Schwab]

Here's a Pic of my 2 bulb tester.
Not too pretty, I made it from scraps.
I made it for amp work, but I'm finding it has many uses.
T
[ATTACH=CONFIG]17782[/ATTACH]

I cleaned the crock pot out and gave it to my wife. I went back to the paraffin warmer.

[Steve A.]

For fine close-up work I use a pair of those very narrow reader glasses and they are kinda like bifocals because I can look over the top of them for regular vision. (I wear prescription glasses but it is to read signs in the grocery store and on the highway.)

As for my night vision I think that my rods ran away with my cones...

Steve Ahola

[David King]

As luck would have it (or not) my next door neighbor was selling a "Little-Dipper" Crock-Pot for $5 in his garage sale yesterday. It's a continuous 35W heating element and with the lid on it keeps water at a constant 195.4 degrees. With the lid cracked open, the temp drops to 182 degrees. With the lid off it drops to 135. I suspect the wax temps could be comparable but I don't know yet. Wax doesn't evaporate at those temps but it doesn't conduct heat very well either.
The diameter is 4-1/4" and the depth is 2". This is probably perfect for 2-4 coils at a shot. You can leave it plugged in indefinitely so no waiting to melt the wax.

Has anyone tried potting strat coils in Velveeta?

[Steve A.]

As luck would have it (or not) my next door neighbor was selling a "Little-Dipper" Crock-Pot for $5 in his garage sale yesterday. It's a continuous 35W heating element and with the lid on it keeps water at a constant 195.4 degrees. With the lid cracked open, the temp drops to 182 degrees. With the lid off it drops to 135. I suspect the wax temps could be comparable but I don't know yet. Wax doesn't evaporate at those temps but it doesn't conduct heat very well either."

From your measurements and my own I would conclude that paraffin- with the lid off or on- reacts the same as water does with the lid on. There is considerable evaporation of water at 195 degrees which would cool it off. As for paraffin, I have never noticed any loss in volume due to evaporation ("Darn, you left the lid off and all of the paraffin evaporated!")

Has anyone tried potting strat coils in Velveeta?

So what kind of crackers do you serve with your strat pickups?

Thanks for posting the wattage- I could not find it listed anywhere and the line splitter for my clamp-on ammeter is packed away... somewhere! 35 watts at 120 volts works out to around 300mA so a 1 amp diode should work fine (assuming that the math gods are smiling on me today.)

Were you able to get the bottom cover off your Little Dipper?

Steve Ahola

[big_teee]

"Has anyone tried potting strat coils in Velveeta? "

David, Does it taste better, Wound with HFV, PE or HPN???
B_T

[Steve A.]

I finally got around to doing some experiments with my Little Dipper. I went down to Home Depot and picked up a single-ganged handy box and metal cover for under $2. I splurged and got a single-ganged switch/outlet combo for about $8, so when the switch is "on" the outlet is getting full voltage and when it is "off" it is getting a reduced voltage. (To save money I could have just wired up an 80 cent duplex outlet so that one socket was full voltage and the other was reduced voltage.)

Okay here are the results so far. At full voltage the paraffin is about 147 degrees as long as it is still melting a decent sized chunk of wax. Once the wax is melted the temperature will keep rising until it tops out around 200 degrees. (This is with the pot filled up to about 3/4" under where the lid would sit.)

My first experiment was using a 3A 600VAC diode, which kept the temperature around 157 degrees, still too hot for potting up pickups (or picking up pots! ) For my next experiment I tried using a 68 ohm 5W resistor instead of the diode. With that resistor it kept the wax at 162 degrees. I next tried an 82 ohm 10 watt resistor in series with the diode and it is keeping the wax right at 140 degrees. Voila! I just encapsulated the resistor and diode in epoxy to keep the leads from moving and shorting out against the metal box. (I found nothing comparable to the 2x4 handy box in plastic.)

I just got a box of 100 disposable gloves and I use them on both hands whenever I mix up epoxy. In the past I would always try to be careful and I'd get some of the unmixed crap on my fingers and it would inevitably end up on a guitar fretboard. At 10 cents per glove I think it is a really good investment...

