Electric Pancake Maker as Hotplate - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: TimCambridge
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2020, 01:45:28 pm
content: Pancake Tuesday has come and gone and electric pancake makers are on sale. They are consumer priced and the various models seem to go up to between 230C and 250C.Can one of these gadgets be used as a cheap hotplate if a thermocouple is used to monitor the temperature?

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2020, 02:31:33 pm
content: Hotplate for what?It will probably work as a board preheater, but if you are working on smaller boards, the large hot surface is a safety issue.Skillet reflow - possibly, if it gets hot enough. SnPb is more likely to succeed than Pb-free.

author: TimCambridge
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2020, 03:26:14 pm
content: Quote from: Ian.M on March 05, 2020, 02:31:33 pmIt was a slightly whimsical post though there are so many ingenious people on eevblog, I was wondering if anyone has tried this one. But a preheater for sure, maybe an emergency reflow heater.

author: thinkfat
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 05, 2020, 03:39:47 pm
content: Friend of mine converted a flattening iron for PCB reflow. Mounted upside down it worked rather nicely.

author: strayelectron
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: March 08, 2020, 05:59:10 am
content: I think this question belongs with the "can I cook a personal sized pizza on my heated 3D printer bed?" question

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2020, 06:24:53 am
content: Hmm . . . . Apart from sliced vegetables, there isn't much on a typical commercial pizza that couldn't be 3D printed given a number of appropriate extruder heads to handle the dough, sauce, cheese and mystery meat!

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 08, 2020, 08:44:52 am
content: Don't forget the mystery cheese.

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2020, 10:23:42 am
content: There's no mystery: outside of Italy, 99% of pizza cheese is already extruded plastic pseudo-dairy product!

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 08, 2020, 10:39:09 am
content: Yes, some worse than others. I just left a damning review for a restaurant that had the audacity to serve that crap up in a salad. It tasted like flour and water. Someone forgot to take the name "mozzarella" with a pinch of salt.

author: emsnickw
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2020, 01:42:02 am
content: You've inspired me!

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2020, 07:56:35 am
content: Hopefully not. The world does not need DIY extruded psuedo-pizza.OTOH a robotic real Pizza assembly line, complete with an automated wood fired oven burning pelletized hardwood would be a truly worthy project and EEVbloggers would come from many miles around to assist you as taste testers. Heck, they'd probably even bring the beer!Hmm, back to the original topic (or close to it), I wonder if anyone has ever done wood-fired PCB reflow successfully?

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2020, 07:59:57 am
content: Quote from: Ian.M on March 05, 2020, 02:31:33 pmA hotplate is pretty much essential for reworking aluminium PCBs

author: Shock
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2020, 10:37:38 am
content: For hotplate (rather than oven) reflow this one with a fan cool down cycle seems one of the better solutions for small pcbs. I've seen some with better heat distribution but you need a balance of reasonably fast heating, even heat distribution and cooling all at the same time. At least if you want to get close to a proper reflow profile and be somewhat automated.