Anotherpower.com Forum
Off Grid Living / Camping => Off Grid Living / Alternative Housing => Topic started by: ChrisOlson on February 09, 2012, 10:18:24 pm
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We got a new Electrolux induction range from Sweden. My wife bought it when we were in Sweden for Christmas but it just got here this last Monday. It cost us a little over $4,000 for it by the time we got it to the US, but my wife absolutely loves it.
Compared to gas cooking, which is only about 40% efficient (and my wife refuses to have a gas appliance in the house anyway), the induction cooking is about 90% energy efficient. It uses just a little over 1/2 the power to cook the same thing that our old electric range with conventional surface units used to use.
I haven't even figured out how to run the thing yet. Only my wife knows how to program it to cook food. The control panel on it disappears until you put your hand by it and then it lights up and looks like the helm on the Starship Enterprise. The way I understand it, it's kinda' like layin' in a course for the Delta Quadrant to cook eggs on it. My wife's hand moves swiftly over the controls and she's pushing all these "buttons" that aren't even buttons, then she throws a pan on it and it works!
It doesn't matter what size pan or pot you put on it because it's got some sort of deal in it that adjusts the magnetic field to the exact size of the pan to save on power. And when you take the pan off the "burner" it shuts off.
Maybe one of these days I'll figure out how to run it. First I'm going to go out to the shop and build me a cast iron java cup. If I had a cast iron cup that thing will heat up a cup of java faster than the microwave.
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Chris
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Well there you go... eddy currents have their uses too ;D
..............oztules
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You can get those in America too
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You can get those in America too
Not when you're married to a Swedish woman, you can't. :)
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Chris
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Well there you go... eddy currents have their uses too ;D
Oz - that just gave me an idea. When I build my new cast iron java cup I'm going to write "Eddy" on the outside of it with the welder ;D
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Chris
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Not a lot of us married to Swedish women Chris, but I bet most of us fully understand it. ;D
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YOU BETCHA !!
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Here's how it works being married to a Scandinavian babe. They're raised from birth to be independent as hell.
She is anything BUT helpless. She'll change oil in her truck herself. She'll change her own flat tire. She doesn't expect that I should have to help, or even offer to help. If I do help her she appreciates it.
If I'm doing something and need some help with it, she's right there and digs right in and helps. Don't have to ask.
She considers herself your equal in EVERYTHING. Don't tell her she can't get a wheel bolt on a semi loose, that's torqued to 600 lb-ft. She'll go find a cheater bar that's big enough and she'll get it loose just to show you she can do it. Don't tell her she can't shoot a Ruger Super Blackhawk .44 Mag and be accurate with it. That'll just make her want one of her own - and she'll go buy it and practice until she can peel the hair off the balls on a flea at 50 yards with it. Don't ever go to a gun show where she might see a Weatherby SA-08 Deluxe chambered for 12 gauge and tell her, "Oh, you should get a 20 gauge because it's easier to shoot than a 12." You can rest assured when she hears that, that she's coming home with it and she'll practice with it until she can rival Tom Knapp. After you get used to that, after 31 years you can get along pretty good.
When she gets mad at me she switches to some sort of gibberish and calls me a bunch of stuff that I'm pretty sure is not good. After 31 years I never did really get a handle on her native language that has weird dots above some of the letters.
Oh, and she LOVES to go fishing. I NEVER go fishin' without her because that would be worse than forgetting your anniversary :)
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Chris
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because that would be worse than forgetting your anniversary :)
We've just had our 29th wedding anniversary, so got a couple to catch up to you yet .... but we've never missed one. Mind you, picking new-years-eve (Dec-31) probably helped :)
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Damn, I suppose there is a down side to that.. but... I guess you didn't point it out.
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We are just approaching our 13'th anniversary on Feb 14th. Maybe I could get away with saying "Hey dear, the official 13 year anniversary gift is solar panels?"
Wonder if that would work?? hmm..
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Maybe I could get away with saying "Hey dear, the official 13 year anniversary gift is solar panels?"
Wonder if that would work?? hmm..
Let us know how you get on with that.... ;)
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We are just approaching our 13'th anniversary on Feb 14th. Maybe I could get away with saying "Hey dear, the official 13 year anniversary gift is solar panels?"
LOL! I'm with Ross on this one - let me know how that works out :)
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Chris
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Maybe I could get away with saying "Hey dear, the official 13 year anniversary gift is solar panels?"
Wonder if that would work?? hmm..
Let us know how you get on with that.... ;)
Yep tomorrow is 18 years for us and I know better than to try Solar panels. A Colt 1991 may fly though :D
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"Hey dear, where you aware that the official 13 year anniversary gift is solar panels?"
her response..
