Beautifully elegant and practically simple. I love the natural bench created from the horizontal case. Thank you Ian, Birmingham

I have what looks like that exact power supply that I've used as my bench supply for about 3 years straight now. I bought a proper DC supply last year, but not for the lack of function from the PSU. I've made my upgrades through the years lol; made an adjustable output, terminated the ends to banana plugs, attached an on/off switch, indicator lights for power and standby, you name it. Not all at once of course, just as I needed.

Thank you so much. I am in the United States and going to use this method to cut foam to make four paddle boards for my family to vacation in Michigan. We are surrounded with water and paddle boards are about $200 each. My goal is to make four of them with two inch laminated insulation board wrapped in fabric. Thank you for your instruction

I'll never do this but I watched the whole thing just because you're so smart, detailed and entertaining. Love your videos.

AWESOME. Love, love, love PC component re-usage projects! As with hard drives, I have many hundreds of these as well. Fantastic.

Worth it just for the ATX wiring explanation.

It's like waking Christmas morning, 9 years of age and opening a Tandy electronics kit and chemistry set......EVERY DAY, thanks mate.

Great build and nice easy to follow diagrams, As 1 or 2 people have mentioned here, the fumes could be an issue, a 12V PC fan (or two) would be great for pulling fumes out of a nearby window or into an activated carbon filter.

Very ingenuitive and creative thank you for sharing the idea and multiple ways to use and older PC

You need the spring to disconnect the cutting wire and bring it up thru a hole in the material to cut internal shapes. I use an old Weller solder gun to the same thing but I like the computer deck as a platform to work off of. Great build!

Now that was cool to see. A DIY wire cutter. you ROCK RMS! DVD:)

I used to work at a school and they were always throwing out old computers like the one you used. I always saved the hard drives and memory but never thought to save the power unit! Great video as usual.

It is such a joy to watch your enlightening videos!

bloody genius!!! wanted to make one to make foam patterns for metal casting. this is perfect! so much info well played sir. Top Shelf

This is what we need in youtube... Love your content, keep the good work sir

a 2fer; a cutter & a power supply. in the oilfield, a hotwire is a variety of gas detector. it is basically a real sensitive multitester with a wheatstone bridge attached to 2 platinum electrodes, 1 a reference, the other a detector. an air/gas stream across the detector catalyzes, heats the filiment, & raises the resistivity of it, the concentration of the gas is related to the resistivity.

Great job. I learn a lot from your videos. Thanks.

An improvement suggestion: Your hot wire is expanding as it heats up and is no longer taught. A steel spring at the top, between the hot wire and the copper wire will take up the slack. Power will flow through the spring just fine, but wont cause it to heat up so it wont lose it's springiness.

Awesome video, thanks for posting.

That is awesome! What a great way to reuse an old PC :)

Very practical and even as one with minimal electrical skills I can surely do this! Thank you for enlightenment.

Made one of those a few years back with my work bench power supply. I have since bought a power supply so the old one I made is out in the shop to use for other projects.. Jolly good fun... carry on..

Great stuff,very inventive,good use of old technology!!

Hi Robert, love the vids chief :) I check every day now to see if there's a new one, keep up the sterling work 👍👍👍

I always wanted one of these, and I like the method you used. Lately I've been using a propane torch to heat a box cutter blade. Faster, inexpensive, and cuts through rope at least as well as a hot wire. No residue on the edge and perfect cuts, and no extra equipment in the shop that isn't already there.

You're a legend Rob, your videos are great

I have been needing one of these, I might give that a go being that I have a few extra power supplies laying around, nice video mate.

@Robert Murray Smith Another example of your fine knowledge. Thanking you for showing me how to do things. I saw something similar to this where he put the hot wire strung between a bow type limb with a very wide space The wire to the bow was very long which enabled him to move around freely. This was done in the aviation industry to cut wing design and body design. You may want to add a plug into your module, or a quick disconnect, so you can make and plug in your bowl wand for free form cutting. Thanks

another great project, thanks Robert

i really liked most of your videos... 👍

Yep another brilliant video

as a hobby i recycle electronics for the metals obviously any part that is still working may be worth far more as a replacement part that as scrap. server power supplies are readily available as surplus for 20 to 30 dollars and wil supply about twice to 3 times the amperage so i highly approve of what you are doing here and if you need more current the server power supplies are also readily available and cheap.

