Heat Trace

Does Anyone Know Anything About Running Heat Trace. I Heard That You Have To Use A Conduit Bender Because It Is A Mineral Insulated Cable. Thanks For Your Help.

Link below is to Nelson's mineral insulated installation and maintainence guide.

The book doesn't mention a bender.

Mineral inulated is about 1/4" diameter, which in long lengths can be bent in large radius by hand.

There are benders used for small diameter tubing, but I don't recall mention of these by the installers. Maybe it never came up?

Dan

Not sure what product you are referring to. I have used a flexible Ni-Chrome wire since the 70's, not sure on the brand as it is stocked in-house. ~0.5 ohm/ft, measure off 55', add a 5 Amp fuse and plug it into 110VAC. Add a thermostat if required/ desired depending on the application. There are various vendors I have seen that make specilized products with built in thermostats (e.g. water line freeze protection). I believe RayChem has a large presence in this market and cater to the chemical industry from the literature I have seen, though that was a number of years ago.

Will check on our vendor information next time I'm on the floor.

I've done a few deisgns incorporating Heat Trace. Check out this website: www.briskheat.com. They have a lot of examples of how their heat trace tape and wire operate and how to correctly size the wire and wraps needed for a design.

What type of application is this? Most heat-trace cabling is very similar to Romex-type wire, and is fairly flexible.

A major problem with using electical tracing is that the temperature is absolutely NOT constant;... If you need to maintain a constant temperature over a line, it's best to go the (very expensive) route of using a liquid-jacketed system.

I goofed before - no link above.

Here's the link to the Nelson mineral insulated installation guide.

http://www.nelsonheaters.com/DownLoad/TechDocs/Installation/Heaters/MI%20MANUAL%20IM.pdf