Induction Cooktop

[ChrisOlson]

Copper WILL work.
Even lowly aluminum WILL work.

No it won't.  Already tried it.  Only clad copper will work, and that doesn't get hot enough to cook anything very fast because it don't have enough ferrous metal in it.

Edit: If you buy an induction cooktop and wonder if your clad copper cookware will work with it, take the pan out the shop, grab a ferrite magnet left over from your latest turbine project out of the box, and see if it will stick to the pan.  If it don't, it won't work.  Won't even warm up.

If you get some of the new clad copper cookware with magnetic stainless then it will work.  But its performance is very poor compared to iron.
/Edit

My wife's big aluminum pot that she always used to boil potatoes in doesn't even warm up without the ferrous induction plate under it.  She bought a new magnetic stainless steel one and that works fine.

When you buy cookware for an induction cooktop, it's marked on the cookware as to whether or not it will work.

Iron works the best of all of them.
--
Chris

[m12ax7]

An INDUCTION stove that can't induce current in a coil?   huh,  I don't get it,  so what's the point?

*L*

and I was going to suggest you try using enough coils that you could use the induced current to supply power to your stove!

ps   We tossed out all our aluminum cook ware years ago after the ruckus about aluminum and health concerns.

[rossw]

An INDUCTION stove that can't induce current in a coil?   huh,  I don't get it,  so what's the point?

I can see the point.

Yes, an induction heater should heat anything that conducts electricity.
But imagine the outcry if someone passed their hand over the cooktop and their wedding ring burned their finger off...

I suspect these cooktops have 90% of their "smarts" in the interlocks to make sure that only a recognised cooking vessel can get the energy, and that anything else can't be tricked into turning the field on.

Chris called it a "feature" that it only energises that portion of the pot thats over the coils. I suspect that's actually a requirement - that it doesn't activate a field outside the pot/kettle/whatever.

[ChrisOlson]

ps   We tossed out all our aluminum cook ware years ago after the ruckus about aluminum and health concerns.

Yeah.  You can't even go outside and let the sun shine on you anymore because of "health concerns".  You can't eat beef because of "health concerns".  If all these things these days that you can't do because of "health concerns" would've applied to my parents - who are now in their early 90's and have never really retired, they would've tipped over 20 years ago.

I'll start worrying about when I tip over.  And I'm guessing I won't be worrying about it much then either.
--
Chris

[ChrisOlson]

Chris called it a "feature" that it only energises that portion of the pot thats over the coils. I suspect that's actually a requirement - that it doesn't activate a field outside the pot/kettle/whatever.

It has to be.  Because you can lay a fork or spoon on it, that will otherwise stick to a magnet, and it won't heat the fork or spoon up.  It must have something in it that detects that.

Also, after I got "checked out" on operating it, I found you can put a cast iron frying pan on it to cook up a pancake for breakfast, and the handle on the pan don't get hot from the induction.  Only by what heat gets transferred from the big part of the pan that's hot, to the handle.

That new magnetic stainless steel pot my wife got will hold about 1.5 gallons of water.  It'll bring that pot to a full boil in about 2 minutes on the highest setting.  If you use cast iron it will bring that amount of water to a boil in about a minute and a half.

When you're cooking with it, you don't want to make the mistake of touching the rim of the pot or pan, or laying a stirring spoon on it.  It's as hot as the burner on a regular stove.

I also checked the ammeter on the inverter when my wife was cooking on it and the most I've seen it pull is 9.6 amps (240 volt).  You can set the temperature of the cooking to what you want, and unlike our old electric range that cycled the "burner" on and off, this one draws power constantly.  But instead of, say, 1.5 kW in on and off cycles, it will start out at high amp draw, then the amps will go down when the pan gets hot and if it only takes 3 or 4 amps to keep it at that temperature, that's all it draws.

How it saves on power is by the fact that when you cook with it, the temperature of the whole pan is even and your food cooks faster.  So it don't waste any energy by having to wait to heat the pan up, and the transfer heat from a hot "burner" to the pan.  Otherwise, when it's going, it can pull as much, or more, power as our old stove did. 
--
Chris

[Wolvenar]

We have a supposed high end full copper bottom  cookware set. they are a pita in my opinion. They have a rough circular pattern inside that everything sticks to and burns. I cant imagine what the designers thought this was supposed to accomplish. I have tried to convince the wife to let me try polishing the bottom of one of the smaller pots to see if I can fix this.. So far no luck, one day though she might get ticked enough at this problem to let me at them with an orbital sander

[WooferHound]

I wonder how hard it would be to DIY an induction cook top, maybe get it to work off of a DC circuit ?

[ChrisOlson]

We have a supposed high end full copper bottom  cookware set. they are a pita in my opinion.

I'll bet you a $10 bill that's the same type that my wife just threw in the scrap bin a couple days ago.  The whole pan is actually copper but it's clad with stainless steel above the burner area of it.  They don't work at all on an induction top.  I mean, they get warm enough to maybe feel some warmth, but they won't cook anything.

When we've used them in the camper on the gas cooktop they'll burn a pancake or eggs right to the pan before it's even hard enough to flip it over.  And you have to peel it off with a chisel, damn near.  On the electric cook top with conventional elements like we had before, you had to turn the "burner" way up to get the pan hot, then turn it down to the lowest setting and let it equal out to be able to cook something without burning it.

And the bottom of the pan inside and out looks like it was turned on a lathe with the crossfeed set to max so it's got threads in it.

If they're like that, I agree they're junk.  My wife just threw out a set of three frying pans and one bigger pot like that.
--
Chris

[Wolvenar]

Yeah, that's an exact description.
I can say they are not any sort of kitchen "aid" as their name implies.
We have a couple non brand name copper bottom that are just awesome, so it has more to do with this particular design it seems. These have been a nightmare. They are only ok if you are doing something like soups, or anything that's very liquid, but that's about it.

Well there ya go everyone, product to stay away from.