Off and running... again...

Time to get serious. Like *really* serious about having some fun with roasting.

A trip to one of the local Marden's netted some cool stuff... a 14" portable charcoal grill and a Bionaire BCH4138 "triple ceramic" heater.

I didn't think to grab the camera until after I started dissembling the heater, but quickly got caught up.

Our Bionaire looks a lot like this one (this is the -U model, which has an LCD display on the top.. ours has LED indicators).

After a little tinkering, I figured out that the "safety switch" wasn't working properly, so I disconnected it and hooked the wires together. Started right up. The fan seems to push a decent amount of air, which I am going to attempt to work into the design somehow, and the elements heated right up. According to my measurements (which I still don't know if I'm doing right with my multimeter), the elements got *really* hot. Like 1900 degrees hot. Nice. Now I have to keep the heat moving away from the elements.

For giggles, I checked the AC voltage on the elements. On the "low" setting, they were reading between 68-70 VAC. I clicked the unit onto "high" and they were reading 115-118 VAC. This is inspiring, since I'm assuming I will be able to use a simple dimmer switch (for now) to control the heat.

The 14" portable charcoal grill is just that. Not fancy, not high quality (what do you expect for $5?), but it will work. I'm going to be removing the "drip pan" from the legs and fashioning the legs with some aluminum (if I have any) panels to hold switches, etc., as well as to give the roaster more stability. Now that I have the parts (and a bread machine available if I want it), I need to figure out the *best* way to do all this. I'm leaning way towards a drum roaster with this, pushing the hot air up through the drum with the fan.

The super-awesomeness of this whole thing is the fact that the way it's coming together, I'm sure it will get PID'd at some point, assuming this thing even works...



...to be continued...