Dirty's heated clothing, heated glove thread

[DirtyGinge]

Hi All

No, the bathroom is not finished.......( just don't ask, nearly there)

however I have managed to squeeze a little more forum time in recently , so its time for another mad scientist project from da Ginge

As usual I will be posting this over 12 weeks in installments due to getting too drunk, so be patient

AIM OF THE PROJECT

1....Not to freeze my nads off..winter is coming, aiming for -12C comfort

2....be portable / ( or bike powered)

3....be easy, so any nutter with a soldering iron can do it

4...make a hoodie and gloves

Now I have run extensive tests on this, does it work ?? ..YES...very much so... Im just about to make my heated hoodie amd glove set, but need time to document it for you all ..

( webby, you are going to have to get a piece of this, trust me, experience.........I Ride them there roads you ride)

[DirtyGinge]

So here is the science bit ( some of which some of you will know, due to phase wires etc)

If you take a piece of wire, say for instance a skinny little bit of wire, and run a small ampage through it, there is no problem, however if you put a large ampage through it, it heats up (it loses ampage, in the form of heat)...some of you may have noticed this if you are running external controllers, on the phase wires ( which can lose up to 200W in heat)

Now if you make sure that the insulation on this wire can take a lot of heat before getting damaged, put a controlled voltage/ampage though it, you get a wire that can produce heat, and not turn you into ghost rider....knit this into your clothing, attach a battery......pink winter riding..

so here is what I am going to use

1....Wire.....30 meters for £10.00........rs components...part number 177-0621
                   30AWG 7 strand 0.13mm PTFE coated...
                   Insulation rating 200 centigrade, amp rating 4 Amps, 600V
                   ( made again by our famous alphawire)

2....switch ....( anything mostly, rating 5 amps ?)

3...fuse.......( always fuse, just always...job done)
4....1 laptop battery ( newer the better, 11.1V .....or 6 * 18650 cells....or lipo cell...basically we need 3.7V and as many ah as possible for long run time

[DirtyGinge]

right, mathematics

so....here are some basic terms for newbies ( leslie, its for the newbie's...take a deep breath)

if we compare electricity to a supermarket checkout / Till

voltage = how fast the shoppers are walking ( how fast the electrical supply is, measured in V)

ampage = how much shopping each shopper has( how much of the electricity is moving fast / slow)

resistance = the really stupid checkout operator who wants your life story and will not just scan the damn items( like a narrow hallway, only so much electricity can fit through a narrow gap ), measured in ohms

formula

using a multimeter, we measure the ohms of the wire( more on this later, but just a quickie to get the maths going)...for the hoodie I will use 5 meters

I measure the resistance @ 2.0 ohms

3.7V/2.0 ohms = 1.85 amps ( my wire will comsume 1.85 amps)

3.7V * 1.85 amps = 6.85 watts of heat

so you can directly compare watts to a GU10 light bulb, we all know a 50Watt version of that is too hot to touch, imagine one of those underneath your jumper , nice and toasty on a frosty morning....

now if we change the voltage?

7.4V/2.0 ohms = 3.7 amps

7.4V * 3.7 = 27.38 watts

so we double the voltage, but nearly 5 times the heat output, at 27 watts

11.1V/2 ohms = 5.55 amps

11.1*5.55 = 61 watts of heat....you are getting a sun tan internally

so by adjusting the voltage, we can multiply dramatically the heat output of the wire

just for reference, I ran 5 meters of cable from 2 x 18650 cells, hand hot for 1 hour on my desk

[mike662]

Sounds like an interesting project. My trips are usually too short to have to worry about wearing proper clothing, but I'll keep an eye on this just in case it gets too cold   

[Andrew]

He's a bloody nutter, what ever next!


 

[MonkeyMagic]

Gingey I've been down this road mate......

There is a serious amount of trial and error before you will ever get the temperature right.
All depends on the resistance, and length of wire etc. But you are on the right track with your idea

I made a pair of pants and a jumper made out of 2 heated car seat covers ages ago, I'll try and dig them up!~!!

