Induction hobs..... some of the new ones look amazing.

[Rusty Nails]

Did they specify what 'too close' meant? That would seem to be pertinent, possibly critical, information !

With the pacemaker not closer than a couple of feet and certainly not leaning over it.

 

[Sea of vapours]

With the pacemaker not closer than a couple of feet and certainly not leaning over it.

Not overly problematic then :-)

 

[Rusty Nails]

Not overly problematic then :-)

Luckily, I'm not about to find out.

 

[Electric_Andy]

we have a Neff one. It's the best I've ever used. Boils quicker than gas, cools down very quickly, has a timer for each plate, easy to clean. only down side is it beeps and won't work if you get the controls wet

 

[Yellow Saddle]

we have a Neff one. It's the best I've ever used. Boils quicker than gas, cools down very quickly, has a timer for each plate, easy to clean. only down side is it beeps and won't work if you get the controls wet

The only way it can cool down very quickly (quicker than a halogen) is if it has a fan under the glass to cool the induction coil. Is there a whirring noise after turning it off?

 

[Electric_Andy]

The only way it can cool down very quickly (quicker than a halogen) is if it has a fan under the glass to cool the induction coil. Is there a whirring noise after turning it off?

not my experience. the inductions stop boiling as soon as you turn them off. The halogen ones take several minutes. unless I've always used knackered halogens

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

The are all that. The system is an on/of system with no variance. Variance is simulated by on/off intervals.

The holy grail of an induction hob has yet to be made. This would be a hob controlled with a set of old-fashioned knobs attched to an umbilical so that the knobs can be placed anywhere you like around the hob.

The virtual slider system is rubbish. My fingers don't work well with them.

The closest to what I'm after is Samsung's system that uses a little magnetic dongle to control the hob - like a mouse. In myu view, nothing beats a knob per plate.

Thanks - I suspected they worked like that but was not sure - nice to know.

As far as the controls are concerned - they are touch sensitive but no sliders - you just tap it to increase from 1 to 9

It does go a bit hay-wire if it gets wet - which is a problem if something boils over - but a quick wipe sorts it out

 

[gbb]

While my wife was in hospital Christmas day, our Son In Law cooked Xmas dinner at ours while I was visiting.
Apparently he proclaimedwhile cooking to our daughter, his wife...'we're getting one of these they're brilliant '
He loved the control. Ours in a traditional double oven freestanding cooker with the usual four induction rings.

 

[Profpointy]

We swapped to induction when the kitchen was redone a year or two ago

It is very quick - ours has 9 settings and 9 starts it boiling quicker than the old gas one did
The lowest setting normally keeps things hot - near boiling - OK
but you do have to keep a closer eye on things as it often seems to operate on a basis of
full blast all the time at level 9 then it is teh time at full power hat drops rather than the power
so 3 will boil it for a second then drop right down for a while - then go on again
1 and 2 are just the same but on for less time and a bigger gap between "full blast" intervals

which can easily make things catch if you are not careful

I've had that in holiday lets. Trying to cook a steak when it sizzles for 20 seconds
the. turns off for 20seconds the back to full blast. It would put me right off getting one. Basically only any good for gentle cooking but not real heat. Some halogen hobs do this too.

 

[Electric_Andy]

I always thought that induction hobs used spinning magnets to create a kind of non-contact friction, and therefore heat. So when the magent spins slower, less heat, so it is variable and not just on/off in varied bursts like a microwave. But the YT video I watched could have been wrong. Anyway, ours is extremely good (was there when we moved in) - and looking it up it's £400 odd. The cheaper ones may well be not as good.

I was also chatting to a chef in the pub and he said they have a long induction work surface, so if you move pans to the left they will gemtly simmer, but move them all the way to the right and it's full heat. That's a very clever way of doing it for commercial applications

 

[Tenkaykev]

I always thought that induction hobs used spinning magnets to create a kind of non-contact friction, and therefore heat. So when the magent spins slower, less heat, so it is variable and not just on/off in varied bursts like a microwave. But the YT video I watched could have been wrong. Anyway, ours is extremely good (was there when we moved in) - and looking it up it's £400 odd. The cheaper ones may well be not as good.

I was also chatting to a chef in the pub and he said they have a long induction work surface, so if you move pans to the left they will gemtly simmer, but move them all the way to the right and it's full heat. That's a very clever way of doing it for commercial applications

Our Bosch cycles on and off. I part filled a pan that needed cleaning and put the induction heater on " Full Ahead Captain " mode. As I was stood next to it watching I could hear a very faint hum starting and stopping at short but regular intervals. I expect that the temperature control is just the variation of the off/ on ratio. Our Air Fryer works on the same principal, the energy monitoring plug that I connected it to showed a distinct cycling on / off once it was up to temperature which makes sense for temperature regulation, gas ovens do the same by varying the flame.

 

[Sea of vapours]

I always thought that induction hobs used spinning magnets to create a kind of non-contact friction, and therefore heat.

From Wikipedia:
Below each cooking position there is a coil copper wire with an alternating electric current passing through it. The resulting oscillating magnetic field induces an electrical current in the metal bottom of the cookware, which produces heat by flowing through resistance.

 

[presta]

Our Bosch cycles on and off. I part filled a pan that needed cleaning and put the induction heater on " Full Ahead Captain " mode. As I was stood next to it watching I could hear a very faint hum starting and stopping at short but regular intervals. I expect that the temperature control is just the variation of the off/ on ratio.

Most appliances do, cookers, microwaves, fridges, freezers etc, because it's much simpler and cheaper to to switch a fixed power on and off than to make the power variable. Duty cycle control relies on the thermal inertia of the load to smooth out the cyclic variation in power: it takes time to warm up when it comes on, and time to cool when it goes off. There's nothing wrong with it per se, but it requires that the cycling rate is fast enough for the smallest load with the least inertia, if the temperature variations are excessive it just needs to cycle faster so that the temperature has less time to change.

My cooker with the old style resistive spiral rings has duty cycle control from a bimetallic switch like the flasher units for car indicators. It's a bit slow, and the temperature varies a bit much, but the cooker I had before was faster and that was fine.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Bear in mind that some induction hobs work of a standard plug
other - normally more expensive - have to be wired in because they use too many electrons when they are on full blast

The plug based ones use much less power - but to do that they compromise on how much they heat the pans
especially if more than one is in use at once

 

[Yellow Saddle]

Most appliances do, cookers, microwaves, fridges, freezers etc, because it's much simpler and cheaper to to switch a fixed power on and off than to make the power variable. Duty cycle control relies on the thermal inertia of the load to smooth out the cyclic variation in power: it takes time to warm up when it comes on, and time to cool when it goes off. There's nothing wrong with it per se, but it requires that the cycling rate is fast enough for the smallest load with the least inertia, if the temperature variations are excessive it just needs to cycle faster so that the temperature has less time to change.

My cooker with the old style resistive spiral rings has duty cycle control from a bimetallic switch like the flasher units for car indicators. It's a bit slow, and the temperature varies a bit much, but the cooker I had before was faster and that was fine.

Nice explanation. The thermal mass of the cookware can make a difference too. Consider the difference between a thin aluminium pan and a cast iron skillet. The latter will show less cycling than the former. *

* Yes I know alu pans won't work on induction hobs.