Attention "The Polishers"

[Mike Christen]

So i should have my flame polisher on Thursday and I thought I would start a thread for tips, tricks, and any other information "The Polishers" or anyone else would like to share. Looking forward to having some nice flame polished edges on my plexi projects.

Many thanks to Jack for putting this together.

[Dan Hintz]

Yeah, I'm excited, too... my parents are coming for a visit in two weeks, which means I get to sit down with my father and play with a new toy (he's the home workshop type, too). I didn't realize that bad boy was so heavy though... 38 pounds to ship?!

[Jack Harper]

Well, needless to say I was the first to play. I was amazed at just how small the flame is and yet just how intense the heat. I was able to turn some glass into melted goop in seconds.

A word of caution for those receiving your units. The instructions do not discuss mixing the water with the enclosed mystery powder. It does refer to a "solution" and has a table showing the proportions of powder to distilled water but that is it. I am emailing the factory to find out what it is, but I believe it is lye and is used to increase the conductivity of the water to electricity. When you mix it with the water, it will make the water very very hot, so be careful. Also, you should take all precautions of gloves and face protection when mixing the solution and any handling of the powder. I just measured the distilled water and then placed it on a scale to add the weight portion of the powder.

Oh, and don't forget to pick up a replacement power plug to correct the incorrect prongs on the existing cord. Good luck and don't burn your self!

[Dan Hintz]

Jack,

I assume it's working on 120V with no issues? I'm surprised they put an incorrect plug on there... not many plug options for 120V, low current. There's a plug with a right-angle bend in one prong for 20A circuits, but I'm sure this thing doesn't take that much.

Also interesting they tell you to use distilled water, and then add something to put ions back in :rolleyes: Safe to assume, then, the powder is not used up in the process, just add more water when it's dry?

[Jack Harper]

Jack,

I assume it's working on 120V with no issues? I'm surprised they put an incorrect plug on there... not many plug options for 120V, low current. There's a plug with a right-angle bend in one prong for 20A circuits, but I'm sure this thing doesn't take that much.

Also interesting they tell you to use distilled water, and then add something to put ions back in :rolleyes: Safe to assume, then, the powder is not used up in the process, just add more water when it's dry?

I suspect you will make up the solution each time you fill it but maybe Frank can chime in and give us some details. As to the plug, yes it works on 110. In fact the units are labeled 110v 20amp 50 cycle. The 50 cycle concerned me since we are 60 cycle here in the states. The unit has worked just fine so...

[Dan Hintz]

Did the plug look like this?
http://www.frentzandsons.com/Hardware%20References/plug%20imiges/6-20p.jpg

If so, that's the proper plug for a 20A circuit and you should put it back on. If you replaced it with this one:
http://www.frentzandsons.com/Hardware%20References/plug%20imiges/5-15p.jpg
...that's a 15A plug and is potentially a fire hazard. At best, it will pop any 15A breaker you plug it into (assuming it actually pulls closer to 20A).

The 50/60 Hz issue isn't as big an issue sine this isn't an inductive load (e.g., motor), but the transformer may tend to run a bit warmer at 60Hz due to more losses. Keep an eye on it.

[Dan Hintz]

I suspect you will make up the solution each time you fill it but maybe Frank can chime in and give us some details.
The solution should be made up once, with no need to add more lye unless something is spilled... since you're creating an electrolyte, the reduction of water has no reducing effect on the lye itself. I assume that even with the typical poor Chinese quality control the lye they included is relatively pure. To those who wish to purchase more, make sure you get 99.99% pure (otherwise known as sodium hydroxide if you're shopping in the Borgs).

[Jack Harper]

This is what the plug looks like. It is the size of a standard 110v.

[Dan Hintz]

¡Aye Dios mio!.... that's a 50A plug! What on earth?! At least it's designed for 120V service (though I'm trying to imagine 50A @120V...)

[Jack Harper]

¡Aye Dios mio!.... that's a 50A plug! What on earth?! At least it's designed for 120V service (though I'm trying to imagine 50A @120V...)

Actually, it has the shape of a 50amp but not the size. The size is that of a stadard 110 v plug.

[Dave Johnson29]

That plug in Jack's last posting is also the standard 240v 10A for some Asian countries, Australia etc. Well according to my International plug converter set.

Don't panic about 50A Dan. :)

{edit} :) :)
Not trying to imply Australia is an Asian country, just quoting the booklet with the plug set!
{/edit}

[Anthony Scira]

Yep Thursday for me too ! Got my cord cap ready to go ! Thanks again Jack for placing the order and dealing with all the customs stuff.

If your ever in Los Angeles I'll buy the beer ! (Or bourbon)

[Bill Parker]

Ahhh man my funnel got broke during shipping,:( but seriously has anyone figured out why the on/off switch has 3 positions? I haven't messed with it yet, and maybe I missed something, but I didn't see anything about it in the instructions.

[Kim Vellore]

The third position is for filling, in the third position the level meter works so you know how much to fill, that is how it is on my hra polisher.
Kim

[Jack Harper]

It is a high/low. When you go the the second power level the power meter jumps up. I assume you need this when you are using the larger orifice tips at full throttle.

[AL Ursich]

My machine arrived today, THANK YOU !!!!

AL:D

[Mike Christen]

Just received my unit, where is everyone getting there methyl alcohol from, or maybe purchasing it under a different name.

[Jack Harper]

I just used denatured alcohol and it works fine.