Very cool tool. Thanks for the video.

I've done quite the same cutter a few years ago to split foam sheet thinner. Obviously I've oriented the cutting wire horizontaly. For the cable I used a guitar string allowing to easily change for a different.

Very nice vid Rob.. you can also try a old guitar string for the heat wire.. the thin ones not the thick wounded ones.. specially those silver ones.. bless you brother.. enjoyed it

Love this channel

Our old friend the MOT. With a Microwave Oven Transformer and Dimmer you could heat a peace of Coat Hanger wire. to do the job.

I listened to this video using a bluetooth surface speaker that you inspired me to make with your inductor speaker video. I made mine from a small speaker that had a rather large magnet.

Very cool. You could add a couple of cheap eBay items to make it multi-purpose (ie. Power Supply, hot wire cutter, radio etc.) It's not like you have a lack of room in an old computer case.

Really nice gadget. Very well explained. I am going to make it. Great vedio.

Would this cut through the 5mm paper covered foamboard from Hobbycraft with the paper in place?

looks awesome

Thanks. I was trying to design a water temperature controller that works on 12 volts.

I wanted to follow this tutorial because I enjoyed your content, but after watching some other tutorials, it turns out that cutting off all the power connectors, sorting the cables by color and soldering them together isn't necessary at all for this to be used as a hot wire cutter. As I understand now, apparently all I would have needed to do is take the 24 pin ATX, snip one black and one green cable free (and two more black cables, purple and grey wires for optional indicators), wire them together and then take any smaller connector which has at least one yellow and one black wire (MOLEX, SATA, GPU, CPU), snip all yellow and black cables free, solder them together and plug them into the motor controller. I would have preferred this because it would make much less of a dangly mess and possible safety hazard. This would also only render two connectors unusable while the other ones could still be used. Sadly I only found out about this later and I fear that I have now ruined both my old power supplies. It is very concerning to have this many wires just dangling about and it kinda feels dangeous and irresponsible to operate them in this state. I fear I now have to buy caps as well to properly secure the cables. The other plugs could have been used for something else too, but I would now need to reattach them, which is likely not worth the effort. All in all, I just feel like I made a fool of myself and wasted my time. I am just an inexperienced amateur, and this was probaly obvious to all but electrical greeehorns but I thought I'd leave this as a word of warning to your subs.

This is wonderfully timed for me!! I need to cut plexiglass into small squares and have been a bit frustrated with the traditional method of scoring/snapping it. The pieces I need to make (about 80mm) are too small to get a clean break, and I've been throwing away one piece for every two I make. I like the use of V-channel for this, very solid and a really sleek look, and the case makes a great work surface! I just need to figure out where I can clear the workbench space for it, LOL!! Or maybe just put it on its own stand.

I have a question about mainly the 12v, which on many PSU's, they have multiple "channels", each running 10-25 amps. Mine has 4 channels, each running 25 amps, and they are labeled as "channel 1, 2, 3, 4) and the wires are soldered onto the main board into what look like seperated channels - there is no bridging between all 4 channels. I'm wondering what would happen if I paralleled all of them to make 100A, if it would cause a problem (some kind of over-load, circuit trip, etc).. I'm guessing it does this for some kind of protection, where if you have 10 devices plugged into one 25A circuit and it surges, it doesn't take out everything on the other 3 circuits. I'm guessing they are all also driven by their own mosfet and IDK how well they work together when running in parallel w/o something like a diode in line, so there is no feedback to any of the other channels.

love watching your videos your always doing somthing cool that many people can try to do, i have one thing thats worrying me PLEASE TAKE THE KEY CHUCK out of the chuck on your mini lathe that we can all see, i have visions of some one turning the lathe on and the chuck key flying across the room and hitting some one in the head, i can remember 45 years ago my metal work teacher saying never leave a key chuck in the chuck, i have been meaning to say this for a while now, keep up the good work Robert and be safe mate, Simon Gray Rugeley Staffs.

