Well, strange as it may seem, my parents weren't all that interested in
encouraging my youthful infatuation in model rocketry, or really much else
which may have involved flames, flammable fuels, or explosives. I've not
heard of the "nicrome wire" before.
I got the idea from Moe's description of his Moog Ribbon controller as having
what looked to be a large wire wound resistor as the resistive element. I
started looking in my surplus catalogs for large wire wound resistors, but
the largest I found was maybe 18" (I think it was from Alltronics) -- I've
seen these resistors used in buildings closer to where your type of work goes
on Larry. The ones I've seen have a large screw (I guess this would be the
equivalent of a wiper) which is physically moved along the length of the
resistor then tightened to break through the insulation.
I thought about winding my own several months ago when MC on diy started
talking about high resistance wire (I forget the context now). Here's what I
thought (no idea if it would work):
Use a long stick, maybe 30" (long) X 1/2" (high) X 1" (wide).
Use appropriate wire such that you get about 100K across the 30" length.
Spend one fabulous weekend carefully wrapping the wire around the stick.
Maybe coat the wound stick with varnish or something.
Ever so carefully sand very evenly through the insulation just barely
exposing the wire's conductor one the top of wound stick.
All that's left is to find the flexible conductive (and insulated on one
side) strip which your finger touches, attach that to the a spring mechanism,
build the CV and gate (and trigger) circuits, build a small case for the
whole thing, and put it all together.
It's so simple, I can't imagine why I haven't started.
JB
PS, I got one of my Serge style front panel "decals" attached to a panel
finally (thanks to lots of you and diy people, especially Larry and Ken for
some good ideas). I'm still having one problem trying to attach the edges of
an ink jet transparency to an aluminum panel. I haven't yet found Larry's
"Duro" but the 3M System 77 didn't work, nor did some other bonding agent I
had. I even asked the sales clerk at the "Do It Center" to help me with my
problems with bondage, but didn't get any satisfaction either. Any ideas
would be appreciated!
In a message dated 7/10/2000 10:29:06 PM,
jlarryh@... writes:
>From: <jwbarlow@...>
>
>>(I still think the home-brew
>> wire wound resistor makes sense).
>-----
>
>JB, I may have missed some of the mail on this. What kind of wire were
>you
>thinking? How about nicrome? We used to use that to electronically set
>off
>our model rockets in the old days instead of the "igniters" which were
>just
>nicrome wire with some extra burning stuff. I don;t know the resistance
>per
>foot. But, it was significant.