On Fri, 02 Oct 2015 16:43:54 -0500, Chuck <
ch...@mydeja.net> wrote:
>The coiled ones on the ceramic form look drastically different from
>the "bird nest" ones that are used in the X-tronics station. I
>noticed that they both have the same plug so they could be
>interchangable.
Yep. My guess(tm) is that the ceramic form flavor does a better job
of supporting the nichrome wires than the free form tangle of wires.
My favorite way of destroying heater wires is to drop the device while
it's red hot. The creamic form does block the air flow more than the
free form flavor, so there may be a problem if you like to use high
levels of air flow. I don't because it spreads the heat over too
large an area on the PCB. At $10/ea, it's cheap enough that one could
buy one of each type and experiment.
I just looked inside my 852d hot air gun and found that it uses a
ceramic heater form.