Steve Ahola

[big_teee]

I took mine out of the outside cover last night.
Mine is a mini crock.
I has a off, low, and high.
It was all pretty much self contained.
The switch would be hard to alter.
The 2 individual heating elements were all fire proofed, so I put it back together.
I will just keep using my dim bulb tester.
If my Spouse can find another one on sale as cheap as that one.
That will give me one to currently use and one to Play and jack with.
To be continued!
T
**Edit
For Chuck!
As far as I could tell there were no bi-metal springs that were out where you could adjust them.
Sorry.

[Steve A.]

I took mine out of the outside cover last night.
Mine is a mini crock.
I has a off, low, and high.

I guess there must be different models. Mine is the Crock-Pot Little Dipper #32041-C. 16 oz with no controls on it and it cost me around $8 at Fry's Electronics a few years ago. (The copyright date on the box is 2008. It says "Perfect For Entertaining" under a picture of two couples sitting and standing around a table with food and drink- but no Little Dipper in sight!)

As far as I could tell there were no bi-metal springs that were out where you could adjust them.
Sorry.

I believe that the heating element(s) are selected to keep the pot temperature under a specific maximum temperature (200 degrees?) without having to add in a thermostatic control. I would assume that there is something that would kill the power if for some reason the unit overheated to the point where it might catch fire. Thermal links/fuses are undoubtedly very cheap if you buy them in bulk in China.

So what is the model # on yours?

Steve Ahola

[big_teee]

My Pot is a Cook's Brand 1.5 Qt Slow cooker.
Model #2396
120V @ 120Watts.
Made in China 3411.
My Wife got it for $2 on Black Friday.
I may get another one later.
T

[Steve A.]

My Pot is a Cook's Brand 1.5 Qt Slow cooker.

So you got a real appliance, not just a toy like mine. With two heating elements I'd assume that they use one for the low setting and both for the high setting. If you want to get into vacuum potting you can have the local plastic fabricator make up a custom lid for it - you can use something like a vacuum belt as an o-ring to make an air tight seal. Have a hole drilled in to mount an HVAC schrader valve and a hose to connect that to a vacuum pump (under $100 at Harbor Freight, or you can get one even cheaper that is hooked up to an air compressor.) Adjust the voltage to keep the right temperature and you, too, can join the ranks of vacuum potters!

Steve Ahola

P.S. I see that Penneys is selling the one you got for $9 this month... not as good as $2 but what the heck...

[big_teee]

So you got a real appliance, not just a toy like mine. With two heating elements I'd assume that they use one for the low setting and both for the high setting. If you want to get into vacuum potting you can have the local plastic fabricator make up a custom lid for it - you can use something like a vacuum belt as an o-ring to make an air tight seal. Have a hole drilled in to mount an HVAC schrader valve and a hose to connect that to a vacuum pump (under $100 at Harbor Freight, or you can get one even cheaper that is hooked up to an air compressor.) Adjust the voltage to keep the right temperature and you, too, can join the ranks of vacuum potters!

Steve Ahola

P.S. I see that Penneys is selling the one you got for $9 this month... not as good as $2 but what the heck...

I'm just a retired hobbist.
No vacuum required here.
Regular wax potting is plenty good for me.
But, Thanks for your help!
T

[Steve A.]

I'm just a retired hobbist.
No vacuum required here.
Regular wax potting is plenty good for me.

Well, if you don't want to join the pot(ting) party what can I say?

Steve Ahola

P.S. When I first read your post I thought that you said that you were a retired hobbit which is kinda confusing because I'm not sure what kind of job a hobbit would be retiring from. I don't remember any of them working in the Lord of the Rings except for Sam.

[big_teee]

Well, if you don't want to join the pot(ting) party what can I say?

Steve Ahola

P.S. When I first read your post I thought that you said that you were a retired hobbit which is kinda confusing because I'm not sure what kind of job a hobbit would be retiring from. I don't remember any of them working in the Lord of the Rings except for Sam.

Sorry about the Typo.
It's "HOBBYIST" ...
Your Right, In the Movies Nobody ever works.
I'm a Retired Central Office Electronic Equipment Installer.
I installed Electronic Phone Office Equipment for 42 Years.
I mainly did System Testing My last 25 Years.
If I never see inside another Phone office, or Motel Room Again, that will be fine.
Keep Rockin!
B_T