Electric Mud

in a previous video i used a modified microwaveoven transformer as an electrical metal melter. in this video you'll learn step by step howit was made, and what i'm using it for now. in a previous project, i found an old microwavein a dumpster and hacked it open to see what components i could salvage. this power transformerwas one of my favorites, and got used in many other projects, like high voltage electricalarcs, making a homemade stick welder, and melting metal. in it's current condition,the transformer produces a deadly high voltage that's enough to kill a person on contact.but it won't melt metal. to do that, we have to modify the transformer by rewinding thecoils. looking at the sides of this transformer, you can see that these shallow welds are theonly thing holding this together. i'm gonna

use my bench vice to secure this in placewith one end of the welded sides facing up, and try using a hacksaw to cut it open. thisis a fairly weak weld, and a hacksaw will work, but a quick buzz with an angle grinderworks a lot better. now that that's ground off, a hammer and chisel can be used to crackthe gap and pry the pieces apart. the rest can be removed by hand. with the bottom off,i've got access to the 3 coils of wire wrapped around the core. the top coil is the primarywinding and i want to take very good care of that, so i've wrapped a cloth over my chiselto protect it as i pry up on the winding. it's in there pretty snug, but prying it slowlyand gently from both sides gets it to the point where i can put the chisels down andpull it off by hand. these metal shunts can

get knocked out now, and amazingly, this isthe only form of current limiting this transformer has. the middle coil is junk, and it all comesout. then to get the secondary coil off, i'm setting it with the coil resting on the jawsof my vise, and then hitting the middle of the core with a rubber hammer until the windingis free. this got pretty beat up, but that's ok because luckily i don't need it. a chiselworks great for scraping off any excess paper and glue stuck on the sides, and now we'vegot ourselves a naked transformer core. you're looking at the "e" and "i" sections of thecore, and at this point we're ready to reinstall our primary coil. this coil has about 100turns of insulated copper wire, and needs to be replaced gently to avoid damaging it,or scraping the wires. that's why i'm using

a rubber hammer so i can still get it in niceand tight. ok, it's looking like it's supposed to, so now we can add a secondary windingmade from this thick 2 gauge copper cable. i was lucky and got this from a scrap pilemy brother had at work. looking inside, you can see it's made of stranded copper wire,insulated by a thick rubber coating. my brother got me a heavy duty copper lug, and crimpedit in place on the end of the cable. next, he added a little shrink-wrap to protect theconnection, and hit it with a heat gun to shrink it down and finish it off. alright,so with the cable bent in half, i can move it up next to the transformer and tuck itdown into the gaps. the wire's so thick it's a pretty tight fit and probably couldn't beany bigger. i'm pulling one end of the cable

back around the transformer, and i decidedto switch the positions of these two so that it forms more of an ascending coil. now ican press the other side into place, and the secondary coil is wrapped, as easy as that.the last step is to put this back together. i don't have anything to re-weld the seemsi broke apart, so i'm going to try using this 2 part epoxy glue to see if i can make itwork. both the components get mixed equally, then i'll add the glue to all the exposedsurfaces at the top here, and find a way to clamp this down. it turns out my bench visehas a gap wide enough to fit the entire assembly, and after double checking the alignment onthe connection, i'll synch it up tight. i'm adding the leftover glue to the gaps on theedges and everything is looking as expected,

so that can be left to set. ok, it's 2 hourslater, and our modification is complete! there's actually no physical connection between thetwo coils, yet this will pump out around 800 amps! to bench-test the device, i'm carefullyhooking clips to both leads of the primary winding, and then adding power. using my multimeteri'm showing just over 2 volts now, which is a lot lower than the 1000 volts this usedto throw out. but instead of putting out 1 amp, now i'm getting closer 800!! what canyou do with that many amps? i thought it would be fun to try melting some metal, which youcan see this does easily. the metal melts because its not as conductive as copper wire.it acts like a resistor, and heats up from the electrical friction until it reaches itsmelting point. or until the insulation on

the lead wires melt and the system shortsout. well not only was this a fun modification, but i found a practical application for itin making a spot welder like this one. the high current can be directed to fuse sheetsof metal together at one precise location. look for how to make that in another project.well now you know how to build the metal melter. if you liked this video perhaps you'll likesome of my others. check them out at www.thekingofrandom.com

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