You didn't mention the actual Wire much in this. But the Ni-Chrome wire used for certain Guitar Strings (that are commonly available and cheap) is exceptionally well suited for Hot Wire applications; it takes much higher temperatures and will break less often than ordinary electrical wire, while being quite thin and sharp for the purpose.

Hi Robert, I joined all the Blacks + green to one end of the hot wire and all the Yellows to the other as per your vid but when I switch on, the fan and led do come on, then theres a click, the fan stops and the wire doesn't heat. Advice please?

I made my own sail for my yacht some years back, this or a version of it would have been very handy.

Have you thought about adding a cutting fence/cutting rail for when you need straight cuts? May be mount it on a rotating protractor so you can cut angles?

What is that aluminum stock that you made the gibbet call?

Hey mate, have thought about using your sonar panel to heat a room by painting your graphene paint on a wall and connect the solar panel directly to the wall. It would more effective and efficient without the use of electronics

Yes, brilliant idea. So you have a base to work on and the whole setup is in one unit. Did you use Nichrome wire? 👍

Love it. I have been doing some work with conductive ink alternative that I really would like you to see. Inspired by you.

How many ATX PSU's have I chucked out ? Now I need one yet again.

Nice torsional stability on the gibbet,good for precise cutting whereas round bar construction looked flexy?would a battery,bow,and saltwater control that's the same as salt water welder work to make a free hand cutter?:)

Genius!!

@Robert Can I use an ESC there? And if so, how should I wire it? :$ :) Thanks, if .. :)

My, you are a busy lad! :-)

You are the man 👲

Great, what about adding a small extractor fan for fumes, nice one 👍

Question: while wire feed welding both my 120v drop light & flashlight go out. Why?

Too funny. I started to make one yesterday but s handheld. I changed my mind and just used an old soldering iron. Great video as always. There's not much you can't do is there?

I always remove the spring from hand soap dispensers before recycling, i have loads but never used one ha ha.

You could build winged drones in next to no time with that cutter!

transistor is brilliant

Love it Robert! Back to safety issues: you do know that one of the byproducts produced by burning Styrofoam is Cyanide right? best to watch your breathing around the smoke when cutting Styrofoam with heated items... Great build though!

Never crossed my mind to use an old computer power supply to do that. The amount of them I have thrown out well........!

What possible reason would I have for cutting hot wire and why couldn't I just use some regular cutter

stop playing around robert, give us the flash graphene lab ! :p

A few more close ups would have been nice, like the top of the wire insulator ... this case takes a lot of space, some mods to easily fold the arm are needed,

Perfect for Cheese .... and Pizza ....

~DON'T BREATH THAT SHIT~ Wear a cartridge respirator, and work outside ! I even bought a bunny suit so I don't get exotic chemistry into my cloths ... Nice build ! ~Thanks (liked, subd)

Do you have link for shop to buy plastic ink

Easier process- Adding a knife blade to a soldering iron.

I could have used that when I was casting aluminum

Does it matter if the wire makes electrical contact with the case? 8:32 ah I see, the back ground is extended by a blue wire that's connected to a bolt with nuts on it that holds the cutting wire down. And I'm guessing the case is earthed somewhere.

looks like a star wars character

oh oh, can I ask whats to the right of the filing cabinet at 9.20, please? It's like AvE says, you crack the door open and everyone want to get in. lol

.......also to seal closed polythene bags.

Very nice up market version but my eyes are watering from the fumes even at this distance. 😦

it sounds like the caps in th power supply are singing :-)

A quick comment on the type and diameter wire you used would have been helpful.. you say "you know what wire to use".. but not everyone does! Otherwise great project and video. Thanks.

Now to add the motors kzfaq.info/get/bejne/pa97eLx-ktKxh4U.html

Prolific.

Watching this guy has been one of the biggest waste of times in my life. I think I must be thick

I like your work a lot ...but I must tell you that you saying "Awesome" irks me ...do you do counselling courses in accepting what I cannot change ? Or are you just a techy geek who cares not for the emotional stability of your viewers ?