Ok all you techi gurus out there.
After looking at the Orion Dew Zapper I bought the other week, I thought "It can't be too hard to make one of these and save myself some money". So I went and bought myself 4 meters of 28B&S Nichrome Resistance Wire from faithful old DS. And that's as far as I've gotten.
I know about as much about playing with electronics as a chicken does about scuba diving. Well maybe a little bit more but not much
I'd love some ideas about the various ways I can go about this.
I've heard that if you take about 2 ft of the stuff and connect it to a 12v battery it'll get to the right temp to keep the dew off a 8" lens but not do any damage. The prob I have is that I already have one for the 8" and I want to make one for each of my finderscopes, my guide/widefield refractor and my camera lenses. I think I know enough to know that if I cut a piece short enought ot go once around my refractor the resistance will be too low and the wire will get too hot (is this correct?)
Any ideas? Also does anyone know if DS or Tandys or Jaycar have something that would do a similar job as the Thousand Oaks or Kendrick controllers.