- Preparatory work
- Build process
Pyrography, or wood burning, is a fascinating and interesting hobby. It is mastered by those who love visual arts. Writings that first mention fire-scorched patterns date back to 700 BC. e. The burning apparatus was invented at the beginning of the 20th century. The first devices were made from a glass container supplemented with two rubber tubes. At the end of one of the tubes a rubber ball was attached to pump air, at the end of the other there was a platinum tip connected to the handle.
In the middle of the 20th century, a new type of electric burner appeared, which became the prototype modern apparatus. Distinctive look applied arts became available to children.
The design has undergone considerable changes since then. Manufacturers install a power regulator. With its help, you can smoothly adjust the temperature of the working needle. This allows you to apply a pattern to any available material. On sale you can find models with a large number of attachments. Thanks to different-sized pens, it is possible to create strokes different sizes, give the drawing volume.
Despite the sufficient choice among factory-made devices, many craftsmen want to make a wood burner with their own hands. This is mostly used by experienced artists..
Problems are often discovered with the built-in transformer, and you have to solve the problem yourself.
Some craftsmen want to supplement their existing simple burner with a special device with which you can adjust the degree of heating of the needle. The article provided practical guide on assembling a mini wood burner using improvised materials.
Electrical circuit development
When assembling a homemade burner, you must have knowledge in the field of radio electronics. This will allow you to develop an electrical circuit. If you do not have skills in this area, you can use the diagram presented below.
The circuit can be simple or quite complex, tailored to the developer’s requirements. The task is to select the most acceptable option and implement it in practice.
Preparatory work
Before making a burner, you need to plan the process, assemble necessary materials, devices. The set of components depends on what type of device you plan to make. If you need a burner with temperature control, you will have to find a dimmer, dimmer, or a mechanism similar in functionality. You also need to prepare:
- sewing needle;
- needle removable from the syringe;
- power unit;
- soldering device.
To work, you need to take an old charger from mobile phone. For a homemade burner, a power supply from an iPhone works well. Its output voltage is 5.1 V and 2 A. H The more powerful the charger or battery pack is, the better . If there is no such device, you can use a charger for a screwdriver or other similar compact tool, which does not work or is not used due to unnecessary use. You also need to find a barbecue skewer on the farm or buy in a store, high-strength threads, flux, and solder.
A needle is one of the main elements of a homemade wood burner. Her choice should be approached responsibly. It is this detail that determines how sophisticated the ornament, the miniature silhouette applied to the wooden surface, will be. Recommendedgive preference to a thin and sharp needle. A good option- medical needle. It will heat up to maximum temperature, uniformly warming up the sewing needle, which will burn the design onto the material being processed.
Build process
First you need to take round pliers or metalwork pliers. With their help, the tip of a medical needle is bitten off. Then, strictly parallel, two needles are attached to a barbecue skewer and secured with a strong thread. End sewing needle gently bends until it lightly touches the tip of the medical needle.
Then you need to connect the wires from the charger to the needles. Polarity does not matter; wires can be connected as desired.
In order for the electric burner to serve for a long time and reliably, the connection points must be properly processed. To do this, a small amount of floss is applied to them, then they are tinned.
The wires for the burner are soldered one at a time, attached to wooden skewers, and secured with threads. The excess protruding ends of the skewers are cut off. For greater reliability, the threads can be treated with superglue and protected with heat shrink tubing. After this stage, the device is ready and can be used for its intended purpose.
The figure shows an example of a burner.
The principle of operation of the device does not differ from the principle of operation of the factory device. Despite the fact that the charger has only 2 A and 5.1 V, at the moment the electric current is applied, the thin-walled hollow needle from the syringe heats up intensely and transfers heat to the sewing needle. The burner is compact and shows in practice great job, allows you to apply strokes 10 mm thick on a wooden surface.
To better understand the assembly process, you can watch the video.
Pyrography is one of the techniques for applying images to hard surfaces made of organic materials using heated to high temperatures subject. Wood is mainly used as the basis for the painting. The burning tool is a loop of wood fixed in a special holder. You can make a wood burner with your own hands different ways and even provide software control devices.
However, such a scheme is quite complex, and its implementation will require equipment inaccessible to the general public. However, you can make a fairly simple burner with your own hands, literally from scrap materials and a power supply. It also has a simple circuit diagram for controlling currents in the primary circuit.
Operating principle of the pyrograph
Two questions arise at once: how to make a wood burner and how does it all work? To understand this, you need to understand the physical principles used in the device. In general, the device works as follows: from nichrome wire warming up alternating current up to high temperatures. Upon contact with smooth wooden surface its charring occurs.
