Cooking For Engineers

[Guest]

Love the site. I'm an engineer and the discussions here fit in line with my thought process, like Alton Brown's show.

So I found a countertop induction cooker at a thrift shop, tried it out at the store to make sure it quickly heated up an empty kettle. Now that I've used it a few times, it boils liquids just fine, but anything else it seems to overheat after a while and shuts down with an E2 code. That includes deep frying in an enameled cast iron, a cast iron griddle, and on a few occasions some liquid runoff which got burnt under the pot. I can sort of understand burnt liquid and griddle, but don't know why pot of oil would cause the shutdown since it's supposed to regulate the temp.

I'm wondering if the thermostat or whatever temp regulator is malfunctioning and if anyone knows how I can check it/fix it. One time I used an IR thermometer and found out the temp exceeded the preset temp and still rising. Is it suppose to regular temp based on the surface temp of the cooking vessel or some sort of electrical property? There are preset temperature buttons, 158F (warm), 212F, few more up to ~390F. It doesn't do simmer as I've read full size stoves are touting. Either full rolling boil or "warm." Was it just not a feature back then? Though the food doesn't seem to burn to the bottom (except when I tried to cook rice as an experiment. That pan is permanently blackened).

The unit is a Glowmaster GMI-2000 (over 10 years old). I have opened it up and there is nothing obviously wrong (no burnt circuits), broken connectors, etc. There is a spring loaded plate against the back of the cooking surface which I assume is a magnetic sensor or something to detect cookware material.

[Dilbert]

sorry so see no more definite ideas, but I think you're onto something:

if it doesn't work, it's broken.

most designs are intentionally "fail safe" - that is, if they fail, they do not permit high temperatures, only 'no' temperature. if the induction unit is set for "low" and it is going to blazing high and beyond, there's definitely a fault.

>>there is nothing obviously wrong
well, that is not a sound approach when dealing with solid state devices.
a few million trashed computers can attest . . .

[Blue Pilgrim]

Sounds like the thermostat is bustd -- stuck to on. The pot gets hot and the overheating shutdown kicks in.
I'd take apart, expecting I might see some gunk on the thermostat -- maybe there's enought here that it insulates the thermostat from the hot area so it 'never knows it's supposed to be getting hot'.