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UNDERSTANDING THE EQUIPMENT
When you are burning and you place your pen tip on a medium such as wood, the wood attracts and absorbs the heat into the wood. This will discolor the wood. The discoloration is governed by the setting on the dial of the control box and by how long you apply the tip to the wood. When this happens, the control box must replenish that heat as quickly as possible; otherwise you will have to work slower. The power supply is controlled by the size of the transformer within the box. Most manufacturers will produce several models and the price will be related to the power supply components within. When you buy a cheap burning system, you will get a smaller power supply and will have to work slower while you wait for the burning pen tip to recover its heat. The average person does not understand this and will sometimes buy by price only. When they buy this smaller unit, they believe all other controls units act the same as what they bought and unfortunately, will not be aware of the difference. In this text, I am just writing about the wire tipped pens only; not the soldering iron type of pens with thick copper tips that some people are still using. The wire in most wire tipped pens are made out of a nickel-chromium alloy, sometime known as "NiChrome". This is a highly resistant wire that won't allow the electrons to flow through easily. When the electrons jam up in such a wire, there is a heat buildup and it turns extremely hot. This type of wire is used in electric heaters, toasters, curling irons, and other heating appliances. The Detail Master developed and uses a special space age material in their pen tips which makes them stronger, more durable and somewhat resistant to galling up. The wall outlets carries voltage sent to your house by the electric companies (120 volts in the United States and 240 volts in Europe and Asia). When you plug in your burning unit, you allow this voltage to enter the control box where it will reduce (transform) the voltage and adjust (regulate) the amperage to be used by the burning pen. Electrons will pass through most metals, but at different rates. Gold and Silver are highly conductive, with Copper following close behind. Highly resistant metals are Nickel and Chromium. This voltage is sent through highly conductive copper wires to the burning pen. These copper wires are connected to the NiChrome wire of the tip. The copper wires allow the electrons to flow freely until they reach the highly resistant NiChrome wire. The NiChrome wire slows down the electrons by making them difficult to pass through the wire and they begin to heat up. There are other elements that also effect the resistance to the electrons such as mass, thickness and shapes of the NiChrome wire tips.
The above line drawing shows the nomenclature (names) of the parts of a wire pen tip. There are tips with heels which give a definite stopping point when burning or a radius blade that allows you to make an almost infinite line. Infinite lines are necessary when trying to simulate animal fur. You burn in the hair line and then lift your pen off of the work in a sweeping motion. Do not have a definite stop but draw the line while lifting the pen in the air.
The Standard handpiece, fixed tip burning pen is 1/2 inch in diameter and 5 inches in length. It is made of aluminum to allow for a heat exchange of temperature. There are 7 machined grooves to enhance your grip. These grooves also serve as receptacles of "O" rings for better gripping and to keep fingers away from the metal. The drawing below shows a 1-C pen fixed tip.
We have patented a Vented handpiece with a fixed tip shown in the drawing below. We developed this handpiece to operate cooler than the standard. This handpiece has several holes in the body, plus holes front and back allowing air to freely exit the space within the pen. This pen is 5/8 inch diameter and is 5 inches long. A 4-C shading tip is installed in the drawing below.
Other conditions that impede the flow of electrons are connectors, especially mechanical connections. If the connectors are soldered or brazed there will not be much of a resistance problem, but if it is a mechanical connection like in a Replaceable tip burning pen, it can be another problem spot. The electric companies learned long ago that a flat surface can transfer the electrons easier than a round surface. This is why all electric appliances and devices have flat prongs on the plugs. A round pin that has to go into a round tube, the connection is poor and will cause an unwanted heated area. This is why so many replaceable pens develop hot handles. The pyrographer pushes the round legs of the pen tip into the round receptacles. The obvious fact is: if the round leg of the pen tip was the same size as the hole, you could not push the leg in. Obviously, the hole must be larger. When you have a larger hole, the electric contact point has to be poor—causing a new heating spot. This is why I have always preferred the silver brazed fixed tip pens over the replaceable pen tips. The advantages of the replaceable pen are that the tips are cheaper and they are convenient. But, it only proves the old adage "You get what you pay for." My favorites are fixed tipped pens. The replaceable tip handpiece comes in two versions. Version 1.0 is the original one we developed with a sliding slip lock. We will no longer manufacture this version because Version 2.0 is an improvement of a cooler operating handpiece. The slip lock is no longer necessary. We will still continue to make pen tips for Version 1.0, for those who have the replaceable handpiece, but we recommend that you update to Version 2.0. The pen tips from Version 1.0 and Version 2.0 are not interchangeable. If you have Version 1.0 and do not find your handpiece overly hot, please keep it. However, if your handpiece is getting too hot for your sensitive hand, we would advise you to get Version 2.0.
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