In the winter, something chilly began to ride without heating the seats. We still do not have the tropics. Wallowed in the garage a few defective seat covers. It’s already annoying to repair thermal nichrome heating elements because the nichrome section there is only 0.15-0.3 mm and gusts begin to arise due to mechanical stress and thermal expansion of the metal. The nichrome wiring in the cape is connected in series with one wire break and heating stops. I don’t want to buy another such cloak for a long time. It was decided to radically solve this problem. After looking at the characteristics of different heating wires on the network, I stopped on a carbon wire, since its price on Aliexpress was only 240 rubles per ten meters.
This wire consists of conductive carbon fiber threads placed in silicone insulation. The carbon cable is designed for a supply voltage from 7 Volts to 380 Volts, has a resistance of 1m = 33 Ohms, a limit temperature of 200 degrees Celsius, an outer diameter of 3 mm, red insulation, silicone rubber insulation.
The scope of application of carbon fiber cable is very wide - it is used for floor heating, heating of rooms and devices, elimination of freezing of water pipes. In general, wherever heating is needed.
You can see the manufacturing process homemade in the video:
The list of tools and materials carbon fiber wire -5 meters - multi-core mounting wire, diameter 1-1.5mm;
heat shrink;
- a sharp knife;
-screwdriver;
soldering iron;
-tester;
-12V power supply;
thread with a needle.
Step one. Opening the seat cover.
We open the cape with a sharp knife or razor blade on the side of the supply cable. I did not open the cloak from all sides so as not to suffer from stitching from all sides, it is enough on the one hand.After opening, we see the standard wiring on the seat and back.
Step Two Installation of carbon fiber wire.
Photo scheme
We prepare five pieces of carbon fiber cable one meter each. We sew new sections of carbon fiber directly to the nichrome conductors. Meter pieces of wire are laid in a zigzag uniformly over the area of the old heating wiring. Connect the carbon wire to the mounting wire through copper tubes through crimping (there is a large selection in electrical goods stores). I had no time to run around the shops and I did much easier (I think no less reliable). Stepping back from the end of the carbon wire a few millimeters, made a small incision in the insulation and wrapped several turns of soft stranded wire onto the exposed carbon, then twisted it tightly. It turned out a solid connection. We put on a heat shrink at the junction.
Sew a carbon cable to the substrate and to the existing wiring
The standard overheating sensor is connected in series with the new wiring. Then we sew the cloak in the reverse order (manually or on a sewing machine).
Each meter heating section has a capacity of about 6 watts. The power of five sections will be about 30 watts. If this is not enough for you, add more sections - there is enough space. With a parallel connection circuit of sections when one or more is output, the circuit remains viable ..
If you need to adjust the temperature of the seat heating, you can connect the circuit through a step-down module with a voltmeter or any similar with a current of 5 Amps.
Step Three Testing a new carbon fiber heater.
Tape stuck on the seat electronic a thermometer and connected a wrap to the power supply. The temperature rose to 28-30 degrees Celsius. Not bad at all.
This alteration of seat heating did not entail significant costs. The cost of a carbon fiber carbon fiber wire was 120 rubles; the rest is your work and time (the price of a new wrap on nichrome starts now at 600 rubles). I go on a new heating for the second month - while everything is working fine, it reaches the optimum mode in 3-5 minutes. I hope that the repair of the cape should be forgotten for a long time.
Maybe someone will come in handy this article. Thank you all for your time, good luck and all the best!