Countertop ovens

[jsizemore]

Have folks found that a calrod (NiCr) element is better or worse than a infrared (quartz) heating element in their countertop size toaster ovens? B&D has a couple that uses either technology. Looking at quicker recovery times then the flea market oven I'm using now.

[Conditor22]

Try covering the floor of your oven with a heat retaining substance, once it reaches the operating temperature it will help the oven return to the operating temperature much faster. I use ceramic BBQ briquettes, others use fire brick, lava rock, etc.
Don't block the elements.

[Dragonheart]

I have a B&D Quartz that was new I picked up for almost nothing. It heats much faster, but won't get to 400 degrees, so it is worthless. I could do a PID, but it would be cheaper to just get a new oven that works.

The Hamilton Beach Countertop Convection Oven is the best (toaster oven) I have found; it has conventional elements, but comes to temp and holds it. My last cook was 2484 9mm bullets in a single cook, so I don't need to worry about a second batch. It takes a while for it to come to 400 with that kind of a load, but it did it. It has cooked tens of thousands of bullets since 2012 and is still going strong, so longevity has been proven.

[Willbird]

That makes me wonder, I bought a new B&D from Maomart and it acted about the same, I put it back in the box and exchanged it for another brand same day.

Bill

[Conditor22]

My Hamilton Beach 31331 Convection Toaster Oven has been a workhorse for years. $54 Amazon

[Dragonheart]

That makes me wonder, I bought a new B&D from Maomart and it acted about the same, I put it back in the box and exchanged it for another brand same day.

Bill

One other thing I didn't mention with the B&D was the temperature was all over the place and varied as much as 50 degrees from the set point. I suspect a bunch of guys with these ovens are having problems and don't know it because they have never checked it with a good thermometer. If you had a similar problem, then the thermostats must be poor to say the least. A PID should fix the problems, but I have no desire to do so.

I bought it for a spare, but I will never use it. So if anyone near me has the desire to put a PID in a B&D oven they can have this one if they want to pick it up.

[jsizemore]

I had considered the quartz heating element model. They heat fast but I didn't know how well they worked at higher temps. I've been looking at the large digital Oster. Looks to have plenty of space since I have melted a couple bullets in the current unit. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

[Willbird]

One other thing I didn't mention with the B&D was the temperature was all over the place and varied as much as 50 degrees from the set point. I suspect a bunch of guys with these ovens are having problems and don't know it because they have never checked it with a good thermometer. If you had a similar problem, then the thermostats must be poor to say the least. A PID should fix the problems, but I have no desire to do so.

I bought it for a spare, but I will never use it. So if anyone near me has the desire to put a PID in a B&D oven they can have this one if they want to pick it up.

yea I bought, opened up the box, set it up in the kitchen, fired it up, and promptly took it right back and exchanged it for an Oster

https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/234...d&odnBg=ffffff

Oster

https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/f09...d&odnBg=ffffff

I agree had I not thrown a thermometer in it right off the bat I would have been chasing my tail right from the start. My startup routine is ton throw the thermo in and turn on the oven, start coating bullets, by the time I get a batch ready the oven is well pre heated. The thermo always says 450F on the dot too, I moved it there some time ago and just left it...it seems to like that temp and it has never slushed a bullet at 25 minute cook time.

I do have an Igrill and could run a test cycle with the probe stuck in a ball of tinfoil for spits and giggles some time .

[Willbird]

Ok interesting experiment . I had been just throwing this thermometer on the rack and using it to know where my temp was. Gut level we know that it will absorb some radiant heat from the elements and thus we should IMHO expect it to read high. My setup was running at 450 using that thermometer. The graph shows an initial over temp spike, I would presume as heat soaks through part of the oven assembly to reach the thermostat....then a drop and level off.



Dug out my Igrill, it is an older one and as I recall the temperature probes kind of quit just over 400F, here is how I setup the two probes. Sticking a probe into a ball of tinfoil is a technique often used in BBQ smokers to smooth out small temp swings and give a more accurate average reading, probe 2 has the tinfoil ball.

So the Igrill said my average temp was a bit on the low side, around 375, some accidental Elvis going on there hehe. So I bumped it up at 950AM aprox and let it cycle for 15 minutes, then bumped it up again 10:05AM , let it run another 15 minutes, then shut down. Where the mouse pointer is on the one probe temperature is my original temperature setup.

The naked probe 1 pretty much blanked out on the final set temp which seems to happen at 408F or so. Overall temp control is decent for an appliance that sells for around $50 USD retail .

Probe 1 which was naked


Probe 2 inserted into a ball of tinfoil


I have some type K thermocouple coming slow boat from China. The Igrill if I recall right use Thermister probes. I also have one PID here now for a heat treat oven build and will probably put PID control on my RCBS promelt and the toaster oven too.

So now I need to redo some stuff that I had presumed I was baking at 450F for 25 minutes.

The Igrill device and ap are a really inexpensive temperature/time data logging setup. The Igrill2 is said to be able to measure up to 672F.



Bill

[Willbird]

A few more technical details, the Igrill Iphone ap will allow emailing a file with the logged data from a probe, it is sent as a .csv file, comma separate values which can be imported into any number of applications to look at the data. In this cause I used LibreOfficeCalc which is a freeware version of Excel kinda.

Bill

[Conditor22]

A reminder:
IF you PID a convection oven you need to wire the convection fan directly to its own power source so it doesn't burn out prematurely with all the off/on from the PID

If not using a PID on your countertop oven, recheck the temperature setting every time the surrounding/room temperature changes. Due to the design and location of the thermostat, the oven temp is affected by the surrounding temp.

Minor fluctuations over and under 400 won't hurt IF the boolits (not the oven) maintain 400° (or what the manufacturer recommends) for the prescribed amount of time to achieve a full cure.

[Willbird]

A reminder:
IF you PID a convection oven you need to wire the convection fan directly to its own power source so it doesn't burn out prematurely with all the off/on from the PID

If not using a PID on your countertop oven, recheck the temperature setting every time the surrounding/room temperature changes. Due to the design and location of the thermostat, the oven temp is affected by the surrounding temp.

Minor fluctuations over and under 400 won't hurt IF the boolits (not the oven) maintain 400° (or what the manufacturer recommends) for the prescribed amount of time to achieve a full cure.

Also IMHO we should use a high limit shutdown of some kind that releases control powder to the PID. Use a simple 3 wire start-stop circuit to pull in a relay that enables the PID, wire in a Normally Closed high limit temperature device into that enable circuit for control power. The a temp over run will shut the whole system down.

The existing temperature control could function as a high limit if it was just run wide open as long as that is above any set temp we want to use on PID..and if stuff was wired up it would release the control power relay and shut everything down.

A lot of the PID have an high heat alarm circuit too that could sound a really loud audible alarm ....car horn blowing LOL

Bill