Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Homebrew PCBs

Apparently I cannot wield a clothes iron very well (my pattern
usually turns out like swiss cheese), so I'm going to start
constructing a laminator out of a Laserjet II fuser. The fuser was
given to me, but I did not receive the power supply or motor. So,
here are a few questions for those who have done the conversion, or
just know the answers :)

1) Does the fuser element take 110V AC (I'm in the US), or do I need
a DC power source? I have some SSRs that are good to 20A, and would
like to use one to control the temperature.
2) Since I'm starting to tinker with microcontrollers, I would like
to hook a PIC ADC port to the thermistor to create a crude
temperature indication on an LCD and provide feedback for the SSR
control. Are laser printer thermistors particularly "noisy" at any
give temperature?
3) Finally, I think I'll hook a hand crank onto the geartrain. Is an
∗ultra∗ smooth feed required, or would I be able to crank it manually
with acceptable results?

Probably a bit much for a beginner, but I would like to give it a
shot anyway. Thanks for any help or pointers you can give.


Billy Byler