Patent ID: 6943321

Claim:
A convection oven, comprising: (a) an oven chamber having an oven cavity containing a convecting gas; (b) at least two horizontally adjacent blowers mounted to an inner wall of the oven cavity and operable to force the convecting gas to circulate through the oven cavity in a substantially horizontal plane; (c) a temperature probe for measuring the temperature of the convecting gas in the oven cavity; (d) a temperature selector providing a temperature selector input; (e) a mode selector providing a mode selector input; (f) at least two heating elements for heating the convecting gas blown by the blowers, wherein each element is mounted in the exhaust path of one of the blowers; and (g) a controller for controlling the at least two horizontally adjacent blowers and the at least two heating elements to achieve an operating temperature and mode as determined by the temperature selector and mode selector, wherein the controller is responsive to the temperature selector input, the mode selector input, and the temperature of the convecting gas as measured by the temperature probe; wherein the oven chamber includes a door for accessing the oven cavity, and wherein the door is on a wall of the oven cavity opposite the blowers; and further comprising a baffle mounted to an inner wall of the oven cavity for controlling fluid communication between each of the two blowers and the oven cavity, wherein the baffle includes apertures distributed to the left and right of each blower so that the airflow exhausted radially from each blower enters the oven cavity therefrom, and the apertures being also distributed centrally around the rotational axis of each blower so that each blower may intake airflow from the oven cavity.