The degree of impact on the material can be adjusted by varying the contact time, its force and current parameters. The first two indicators are determined by eye by changing the color of the plate. Current adjustment is carried out mounted on the device body. Experienced pyrographers select the current once at the beginning of working on the image, and then only control the holder.
Materials and components for a homemade burner
The classic design of an industrial wood burner is difficult to implement in artisanal conditions. It has been modernized folk craftsmen, as a result, current control was transferred from the output of the secondary to the input of the primary winding. This is how an adjustable soldering iron works. For a fairly crude heating element, which is essentially a piece of nichrome wire, the shape of the output voltage is not particularly important.
Much more important is the ability to more or less accurately adjust and stabilize the voltage. It is easier to achieve the required indicators by varying the indicators of the primary circuit. Special meaning has in the secondary winding - it must be sufficient to withstand the current load on the heating element. Values are calculated using the formula where resistance is equal to the ratio of voltage to current (Ohm's law).
Making a holder for a pyrograph
It is based on a handle made of durable dielectric material. This could be a ready-made soldering iron handle made of wood or heat-resistant polymer. Voltage is supplied to the tool via a two-core electrical wire with double insulation of the PVA type. The cross-section of the conductor must be at least 1 sq. mm, which is quite enough to ensure safe work masters of pyrography.
A do-it-yourself burner is made in such a way as to exclude the possibility of harming a person electric shock. Important detail- a holder for a nichrome heater, which is nothing more than a piece of an incandescent coil for an electric stove open type. It is fixed on a board made of PCB or other material resistant to high temperatures.
The best fastenings for the filament element are electrical terminals with fixing screws. They are removed from the plastic case and attached to the insulator. On one side, a power wire is inserted into them, passed through the handle, and on the other side - a nichrome a heating element. After assembly, the plate is carefully inserted into the cavity of the handle and secured there.
Assembling and setting up the pyrograph
A homemade wood burner consists of a power supply and a holder with a heating element. It is connected to the secondary winding of the step-down transformer. For this purpose, standard screw wiring terminals installed on the board are used. The primary circuit of the transformer is controlled by a simple electrical circuit of three resistances, as many capacitors and two triodes.
A do-it-yourself wood burner is mounted in a plastic or metal case. To assemble the control circuit, the so-called wall-mounted installation. After assembly, the device is connected and configured. It comes down to checking the voltage regulation limits at the output of the secondary winding; they should fall within the range from 3 to 8 V.
Intended use of the device
A DIY wood burner is used to create paintings and other images. The procedure for working with it is as follows: the photograph is transferred from paper to the prepared surface using ordinary carbon paper. Then, using a well-heated device, lines, strokes and dots are applied, which will create a complete image.
Conclusion
Wood burner, made with your own hands from available materials, will become great tool For creative development personality. This activity is equally exciting for both adults and children. The growth of the artist’s skill occurs during the development and consolidation of the skill of working with the device.
We make an electric wood burner from a pulse transformer. Once upon a time as a child, it was considered a given to have an electric wood burner at home. And now, I thought about making a similar device for my son (4 years old). After all, a drawing on paper may not be preserved, while one burned on wood will delight you years later. Yes, and it will be useful for me, as a radio amateur. They can be used to cut plastics when making cases, they can also be soldered, and even cut out PCB. Also, carefully cut the ropes (if you are a climber :-).The device has two operating modes. In the first position of the switch " norm"(I), it operates at half power: approximately 30-35W. In the second " turbo"(II) - 65-70W. The yellow LED shines in both modes, red only in the second. Indication LEDs are any, not bright ( AL307).
In order to make an electric burner, you will need a cheap ($2-2.5) Chinese-made switching power supply (UPS), 50-60 W, for halogen lamps. You can find them in stores around furniture fittings or in hardware stores.
Burner circuit
Schematic diagram of an electric burner based on ET
On the Internet, I came across a modification for making a pulse soldering iron. In the case of a burner, minimal modifications to the UPS will be required.
First, remove the board from the case and solder the output transformer. A lot has been written about these schemes, so I won’t go into details. It copes well as an electric burner. I'll just say that bipolar transistors MJE13003 (TUVE13007) can be replaced with more powerful current ones - MJE13005, MJE13007(last digit means operating current). When choosing a UPS, you need to take into account the fact that it should not be protected from short circuit!