[Tom Cole]

Methanol is Methyl Alcohol. You can get it from chemical supply houses for about $22.00 a pint, or you may be able to get it from an auto supply house that sponsors race cars. My local buys it in 55 gallon drums for their car and charged me $8 for a gallon.

[Dan Hintz]

Hmmm, I thought I had answered all of this, but it looks like it was actually sent as private emails directly to Jack :( When I get home I'll try to transcribe what I sent to Jack here for everyone's benefit.

[Martin Reynolds]

Mine arrives Monday. Seems that you can use several different organic "boosters" with this type of polisher. Of course, I cannot find the table now, but I think that this was about the order of temperature, with acetone being the coolest. Denatured alcohol is going to be like methyl aclohol.

The extra fuel guarantees that the flame will not oxidise your work.

Acetone
MEK
Methyl alcohol

[Anthony Scira]

Again thanks Jack for all you have done to get this thing done.

Got mine fired up and it works great. I also used the denatured alcohol.

For anyone who needs to hook up the new plug cap the wires are as follows.

green - ground - green screw
brown - line (120) - gold screw
blue - neutral - silver screw

And they really should have some warnings in the documentation about their special powder ! To an un-expecting person that could be disastrous.

[Dan Hintz]

Aw, man... mine came in boring white, not that cool multi-color blue/yellow ;) Whatever grease they used on the threads of the fill cup is gooood stuff... I washed my hands at least 5 times with a heavy rubbing on a paper towel each time before my fingers no longer felt slick. Either that, or here was some lye on there already and it was just my skin sloughing off... :eek:

[Mike Christen]

hello all

I will be starting mine up today, what did you use to mix the solution in, from what i've read here it gets very hot, and other unknown reactions. I was thinking of using a glass jar, is this safe???

Here is a good manual for another generator, not the same but im sure much of what it says also applys to our generators

http://www.tiptemp.com/assets/17/CFmanual.pdf

[Jack Harper]

Again thanks Jack for all you have done to get this thing done. ...


You, and everyone else are quite welcome, it was my pleasure to help out.

Mike - I just used a plastic paint mixing cup. While it got surprisingly hot, it was still not too hot to melt the cup.

[Mike Christen]

I used a large glass mug, no problems. started unit and it works great. Now to learn the fine art of flame polishing. Already found out to close and flame on :D

[Dave Lock]

Looking forward to all you guys letting us know how you get on with these and showing us some pics of the results.

One of our laser suppliers is about to have some of theses polishers delivered and I may just find myself wanting one.

Cheers

Dave.

[Dan Hintz]

A side note on the power cord... if the sign on the back of the machine is correct (500W), a 15A cord is perfectly acceptable. That's less than 4.5A @ 120V, so that's nothing a standard jack can't handle.

A side note on the machine itself... I contacted a guy who mentioned on his website (one of those wacko "Brown's gas" machine sites for increasing your gas mileage :rolleyes:) he does custom designs. The one listed on his site was about $8k, but it also put out like 1600 L/hr, so I requested something a little more reasonable, like 100-150 L/hr. The response was essentially "It won't be financially feasible to custom build such a small machine." Well, sure, if you're used to getting $8k for a machine that could be built for 1/10th that! Anyway, I tried to get a local (USA) guy to build small machines for us, but he simply wasn't interested...

[Martin Reynolds]

Only mix the solution by slowly adding the powder to the water. The big mistake is to pour water onto the powder - this will have undesirable results like hot caustic liquid spitting out of the jar.

Gloves, goggles and a coat are not a bad idea when mixing this stuff. It will turn your flesh into soap.

[Dan Hintz]

To those who have not yet modified theirs to the proper cord...

I finally had an opportunity to sit down and crack this thing open for the conversion. In typical Chinese fashion, the build was done with maximized penny-pinching in effect... hot glue holding down colored acrylic slabs with PCBs on them, using the case itself as a power conduit (neutral), zip ties out the yin yang with dubious purpose, etc. I expect it and have no qualms about what I ordered, but here's my attempt to make it just a little bit safer.

I picked up a 14 gauge, 9 ft, 15A grounded cable from Home Depot (about $10). Anthony already listed the connections, but for those not electrically inclined, I'm adding in the US-version of line colors:



Chinese | USA | Type
==========================
Brown Black Line
Blue White Neutral
Green Green Ground
(Why the US adopted black for line when black is often associated with ground is beyond my comprehension :rolleyes: )

Reroute ground to another screw, or add in a screw to the case specifically for it. Sand away the powder coating under the screw and use a star washer to make a solid connection. The screw they use is attached to a plastic fan, which prevents any real solid pressure from being applied, and the bracket is powder coated itself, so it's not an ideal connection. Ground is extremely important and will save your A$$ if something should leak, and is doubly important in this case as the halfwits are using the case itself as the neutral/return. :eek:

For line (brown wire), they soldered to a circuit breaker designed to use a spade connector, and they didn't do a very good job of soldering it in the first place. If you have the tools, remove the crappy solder and reconnect your new black wire with a proper female spade connector that has a plastic cover (if you don't have the kind with covers, at least use some more heat shrink tubing).

The neutral (blue wire) is just fine and should be a simple replacement with the white wire and a lug connector, similar to what's on the blue already.

I'm surprised they used a bus strip instead of connecting the wires together to save money... the strip costs money itself, not to mention the lug connectors and the installation time. The transformer is quite large for the application, but I'm sure it was sitting on someone's shelf.

Still haven't plugged mine in yet...