12v Silicone Heated Bed wiring [SOLVED]

Hi All,

I am about 95% done on building my MendelMax 1.5 and now need to wire up my Heated Bed. This is a flexible 12v silicone mat which has 6 wires coming out of it, two of the wires (black) are the Thermistor and the other four wires are for the heating element(s), the problem is all of these wires are red and there is no indication as to how they relate to each other, from what I can gather, it's not just a case of two wires soldered onto a solder-pad, it actually looks like there are four individual solder-pads (see picture below):


I have searched and searched for any information as to the wiring for this heated bed, but to no avail, could anyone please tell me, if I number the red wires (from left to right) as 1, 2, 3 & 4; do I connect 1&2 to 12v and 3&4 to earth OR 1&3 to 12v and 2&4 to earth OR some other combination?

Thanks in advance,
Glenn

UPDATE: I finally got a reply from the person I bought this kit from, it turns out to be very simple; he says to join both the left-hand-side wires together and both of the right-hand-side wires together (wires 1&2 and 3&4).

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/04/2013 04:46AM by Chexfxdx.

Stick a ohm meter on those red wires, see what is connected to what and what resistance.. this will give you (and us) valuable clues

Hi Dust,

I have checked the resistance with a digital multimeter (set to Ohms) and come up with these readings:

Resistance between 1&2 = 0Ω,
Resistance between 1&3 fluctuates around 1Ω
Resistance between 1&4 fluctuates around 1.1Ω
Resistance between 2&3 fluctuates around 1.1Ω
Resistance between 2&4 fluctuates around 1.3Ω
Resistance between 3&4 fluctuates between 0 - 0.5Ω

BUT... if I have the multimeter set to Auto (it shows MΩ) they all come up 0.000MΩ, does this help?

Cheers,
Glenn

Based on your readings 1 and 2 go to ground via the FET or relay and 3 and 4 go to +12. If your readings are right - that's a very low power silicone heater.

Quote
uncle_bob
Based on your readings 1 and 2 go to ground via the FET or relay and 3 and 4 go to +12. If your readings are right - that's a very low power silicone heater.

Hi uncle_bob,

This is taking the readings/measurement from the wires connected to the heated mat, it's not connected to the RAMPS yet, I wasn't sure which way the 4 wires were suppose to be connected to the power from the RAMPS module.

Cheers,
Glenn