So, having removed the transformer from the board, it must be disassembled. A lot has also been written about disassembling ferromagnetic transformers. But, I will share my experience. First of all, remove the film and use a knife to remove the glue on the core connection. Afterwards, heat the water in a small container until it boils. But we don’t immediately throw it into boiling water, but heat it first warm water. Due to the fact that the quality of these trances is very low, they can break. Therefore, after warming it up a little, we put it in boiling water and leave it there for a few seconds. The procedure can be repeated and try to loosen the winding body, and also run a knife along the seams of the ferrite halves. In the end, you will be able to disassemble it, but do not rush, do everything with caution. In my case, even after breaking such a trance, I did not despair, and connected the four pieces of the core with tape. Some glue the cracked slices, but even without that it works just fine, tightly compressed with adhesive tape.
Having disassembled the transformer, remove the secondary winding, and in its place we wind 3-4 turns of stranded wire with a cross-section of 2.5-4mm2. Suitable for this electrical cable(network). The insulation is first removed, and in its place a heat-shrinkable casing of suitable size is put on. Why heat-shrink tubing? Because she takes less space, regarding cable insulation. Now, we wind four turns, with a branch from the third. The voltage on the last turn will be approximately 9.0-10.5V. All that remains is to put the transformer back together and remove the leads, as can be seen in the photographs.
It's time to work on the body of the electric burner. For this we need an aluminum furniture leg. Yes, yes, furniture again! It is very cheap (less than a dollar), but most importantly it is made of 1 mm thick aluminum. Thus, the case will serve as a heat sink for transistors, which get very hot. Square leg height =100mm. The issue of the front panel is also resolved. To do this, we disassemble the leg and leave plastic plug from which we cut off a part - so that all the components of the product fit. Further, the radiator for transistor switches is also aluminum.
I used a 5mm thick plate radiator. It already had threaded holes, which I later used. But if you find a copper plate, it will definitely serve as a better heat sink. You can also use any other radiator of a suitable size. In addition to this radiator, I connected an aluminum U-shaped profile- you guessed it, also a furniture piece that fits snugly into square profile housings.
The radiator must be in close contact with the body! This way, the heat will be distributed evenly, with greater efficiency, throughout the entire body, without requiring bulky radiators. The U-shaped profile is connected to the radiator plate with a small gap (2-3 mm) through small washers and then we screw this “sandwich” to the plate included in the impulse generator kit. Transistors and the board must be attached through an insulator, also from the UPS. It is preferable to ground the burner body.
Don’t forget, the device is connected to a mains voltage of 220V, so we take all safety measures during assembly and commissioning!
Now, we drill holes in the plastic front panel for the electric burner operating mode switch - for wires and for LEDs red And yellow glow. We connect the LEDs with limiting resistors with hot glue, as can be seen in the photo.
Next, twist the switch and solder all the wires together (see figure). Switch – P2T-21(Soviet production, maximum switching power up to 660 W with active load). It is necessary to use the most powerful toggle switch possible, otherwise the contacts will overheat! Maximum power electric burner reaches 70 watts.
To the body, as legs (anti-slip), we glue self-adhesive cork or silicone (available from glaziers and furniture makers). As a handle, I used a ready-made handle from a burner industrial production. And if you make it yourself, then a handle from a burnt soldering iron will do. Or we cut it out of textolite, wood with a fluoroplastic tip suitable thickness. Fastening for nichrome - the terminals of electrical blocks are just suitable for these purposes.
I found nichrome for tips with a diameter of 0.8-1.5 mm on the radio market. Suitable for different heating devices. It must be bent as in the photographs and the tip flattened with a hammer. I made two types of tips: one from millimeter nichrome - for burning and cutting, the other from one and a half millimeter, for rougher work. Accordingly, the second one will effectively heat in a more powerful operating mode of the device (turbo).
The wire for the electric burner must be selected with a large cross-section and the most flexible. Otherwise it will get warm. Naturally, the electric burner will work intermittently, approximately 15-30 minutes.
Firstly, the efficiency is very low, which leads to large heat losses. And secondly, the handle will heat up, which forces you to work with it cyclically. For more convenient use, I advise you to adapt a push-button pedal (from sewing machine or from some machine) or a push-button power switch, etc. Additional holes I didn’t do it in the case or radiator to remove heat. This is at your discretion, depending on the radiator used.
The device is very easy to manufacture, thanks to ready-made solutions to assemble it. It can be made by any beginner with minimal electronics skills. The main thing is to follow safety rules when working with it. After all, the tip temperature reaches 500-600 degrees.
If you make an electric burner for a child, then the presence of an adult when working with it is required. I hope it brings joy and creative success! ).
Discuss the article ELECTRIC BURNER
The art of wood burning is a hobby for many people of different ages and flooring, so in this article we’ll look at how to make a simple mini burner for woodworking. This tool has proven itself well.
