Silicon heat mat

[Colpatten]

A few years ago I thought it would be a good idea to purchase a silicon heat mat to bend sides I bought One on eBay. When it arrived I found that I had ordered the wrong voltage 110v instead of 230v.
My question is. Does anyone have any ideas of how I can get it to work on 230volts.
Thanks in advance.
Colin

[kiwigeo]

I used to use a 110volt silicon heat blanket for bending before I went back to using an iron. I bought myself a whopping great 240/110volt step down transformer. You need to ensure that the output power rating of the transformer is equal to or slightly higher than that of the blanket. From memory my transformer was a 2400watt unit and my blanket is rated at 1200 watts.

This is the company that supplied my transformer: https://www.tortech.com.au/

Im pretty sure this is the unit I purchased: https://www.tortech.com.au/product/volt ... ansformer/

[Colpatten]

Thanks for that.
I have used a stainless steel tube with a flood light bulb inside for ten years now. Interesting to hear that you went back to the iron. I might just stick to my tube.

[kiwigeo]

Thanks for that.
I have used a stainless steel tube with a flood light bulb inside for ten years now. Interesting to hear that you went back to the iron. I might just stick to my tube.

Why back to the iron? Lots of reasons. The main reasons...my output isn't huge and I have the time to bend on an iron. I also feel more comfortable working on an iron with my hands on the wood and being able to feel and hear what the wood is doing.

[Dave M]

Not in any way contradicting Martin I love my silicone heating blanket with spring steel straps. I do quite sharp cutaways and bending the bindings along with the sides gives me great results. I don't use anything too fancy, just a Keenovo heater with temperature controller. I also don't make too many builds so I can't tell if it would do a high throughput shop.

You have to look at the price of a step down transformer compared to simply buying a new heat blanket. (It is seriously annoying when this happens I know!))