0

Basically, I'm trying to replicate the effects of a heat mat for soil but I want it to be variable. I'm trying to heat up the soil inside of a pot. The setup I'm imagining is some form of wire (thinking copper) coiled around a clay pot. The temperature for the soil I want is around 25 C. Ambient temperature is 19 C. I imagined a regular battery attached to the wire with a resistor. Is there a reason why this wouldn't work? If not, how would I go about doing this?

I am very new to electrical circuits and wires, so I apologize if I sound idiotic. Also, if this is the wrong place to ask, please let me know where I could find the answer.

I would love to figure this out myself as well, so if there are any resources that would be helpful, I would love to learn.

Niall Cunningham
  • 1

1 Answers1

1

  1. as others mentioned: you need a large battery or better yet a mains powered source for this to run for an extended amount of time.

  2. don't use a resistor in series with the wire. Otherwise you will heat the resistor, but not the wire. The wire itself should be the (only) resistor.

  3. the wire resistor has to have a resistance of R=V^2/P. V is the available voltage and P the desired power. This can be pretty high if the voltage is high and desired power is low. In that case a very long and thin wire is needed if you use copper which is highly conductive. For heater wire, typically you use a material with worse conduction.

  4. If you want to heat large portions of soil homogeneously, run the (insulated) wires through the soil and not around the pot. The soil has good thermal isolation, so peripheral heating would not heat the interior by much.

tobalt
  • 18,646
  • 16
  • 73