Electric Hookah

[teq]

1800 watts * an average two hour session is a pretty hefty use of electricity... I think coal has it beat...

[mj_b90]

While this seems like a nice experiment, I've come to terms with the practicality of using anything that needs constant power as a heat source. Coal is simply more cost effective than electricity or gas.

However, for the sake of experimentation, the simplest way to make this work seems to be by using a 15W soldering iron.

Glycerin boils at 550F/290C and a 15W soldering iron from Radio Shack can output up to 600F/320C, which happens to be the highpoint temperature of both natural and quicklight coals. The heat can be transferred by attaching a conductive material to the tip or by convection.

Wow I've never even thought of that...I might have to give it a try. Can everything but the main body of the soldering iron be removed/swapped? or is that stuff necessary for creating the heat, I'd like to mount it facing down into a bowl or windcover or somthing.

[WesleyPipes]

1800W is an amazing amount of power to be using for 45 minutes, your electric bill would get railed on if you use that many times.

I'm going with a 12VAC** power supply. This only gives 3W.

Clay should not be needed, you should be able to just set this on top of foil as it will act exactly the same way as coal.

[teq]

Wow I've never even thought of that...I might have to give it a try. Can everything but the main body of the soldering iron be removed/swapped? or is that stuff necessary for creating the heat, I'd like to mount it facing down into a bowl or windcover or somthing.

You need the tip, which is nickel plated copper, and the barrel.

In a pen style iron, the components occupy the entire casing. Gun style irons have a hollow handle.


If you used a pen style iron, all you would have to do is drill a hole through the top of the wind cover to accomodate the barrel. My iron has a plate with two screws near the handle, which you could use to mount to the wind cover. Keeping the plastic handle intact would allow you to move the unit safely.

[teq]

1800W is an amazing amount of power to be using for 45 minutes, your electric bill would get railed on if you use that many times.

I'm going with a 12VAC** power supply. This only gives 3W.

Clay should not be needed, you should be able to just set this on top of foil as it will act exactly the same way as coal.

Coal heats up to around 600F when excited, but idles at about 570F. How are you fluctuating this, so as to keep the glycerin from boiling when you aren't inhaling?

[mj_b90]

If you used a pen style iron, all you would have to do is drill a hole through the top of the wind cover to accomodate the barrel. My iron has a plate with two screws near the handle, which you could use to mount to the wind cover. Keeping the plastic handle intact would allow you to move the unit safely.

My thoughts exactly, will have to try this soon. I'll have to use the ghetto aluminum can wind cover at first however.

[Plain Old Me]

1800 watts would be the total peak that my device could get to. I would expect to have the lower coil almost of if not off completely, and the top 2 adjusted to be about 400-500 watts a piece, though to be honest cost reduction is not my main goal, as I would like to actually improve my smoking a bit. Not having to deal with coals would be nice, plus they give off some carbon monoxide which is not so great for ya... Also, a direct contact heater that would go on top of the foil or w/e (dunno if foil is a good conductor) would need much less power, and again to reiterate I am trying to use a convection heater rather than a direct radiation or contact heater.

[WesleyPipes]

Ah, got ya.

Well hopefully today will be the day for nichrome and we can try and get both types of heaters working.

[Cerritus]

I've been following this thread for a while now and decided to try it for myself. I took the easiest, cheapest way to get nichrome and bought a cheap toaster. In looking at its tiny circuit board I noticed that the wire itself was hooked straight to the power cord. The rest of the circuitry was only there to power the timing mechanism, which I don't need anyway. I wired up half of the nichrome from the toaster to a switch and a cord and plugged it in (taking safety into consideration and using mild precautions like a circuit breaker that I tested before hand). It heated up fine and nothing melted or caught fire. After this proof of concept I made a ceramic housing for the wire (sculpting clay that's nontoxic and safe to heat). It's baking now and will be done soon, pics to follow after I hook the wire back up.

[Cerritus]

It works, Needs a bit less power though. Taking only half the wire from the toaster made it burn too hot... way too hot. With some testing with lower voltages it'll work nicely.