To make a mini-burner we need a soldering iron, an old unnecessary power supply from a mobile phone or from a charger for a screwdriver. It is better to have as powerful a power supply as possible. For example, a power supply from an iPhone for 5.1 volts and 2 Amperes is well suited for our craft. You will also need a barbecue skewer, three needles, two of which are from a syringe and another one, for example, a sewing needle. You also need threads, flux and solder.
First, we must bite off the nose of the syringe needle, since we will not use it. You can do this using round nose pliers or pliers. The next thing to do is attach two needles to the BBQ skewer using threads. This should be done in such a way that they are positioned parallel to each other. Now you need to bend the end of the sewing needle so that it just barely touches the tip of the syringe needle.
Next we must solder the wires from the power supply to the needles, in this case the polarity does not matter. Apply a little flux and tin the joints. We must solder the first wire, and then the second. Then attach the wires to the skewers using thread, cut off the excess end of the wooden skewer.
We can say that the burning tool is almost ready. To make it more secure, you can also soak the threads in superglue and then apply heat shrink tubing.
Step 1: First of all, take a needle from the syringe and bite off the nose with pliers.
Step 3: Next we need to bend the tip of the sewing needle so that it touches the tip of the syringe needle.
Step 6: Next, cut off the excess end of the wooden skewer.
Step 7: For reliability, you can soak the threads with super glue.
Step 8: Pull the heat shrink tube.
The mini-burner is ready and it works very easily. When current is applied, the needle from the syringe begins to heat up, this happens because it has thin walls. Now we can test our tool. The game heats up even though the power supply only has 2 Amps and 5.1 Volts. This excellent result, as you may have already noticed, despite its small size, this device shows excellent result. It is quite possible to make a hole in wooden slats up to 1 cm in thickness.
Why exactly homemade burner? There are many domestic and imported models of electric wood burners on sale: Orbit, Pattern, Elm (ours), Stayer, Qiddycome (Chinese) and others. But lovers artistic painting hardened wood needles are not always happy with this available choice.
Domestic devices usually have only one needle, imported ones have from 4 to 21 nozzles with different needles, but suffer from fragility. And you can’t always buy the right device in in the right place at the right time. Here we will talk about the experience of one Siberian enthusiast, an amateur, making a high-quality homemade electric wood burner with 39 (!) needles (see photo). Let's conduct, so to speak, a master class on his behalf.
First of all, we set three basic design requirements:
1. Enough high power power supply unit, allowing the use of large cross-section needles.
2. Possibility of stepwise voltage adjustment for needle work different sections and smooth adjustment to change the temperature of the needles over a wide range.
3. Convenient change of working needles.
Simple electrical diagram device is shown in the figure. 
Now let's move on to the process of its manufacture.
We take any transformer with a power of at least 200 W (other characteristics are unimportant), for example, OSM 380/36V (250 kW). At lower power, the transformer will overheat when operating with needles of large cross-sections. Completely remove the secondary (upper) winding. The primary (network) remains in place.
We rewind the secondary winding: one or two layers of flexible insulated wire with a cross section of 6 mm 2 (for example, PV-3). You should first calculate the number of turns per 1 V of output voltage (by selection: wind several turns, connect the transformer to the network and measure the output voltage).
Let, for example, there be 4 turns per 1 V. Having determined the value of 2 V for the lower limit of the output voltage, we first wind 8 turns, and then make taps after every two turns. This will give a discreteness of 0.5 V for stepwise adjustment. To ensure a discreteness of 0.25 V, we will add another turn (in the diagram - the upper tap of 0.25 V).
In addition to stepwise, we also use continuous adjustment of the output voltage by inserting a variable wirewound resistor PPB-25 100 Ω into the primary winding circuit (R1 in the diagram).
In view of high power device, we will abandon the male-female connector, and we will securely connect the working handle with the needle to the body with galvanized M6 bolts. We will equip the taps and ends of the secondary winding with 6/6 tinned copper tips.
Working with needles of large cross-sections requires a current of at least 30 A. Therefore, the cross-section of the wires of the working handle must be at least 4 mm². You can take two rubber-insulated cores from a KG 4x4 cable (vinyl insulation of a wire of the same cross-section does not provide the required flexibility).
We grind the handle to lathe made of ebonite. We tightly insert a fluoroplastic plug with two brass rods into the front end of the handle for attaching the working needle (see photo). These rods fit tightly into the holes drilled in the plug. At the ends of the rods, 8-10 mm recesses are drilled. Tinned contacts are pressed into the recesses located inside the handle. A needle is attached to the outer recesses. M4 screws are suitable for clamping the needle.
You can use anything as a housing, you just need to remember safety. For example, the case from a megaohmmeter of the last century is very good: it is fantastically strong and durable.