Process

This project involves attaching carbon fiber heating loops to a pair of glove liners and wiring each to a 7.4 volt battery. The temperature generated drops as the length increases which is why 3 separate loops are connected in parallel. Since we are creating an electronic circuit the carbon fiber needs to go up and down each digit without crossing itself. One loop covers the thumb and back of hand, a second covers the index / middle fingers, and the third covers the ring / pinky fingers.

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It is important that the glove is wired as indicated. Since the 2 spots where separate loops meet have the same polarity, there is no risk of a short circuit at that location should the loops touch.

The heating loops are temporarily tacked in place with fabric adhesive, then the wires and optional thermostat are connected. Finally a thin bead of flowable silicone is applied over the carbon rope. This provides a flexible attachment of the carbon to the glove, insulates the loops from shorting against each other, and protects the fine carbon threads from fraying.

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A switch and power plug may also be added depending on how you plan on using the gloves.

Warm or Warmer?

The carbon heat rope linked to in the shopping list generates many times more heat than is needed in this glove liner application. Fortunately the rope is a loose weave of 12 smaller bundles of fibers which gives us the opportunity to both stretch our material further and customize how warm our gloves will get … WIN WIN! After separating the smaller ropes we will re-wrap 2 or 3 of them back together.

A glove I made with 2 bundles reaches about 38 °C when plugged directly into a 7.4v battery, and draws 0.53 amps. That is a temperature close to a commercial heated glove I have used, and a thermostat would not be necessary.

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A test glove I made using ALL 12 bundles draws a whopping 2.6 amps and gets hot very fast. So more bundles = more heat and a shorter battery life.

I made a test loop out of 3 bundles and observed a current draw roughly 50% higher than a 2 bundle loop, so I would estimate a glove constructed with a 3 bundle rope to draw about 0.75 amps. That loop was noticeably warmer, though I couldn’t get a good reading on my IR thermometer. For any glove using more than 2 bundles of fiber I would definitely recommend using a thermostat switch or multi-setting power controller to limit the peak temperature.

Battery Life

A glove made of a 2 bundle rope drawing a constant 0.53 amps (not accounting for a battery being affected by the cold) might run beyond 4.5 hours on a 2,600 mah Li-ion bike headlight battery, or 2.5 hours on a 1,500 mah LiPo drone battery.

With the extra draw of 3 bundles those numbers could be 3.25 hour on Li-ion, and under 2 on LiPo, BUT since a thermostat should be used the power would cycle so the run time would likely be higher.

Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: HOW