Heater element wire type instead of a fuse when troubleshooting a short circuit DIY

[sam_sam_sam]

I was Ollie today which is a close out / surplus outlet store I do not go in there to often because you find things that you should not be tempted by but that is a another story

I saw a small space heater that used a wire type of heater element which I been looking for a while but not really hard mind you but when I saw this I grabbed it I going to go back tomorrow and buy the last one that is like the one I bought today because I need the heater element and the ceramic insulators and more of heat element wire because this one has two different wattage settings one 1300 watts ( tap ) the other one 1500 watts ( tap ) however between the two different settings the heater element wire is larger in diameter that the one that is 1300 watts so I going to use the larger diameter one for a low voltage unit that I also have in mind building as well

By me saying this

I have a very important question to ask about how do I calculate the length of the wire to act like an incandescent light when using it instead of a fuse

I would like to have a wattage of let say 300 watt 500 watt 700 watt 1000 watt 1300 watt but I not sure exactly how to determine what length l need for each section ( one note the wattage might be different than what I have above but it is just an example)

One note when I tried this heater at 1300 and the 1500 watt setting the coil did not glow which is a good thing but it does give a lot of heat out of it

[sam_sam_sam]

I bought another heater this one the heater element glow when running from Ollie today and I have it ready for testing switching power supplies I just need an outside electric box and switch and outlet which I get sometime tomorrow I also ordered a voltmeter module to measure the voltage drop across the heater element to roughly estimate how much current is flowing to the device under the testing jig I will post some pictures when I have it completely done with this project

[petehall347]

seen it done for dummy loads but not as current limiter

[redwire]

An incandescent lightbulb has a 10-20:1 increase in resistance once its filament is hot. It's a bit worse with halogen lamps because their filament runs hotter.

I measured cold resistance on 300W 120VAC halogen 3.7Ω and 60W 120VAC long-life bulb 20.8Ω
So resistance goes up 11.5-13X and inrush current is pretty high either way.

Resistance-wire heaters also have resistance go up when they heat up. But not as much because they don't glow super orange hot usually, they run cooler.
You could use a heating element and then also have an ordinary low wattage like 25-40W bulb in parallel for an indicator. Or an ammeter.

For 300-1300W that is a lot of heat to get rid of, you need a cooling fan and using a length of wire as a resistor - well it's going to just get too hot and melt the insulation, or be so long it's not practical I think.

[sam_sam_sam]

I finally found some electrical connectors for the wire type of heater element so I can begin to put that version together and try out how well it plus the voltage meter modules came in the mail in the last couple of days ago so now it is time to put it together and see what happens next

[redwire]

What kind of connectors? The heater wire is typically nichrome or kanthal and soldering does not work I thought. Use crimp ferrules or spot welding tabs on the ends.

[sam_sam_sam]

What kind of connectors? The heater wire is typically nichrome or kanthal and soldering does not work I thought. Use crimp ferrules or spot welding tabs on the ends.

This is the product that I going to use to join the heater element wire to regular wire so I can make the connection between the two different types of wires

Copper Post Connector, Conductor Range 8-14, #10 Bolt Size
https://www.homedepot.com/p/ILSCO-Co...173825#overlay

I though about spot welding the two different types of wires together but could not find the right type of connectors to do this type of spot welding so I decided to use a set screw type of connectors to make sure that it has a proper connection to each other

[stj]

dis-similar metals must be clamped or crimped