"Yeah somehow I don't think I should believe that. "
I say
It is I swear it!!
And then ..
You know I can just go to Google and look up what it really is, then you better hope its not something else really expensive or you will never get those panels huh??"
Damn guess that's what I get for having a bright internet savvy chick..
Ah well.
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You know I can just go to Google and look up what it really is, then you better hope its not something else really expensive or you will never get those panels huh??"
Traditional 13th is Lace. You could always get some lace trimming for your panels.
"Modern" USA 13th is Textiles or furs - so some fur earwarmers for when you send her out to shovel snow off them, perhaps? :) :)
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Damn, I suppose there is a down side to that.. but... I guess you didn't point it out.
Down side? I married one woman and ended up with three of 'em. One of the extra ones is now 28 and the other one is 25. The oldest one decided to get married. That cost us a lot of money. The youngest one decided to go to med school. That cost us a lot of money. But she'll still go out and party with ol' Dad.
[attachimg=1]
BTW - I have no clue how my nametag got stuck to my forehead that night, or even why I had one.
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Chris
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I could go into how I met Jen online, setup a date, wound up getting stood up and dating her sis instead...
Still somehow managed to get married to Jen.
I still haven't worked out how that happened..
wow this thread was about an Induction Cooktop?
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wow this thread was about an Induction Cooktop?
Yeah, because it was something that a woman wanted. If it was up to a man we'd just throw a pot of beans and bacon on a steel workbench, fabricate a bracket to hold the torch under the bench, and cook 'em up.
I've actually done that. :)
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Chris
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Pizzas cook pretty well in the rod oven too.
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Pizzas cook pretty well in the rod oven too.
You know - I wonder if one of those induction outfits would work to heat up rods? I would imagine if I walked into the kitchen carrying a box of small block rods and told my wife I wanted to cook 'em up so I can get pins in 'em, it would go over about as well as solar panels as an anniversary present :)
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Chris
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Chris,
"You smoooth talkin Devil"
It's no wonder your surrounded by those swedish gals. LOL
Bill
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I don't know Chris, I remember the time I washed some Briggs parts in the dishwasher
just to see how it would work. I remember the time very, very well. :o
Just for info, parts came out really clean.
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If it was up to a man we'd just throw a pot of beans and bacon on a steel workbench, fabricate a bracket to hold the torch under the bench, and cook 'em up.
I've actually done that. :)
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Chris
I've cooked beans on the exhaust manifold of a Cummins NTC 350! Don't forget about them, though. Makes a tremendous mess under the hood!
Kevin
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Yeah, nothing worse than burned fart pills oozing in between the heads on a Cummins 855 ;D
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Chris
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Okay, I just sat here and read this thread from the beginning, and have lost track of the subject. Induction cooking, wives or their operations.
I wonder, if you put one of your wound coils on one of the heaters will/can you read a "induced" voltage? Perhaps, with enough coils you could generate enough power to charge up your battery bank!
On another site someone was talking about their induction stove and said that most any metal pot/pan would work, they found that the best results came with iron. Any truth to that?
ax7
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On another site someone was talking about their induction stove and said that most any metal pot/pan would work, they found that the best results came with iron. Any truth to that?
I don't know about the coil thing. That would require Top Level Security Clearance to even try it. I don't think it would work with the one we got because it detects what's sitting on it and if it don't have enough mass of magnetic steel or iron in it, it won't come on.
But yes, cast iron cookware seems to work the best on it. Magnetic stainless steel seems to be second best. The heating is quicker and more even with cast iron.
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Chris
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I wonder how copper bottom cookware would work on an induction.
BTW the wife got wind on this discussion, now she wants a new fridge and stove...
damn..
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Copper won't work. The cookware has to be ferromagnetic.
My wife has an "induction" plate that she can put on a "burner". The induction plate is ferromagnetic and it heats up and lets her put a glass or aluminum container on it to heat some food up. That seems to work pretty good but it takes more power than having a metal container because it heats the glass or aluminum pot by conduction so there's a lot of heat loss with it.
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Chris
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Copper WILL work.
Even lowly aluminum WILL work.
High end pots and pans have a very thick copper place encapsulated (can't see it) in the bottom to aid in even distribution of heat (like from a ring of flame) to the 'food side'.
Its not the class of item wally-world carries.
I bet it would work wonders.
G-
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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.
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Chris
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Chris
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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.
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Chris
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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 :)
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I wonder how hard it would be to DIY an induction cook top, maybe get it to work off of a DC circuit ?
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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.
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Chris
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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.