11 Oct
2011
11 Oct
'11
3 p.m.
On 10/11/2011 02:31 PM, Tony Duell wrote:
I've used the water torches myself. The electrolyte is Sulphuric Acid
for conduction and you add water daily (if used in production applications).
It produces a small (maybe 1-2mm) flame and is extremely hot. We used
them to weld leads to platinum wires (special application) and to join
wires like those used for J and K type thermocouples.
As to power it ran from a bench outlet often two or three of them from
the same 100V strip and I believe the power used was well under 250W.
Allison
I have a
friend who makes custom flutes (draws his own silver tubing,
etc.) and uses a water torch. But the thing uses potassium hydroxide
(very caustic) to improve ionization and the rig draws about 13A at
240V to produce a fairly small flame. For him, it's probably ideal
I only saw
the unit briefly, I knew I couldn't afford it (and didn't
really need it). You may well ahve added soemthig nto the water to
improve codnuction -- something that itself would not produce any other
materieals at the electrodes. KOH or NaOH would seem suitable.
I rememebr it ran fro ma notmal UK mains socket (which happens to be
240V, 13A :-)). I have no idea how much current it drew.