[nat3r]

i think it needs more! 1.21 Jiggawatts to be exact

[teq]

It works, Needs a bit less power though. Taking only half the wire from the toaster made it burn too hot... way too hot. With some testing with lower voltages it'll work nicely.

Pics?

[mjdx88]

i think it needs more! 1.21 Jiggawatts to be exact

Are you telling me that this sucker is nuclear?

LOL

[WesleyPipes]

My nichrome came tonight, of course as I had some folk over so I had a few drinks.

Still tested it and it started to get mad hot, in my hand it felt like fire, so I'm thinking in the morning all will go well.

Vids for tomorrow...ya boy.

And congratulations cerritus, nichrome is like a resistor, current limiting, so add 2x as much nichrome as before to get a lower temp.
An easier way to do this would be get a potentiometer rated for whatever wattage you will be using - (current^2*Wire's resistance)
Get a potentiometer with at least twice as much resistance as your wire so you can really control what goes on.

Good luck with it, hopefully we'll both have an electric hookah working tomorrow.

[brownbob06]

after reading this thread the other day (and being out of coals for two weeks, closest place to get them is 1/2 hour away) I decided to try the absolute easiest and cheapest way possible. I bought a 5$ soldering iron, mounted it with a hanger, set it right on top of the foil, and let it heat up, after about 45 minutes it hit VERY LITTLE smoke, and I could BARELY taste the shisha...I think it just needed a way to get hotter or something. O well, just thought I'd post about this little experience.
But that same night I just went and bought a whole box of Exoticas...so I should be good for a little while, I'll be AMAZED if anyone gets an electric coal to hit as good as the real thing Good luck!

[WesleyPipes]

You would have to take out the tip of the soldering iron and make a flat surfaced tip to replace it so it acts like a coal.

[teq]

You would have to take out the tip of the soldering iron and make a flat surfaced tip to replace it so it acts like a coal.

I'm pretty sure an increase in surface area will lead to a drop in temperature... so a larger tip would need a 30W iron.



Bob, if you could try the iron with a windcover(a soup can will work), you might be able to get enough heat. Try it and post your results.

[Cerritus]

I doubled the length of the nichrome and it's still frying its clay housing. Any tips for a simple way to reduce power?
Pics in a few min, my cell phone's charged now but I apologize in advance for the low quality.

[Cerritus]

The 'coals' are each half the nichrome of a toaster, you can see the burning in the paper they're on. That was maybe 15 sec. It's still way too hot.

[teq]

I doubled the length of the nichrome and it's still frying its clay housing. Any tips for a simple way to reduce power?
Pics in a few min, my cell phone's charged now but I apologize in advance for the low quality.

If you've coiled it at all, it's added some resistance, which will increase the amount of current. Though, resistance decreases as temperature increases...


Ideally, we'd have something that looked like a small radiator, but featured a heating element.

Try looking up ceramic heaters.

[teq]

The 'coals' are each half the nichrome of a toaster, you can see the burning in the paper they're on. That was maybe 15 sec. It's still way too hot.

Do you have a way of measuring the temperature? It's possible that the clay fried because it's not earthenware clay.

[WesleyPipes]

Nichrome actually increases in resistance as temperature increases, leading to a decrease in current.

Check out that chart about nichrome...at the temperature a coal burns at, nichrome will be 1.7 times its original temperature.

An easy way to decrease temperature is to buy a potentiometer, although the size of it depends on the guage of your wire and its resistance.
Get a pot that is double the resistance of your nichrome, this should make it very easy to control temperature.

Finally got some more shisha tobac so I can test this bad girl out.

She burns the hand quite a bit to the touch (such as a coal), yet doesn't melt and is easily controled by the pot.

[teq]

Pictures?

[Cerritus]

pics of the aftermath of my test are in my last post, I'm not gonna try and convince my cellphone to take a good one of them turned on, the burning clay puts out a huge smoke cloud that smells terrible. There's even fire occasionally. Definitely needs less power before it'll be tried on a hookah.

[teq]

A ceramic heater is definitely starting to look more promising. Too bad they don't come cheap.