keeping your cord clean

while rolling up your extension cord take a wet towel or 2 wet paper rowels hold them in your hand that is pulling the cord so it wipes it clean be fore you wrap it and repeat for the whole wrap and pull process and it keeps the cord like new nice and clean and no dirt on your hands

Good tip I also do the same for my tank hose especially on construction jobs were my hose gets full of crap from dragging around on the floor.

Nice on Big Joe

I do that on every cord all the time extension, heat gun, and corny hose

keeps your hands clean also I like the new blue extension cords I picked up from lowes. Their the "cold flex" ones, and are much softer and more flexible compared to others, plus their a cool blue color

yeah i like the soft ones i have a soft yellow one

nice tip

the only soft yellow ones I could find around here were the massive 12g ones. i was like as nice as it is, I don't need a $100 extension cord for my heatgun

yeah thats what i have but it is what my heat gun requires the high power craftsman pro and milwalkie adjustables will heat the hell out of the thinner cords and the guns perform much better with sufficient power cord supplying good power to them

I have a milwaukee adjustable and always wondered why the cord heated up so much. I have a 14g one so I figured it would be enough, but I don't run mine all day so I don't really have any issues other than one of my shops not being able to handle the power and constantly blowing a circuit every 5 minutes

insert your cords under the head rests and they never hit the ground or contaminated surface of the floor.

then your constantly having to watch out to not trip and have to pass the hot gun through the car to get to the other side. I wouldn't want someones nasty extension cord rubbing all over the leather seats in my car

OR...Get the retractable extension cords that you mount on the ceiling.

I have thr same one and clean it often, another tip to make last longer is not to run them over.

Come on scotty.... shouldn't a lighting expert have a clue ????????

The cord is heating up because the wire gauge is too small to meet the demands of the heat gun

Because the cord is too small it increases the amount of resistance in the line

The incresed resistance lower the amount of available voltage to the heat gun

Because the voltage is reduced the heat gun increased the amount of amperage that is required to make it work

When the amperage requirement increases it heats the cord even more causing more resistance

Which lowers voltage

Which causes increased need for amperage

Which eventually exceeds breaker limits and trips the breaker...

Don't they teach you anything in school ??

I'm only a sophomore, I've only had one 1 credit lighting class so far as a part of a 7 credit co-op class. Most of the real lighting classes are junior and senior year electives

scotty, what brand of paper towels is best for wiping the extension cord clean? figured you would know...

oh man your so funny

you're, not your

HAMMERTIME!

Sorry, but these sentences are not true.

sometimes its even nice to wet the paper towels with some afta it comes out squeaky clean that way

Cool

Correct me if you would be so kind... I had to re-read it agian as I typed it pretty quick... but it looks correct to me..

As voltage decreases amperage increases..... I think it's called ohm's law

not this again...

V=voltage
R=resistance
I=current

Yes Ohm's law V=RI

The heat gun has a resistance R that will not change.

If the voltage is reduced the law V=RI has to be true anyway so if V is reduced and R is a constant then 'I' is reduced.

You have to reduce resistance R in order to get more current from the same voltage V.

Its pretty much common sense too, when the voltage goes to 0 you cant have current because there is no source.

The only way that your sentences are true is if and only if you are talking about a short circuit.

and yes ohms law for short circuits too

resistance is 0

V=RI

V is not 0

R is 0

so the current tries to go to infinite to satisfy the law making hot red orange wires and possible fire if the source can give you a lot of current

TTS you would be correct IF the heat gun in question has a regulated power supply.....but I doubt most of us have one.

Thank you for the refresher... I guess if you were to only read those 3 lines of the post then that big formula would be correct...

What is not in your equation is the cable feeding the heat gun that is acting as a variable resistor.... but that was in my post also..

Resistance doesn't need to increase enough to 'dead short' or 'zero' just enough to increase demand on the circuit enough to trip the breaker...

The type of power supply would have no bearing in this situation.. You turn on the gun..... it creates demand to heat the coils... those coils are going to attempt to take as much power as-is available or as much as it can get through an under sized feed

but that's enough of this..

TTS ... the point was that you said
"Because the voltage is reduced the heat gun increased the amount of amperage that is required to make it work

Which lowers voltage

Which causes increased need for amperage"

and the heat gun is going to simply draw as much amperage as the voltage it is supplied.

What again is your background in Electronics? Seems like this is becoming a trend....

So I botched the first line a little...

a 'trend' ?? Hardly... So lets say I break out a little calcuation or what not.. how many people are really going to care on TINTdude....

the cable feeding the heat gun

variable resistor? , the hotter it gets the more resistance it gets.

More resistance means less current for the same voltage. So it would act the opposite way (current will decrease), no current increasing will happen like you said.

I would draw you a picture... but I really don't care anymore...

You'll figure it out...

I didnt read all the post, but due to Ohms law Voltage=(Ampere)(Resistance)
V=I*R

If the heat gun requires more current than can be adequately supplied the smaller gauge wire will increase in temperature (Ex try grounding just a small wire from your battery positve to your car frame or batter negative, it will instantly melt!) Ive accidentaly done this with a wrench Scarry!

Anyway, so if the temperature of the wire increases then the resistance increases... this is due to the temperature coefficient of the wire (what ever it is for your wire).

Now, that wall recepticale will only give 120 Volts and assuming no more then 15 or 20 amps (depending on circuit breaker, those are common).

So is Resistance is going up b/c V=IR and V is constant... that means I=V/R... so more current is required, thus blowing the fuse when the current drawn exceedes the circuit breakers max amperage. (like I said usually 15 or 20 amps for 120V wall outlets).

Note if the circuit breaker was not there the current would increase to a level that would eventually melt the wire, thus causing an arc (spark), thus probably causing a fire inside of a wall!

But on another note most wall receptacles are connected to many other receptacles and other devices ex lights, fans, etc... so the heat gun is probably not the only device drawing current.

but what do I know, I only have an electrical degree ... actually i do haha.

In your own statement current is voltage DIVIDED by resistance and the wire resistance increases as the wire heats up from power draw. So the power draw will DECREASE as the current is going to decrease from the higher resistance.....

Higher resistance is going to pull less current!

and what do I know as I also have a Electronics degree....

and you also will have voltage DROPS on those wires as the heat builds up and resistance increases....

I hope you are a good window tinter....

you're right

and I ask again "What is your background??"

you have posted at least twice about electrical things lately and do it like you have some expert knowledge, but all you show is just how much you don't know or understand.....

I am not a expert but i know one day I was doing this cleaning and "found' a spot on the extension cord where the heat gun had formed resistance when it melted through the plastic....................... when I woke up I was on the floor and the lights were out
Cheers guys have a good Saturday

That's funny.... I was just thinking the same thing about you...

good way to learn

thats not good hehe always make sure that the cord is not connected lol

That's funny! I had a guy leave last month and I was stuck in the bay shrinking a BG..... cord thrown over my shoulder.. and every time I leaned over something kept stinging my neck....

I slapped at the 'stinging' and shocked the crap outta myself..

The old installer had melted the cord through and not repaired it... maybe I deserved it