Hi, I need some advice working with nitinol, but I know very close to nothing, so please forgive me if what I am asking is impossible.
I would like to take a long length of nitinol (maybe 3 or 4 feet), pass a current through it, and have it regain its set shape.
The first issue is while I know you can do that with nitinol I’m general, I don’t know if it works reliably with lengths that long.
The second issue is I don’t know what gauge of nitinol wire I should go with, nor what temperature it should activate it (I need it to be as non-elastic as possible prior to the current going through it, so I assume a higher temperature is better).
Lastly, and probably most difficult issue is so know almost nothing about electronics.
I read this article https://www.imagesco.com/articles/nitinol/06.html
Which said I should use dc power and a pulse width modulation, but dc batteries seem to be a lot bigger than I would like, and I can’t understand the diagram of how to my the PWM at all (it’s probably the world’s simplest thing to a lot of people here, but it’s currently meaningless to me).
I am really hoping that it’s possible using some 9v batteries or similar, and some already made parts I can order off the internet and just solder the wires to.
More likely it’s not nearly that simple, and I need to first learn at least the basics of working with electronics, but if possible I need to finish my project as soon as possible (for a magìc trìck), so for now I want to take as many shortcuts as I can.
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated - either how to do it, or resources to learn and understand what I need to know. Thank you!