All I did was cut the side of the heated seat covers with a razor and slide out the plastic pcb element panels.

I put 2 in the legs of my pants (front) and the 1 front, 1 on the back of a jumper. It draws 3.5A at 12.6V and works awesome !!!!!!!!!!!!


Let us know how you go bloke, I also considered running small heated duct tubing to a 200W 12v ceramic heater haha blowing up my jumper on long super freezing rides lol

[DirtyGinge]

Worst case, im going to runa PWM controller on it, but lets not confuse the followers just yet Monkey

( why do my work mates keep singing Danger Danger song by electric six ?? Watch the video lol)

[MonkeyMagic]

Well the weather here now is tops!@ But I'm seriously eager to find out what you come up with on the other side of the world!!

I first got the idea from a Goldwing, I thought ohhh how nice would it be to have some heat (although not much..) but at least its something lol

[GM Canada]

I have heated grips on my snowblower. I find when using it bare handed my palms are warm and the back of my hands cold. On a bike it would be worse I'm sure. If I wear gloves I no longer feel the warmth. I think you need something like a large sock shaped object that you stick your hands and part of your forearm into to stay warm

Gary

[DirtyGinge]

Hi Gary

The plan is to put the wiring into the top of the gloves, especially around the tops of the fingers, so that the coldest part of the hands get the heating....

[MonkeyMagic]

can you get tungsten wire? Or tungsten coated wire?? That would be ideal...

[DirtyGinge]

to be honest, the part code supplied is both easy to obtain in any country in some form, and works too

177-0621

www.rswww.com

....no experiment is valid unless it can be replicated....drink 10 buds and see if you can type as in the last shentanse

[DirtyGinge]

right, so Im working on voltages as output by lithium cells in series.....so 4.2, 8.4 etc ( as I have so many of the bloody things), however in the future im going to run it off lithium polymer cells for light weight long life....

Bear in mind that you are not going winter riding in a t shirt, what we need here is something buried in a layer to keep gentle heat constant, rather than full on heat

To calculate watts required, consider this, take a 50W light bulb, put it under your jumper, even if you spread the heat out a bit, it will soon be wayy to hot in there

I only start to get cold about 15-20 mins into the ride.....so its a trickle heat required.

starting out, I worked at 8.5 watts of heat, using a 4.2V battery......i can always config different voltages on different batteries for colder days,

changing up to an 8.4 battery instantly changes this up to 35 watts..12.6 gives nearly 80 watts....

[DirtyGinge]

So away we go....

I take a standard hoodie, 5M of wire and a battery pack...

Its important that I can charge the pack with the chargers I use for the lipo packs...so an XT-60 connector is used ( small and 60 amp rated)

The wire is great as its sooo slippy it threads really easy.....I turn the jumper inside out and start threading ( don't want to appear to camp and knowledgable here but don't forget a thimble, and use a double loop at each end of a straight run to lock the wire in place for that run

takes about 1 hour...

[DirtyGinge]

The hoodie in question is great in that it has a pocket in the front for battery connection....

Next I plan a seperate circuit for the gloves, as I need to work out a different voltage here..5metres of wire for 2 gloves may be a bit excessive , plus I want to be able to operate both independantly so im going to run the wires down my sleeve for the gloves, so I don't get tangled on anything ....

Word of advice from the motorbike crew....dont put wire anywhere bony ( rules my belly out lol), as the bony areas get too hot too quick, shoulders etc you will notice I havent done the back here, as 1, I plan to use a backpack, and 2, the windchill is mostly in the front....

After a pretty mild day, I gave it a test ( bear in mind 4 volts only) , it took about a minute to heat up, but them my buddha belly was bathed in a comforting glow, not hot, just warm......probably good to -2 C.......any colder ( which im expecting a very bad winter) and I will double the voltage , or maybe use an on bike dc-dc voltage regulator adjustable on the fly....)adjustable heat

Any questions so far ( apart from whats really mentally wrong with me )