A friend of mine is looking for a home for a mystery device. The company where he works bought it new and has never used it. Apparently, they have reached the point where no one is certain what it is. It is complete except for the “foot pedal” which has disappeared.
Pictures of the thing are available here…
He thinks it is used to dispense potting compound for electronics.
He would first like to donate it to a DMS committee that can put it to good use. Barring that he may be willing to donate it to an individual who can put it to creative use.
It appears to be an industrial hot-glue machine, like for boxes, making shoes, etc. I think.
There’s a URL on the back and they have a line of hot-melt machines:
Would this work for “hide glue”? @wandrson I think has mentioned using that & might know
EDIT II: hm. it’s pressurized, so likely NOT good for that purpose…
I would love to have it. I would use it to glue batteries to PCBs. I doubt we will have a use at DMS as these are meant for repeat production, rather than on off one time use. Either way, happy home here if DMS gives it up.
Also, this would be great for gluing rockets to sticks at my pyro events!!!
In my experience, using hot glue for electronics that are intended to last or in production is a really bad way to go. It tends to let go when it is thermal cycled, and gets very hard and somewhat brittle when cold.
@wandrson has been blocked indefinitely on Talk. He can read posts but cannot post. See March 2017 BoD minutes and related threads/post that led up to this.
I’m not sure why you felt the need to critique my use of hot glue for items you have no information on. First, I’m not making long term use items. Second, I’m using industrial glue which has many nicer qualities than the lower temperature options. But, if you don’t want to use it on your projects that is perfectly O.K. with me.
I’ve seen a production run absolutely ruined with hot glue. It fell off in transit from China, and left a bunch of junk rattling around inside the product.
Just passing on some not-obvious but hard* lessons.
*Well for somebody… I fortunately wasn’t the one who told them to do it
It was in one of our metal recycling bins so I asked if I could have it to donate to maker space if you all want it. I am not a member of the Dallas Maker space but took a tour a few years ago, If I didn’t already have so many of my own tools I would be a member.
Here is a picture of the internals. It has two separate temperature controls. I think it could be used for dispensing anything with a melting temperature within it’s max range, not sure what that is, maybe 325C based on the dial? It looks like it has glue in it now but I am pretty sure thermal setting potting compound is available. A simple fixture to lay a bead of glue for model rockets would be a good application in my opinion. I plugged it in at lunch and it smelled hot enough in about 30 minutes to me to know that it was working, I just couldn’t cycle the dispensing solenoid. I took the cover off after work to take this picture but didn’t look hard enough to see if I could manually trip the dispensing solenoid.
It looks like the timer allows up to 6 second dispensing cycles. It would be pretty easy to put a switch on the side in place of the foot switch.
If the Dallas Maker Space doesn’t want it, I may consider donating to an individual with the understanding that is must never be sold for profit, only handed down to someone who can use it.
