Cold Feet

Literal cold feet - it snowed yesterday, it's windy and the power was off for about an hour at noon, brrr.  

So I got out the McGill foot warmer, mentioned before:

https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/10/a-kit-i-use-every-day.html

Plugged it in and nothing.  I unplugged it and hooked it to the ohmmeter - intermittent depending on the cord position.  I flipped it over and saw this:

Both conductors of the cord were broken !  I'm glad it didn't short out - the strain relief wasn't much good.

Six screws hold the foot warmer together but I was unable to budge them with a screwdriver, so I had to get out the cordless drill which had no problem getting them out.  When I took the two halves apart the somewhat fine Nichrome wire sprang out of position:

  It was wound around plastic posts but very loosely.  Then I cut the AC power cord off, then stripped and soldered the wires back together after tying a somewhat lame strain relief knot.  Finally put a couple layers of heat shrink tubing for insulation.

Then I rethreaded the Nichrome and put the two halves of the heater back together.  Took out the ohmmeter and measured a steady 270 ohms cold.  Plugged it in and turned on the juice - warm feet !!

Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm