Slicer Recommendations


 
Heat gun--I remember some suggested putting it in an oven (temp?) for x hours. A heat gun could conceivably melt it. FWIW, what model of Bosch stove are we talking about.

Also, confirm what is/is not happening. Is it that the LED's won't light at all (thereby not being able to see/set the time, turn oven on, etc? Any error messages?

I only ask because that was my issue that I found a solution for (not the breaker way--that was the first method I tried that worked for me--there is a 2nd way that I didn't need to try).

And yes, that c.b. ("display control board" is what it's called?? Not the touch pad.) is directly above the vents that allow heat to escape from the oven. Really really stupid design. Same as mine--g.e. profile dual fuel.

I found this (not that you need it but it might help):
http://www.tascanada.com/bosch-cooktop-error-codes/
 
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I worked in manufacturing IT supporting electronics fab for a few years..... I'm not about to attempt making my own reflow oven, and certainly not out of a heat gun. For that matter, reflow ovens are generally for surface mount, and based on your description of the environment, sounds more like through-hole components which could probably just be touched up with a small iron. Unfortunately, it sounds like the board might be in somewhat less than desirable condition now.
 
Len, It's a Bosch HDS256U/01. Overall a nice stove DEFINITELY not a $2k stove though (which is what these costed new). The issue(s) have been going on for some time and came to a head a couple days ago. I began noticing slow or no pre-heat on convection setting. Thinking it may have been my error I would simply go to conventional setting and heat up would continue. Recently my wife who is the baker began noticing sometimes her cookies or cakes would scorch. Thinking it was her bakeware she would get a different type and then she might have no issue(s) then it would happen again so she would think perhaps she did something wrong in her mix. Recently I was trying to "reflow" the video card from my laptop. This requires pretty exact heat 385 to 390 to not damage things more. I hung a thermocouple in the oven set my temp and was amazed that it would climb WELL past 390 well into 420+ before it would cut off. It would than not re-heat until it dropped to 280 or so. Not a recipe for good eats. I went through all the proper troubleshooting (sensors, etc.) and found the convection element burned out. I ordered it but then began wondering as to why this one (out of 3) elements would cause so much issue. I spoke to a tech support specialist who informed me 2 things cause this on the Bosch ovens. Thermal sensor or circuit board(s). Again I tested the thermistors and found both perfect. Bottom line only thing left was the board. Which I almost fainted when I saw the price. At this point being that I don't like the stove very much (stupid burner placements and layouts) and even if I bought the new parts I would be laying out WELL over $600 for an 11 yo stove I don't like I just could not bring myself to do it. Plus there is one more relay box that is in the mix I cannot test due to the stove not working and who knows what that would cost. Also that I NEEDED the stove for holiday stuff no question it had to be replaced. So I shot it in the head to put it out of it's misery :) and the LG should be here Saturday.
Please understand Len I may have retired from the airline industry (former flight attendant and CS agent) but I came from a VERY technical background having been a technical trainer for many years for a MAJOR equipment maker. I do know my way around (hence why I now run my little mixer business)
Have a great holiday
 
Ya, definitely not what my issues were/are. And, I found that c.b. Agree it's nuts to spend that kind of cash. Built in obsolescence. 11 years sure go by fast though. Good luck with your new acquisition.
 
LMichaels said:
I hung a thermocouple in the oven set my temp and was amazed that it would climb WELL past 390 well into 420+ before it would cut off. It would than not re-heat until it dropped to 280 or so.
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There's a fairly recent thread around here somewhere in which I describe testing the accuracy of my oven. I got the same wild swings you describe, though only on the first cycle. Subsequent cycles became less severe until it stayed in a reasonable +/-20F range. If the temps you describe are for the first cycle, I suspect they're fairly normal. What I took away was that if I cared about the oven being reasonably close to the set temperature I needed to start preheating about an hour before I put the food in.

Clearly a moot point as far as the old oven goes, but you might want to chart the temp on the new over to get an idea how it performs.
 
Here is my take on it. If the "pre-heat" cycle completes at whatever temp say 350 then the oven should stay relatively close to 350 from the start of that point to the end when you turn it off and IMO if it can't it will go back. Otherwise the preheat cycle should include time for stabilization. While I would expect a slightly wider swing on that first cycle 100+ degrees is beyond acceptable no matter what. Heck even 50 degrees will send that oven back to the store.
Bruce I think that Silver I just bought will fit. I keep forgetting to stop at Menard's for an LP regulator so I can use it as a full size garage grill for the winter months. Typically for me my deck grills sit all winter and the garage grill(s) get the work load. So currently it will be my Q220 (which I have been using a lot as of late) and once I get that little Silver B up and going on LP.
 
My oven is old. "Preheat" involves turning the dial to the desired temp and waiting until you think it's stable. Even with a newer digital oven, you're still going to have the issue of the air inside the oven heating a lot faster than the metal mass of the oven. My old oven is seriously lacking in insulation so it eventually heats most of the mass of the stove, but even a well-insulated oven eventually heats the metal walls of the oven. They will be slower to come up to temperature and could make it difficult for the oven to maintain temp without quickly cycling the heating element. There seems to be a design goal of minimizing the on/off cycles. My oven becomes quite stable once the thermocouple is reading in the right range and the body of the stove has heated up, but that takes more than an hour.

On a related note, I've long wondered why electric ovens work in the on/off fashion that they do rather then moderating the flow of electricity to maintain a more even temperature. I suppose long ago it would have been much cheaper to use a fairly simple relay, but with today's technology I would think it not that much more expensive to adjust the electrical flow to have the element provide a more gentle "maintenance" heat level. Of course, since the newest of the stoves I use on a regular basis is about 30 years old this may well be the case and I'm simply not aware of it.
 
Funny how a forum on gas grills has a thread about meat slicers which turns into a thread about home ovens and eventually gets moved to the Kitchen Equipment section. How fun is that? :D
 
Actually Bruce what might be more funny is we are still following the thread.

Larry, I have an Electrolux dual fuel and I wish it had only been 2k new it was 2600 no discounting allowed on that brand it still works perfectly but a year ago some of the digital readouts can't be read think one number so they are not immune to problems either but for now its not an issue.

For those who are wondering why the heck do you need a dual fuel sounds like Larry's wife is a big baker and so is mine makes wedding cakes here and there as well as everything else that can be baked. An electric oven is superior for baking cakes, cookies and whatnot. A gas oven is better for meats due to moisture that a gas oven creates. I have plenty of hobbies eating cash so I actually bought this for her when we remodeled the kitchen because we wanted the gas cooktop but the electric oven was the key.

Brian
 
My main reason for dual fuel was safety. Our previous oven was gas and it would do weird things like ignite WELL after gas had turned on and then ignite with a scary whoosh. Also among other things the door fell off (this was not a cheap oven BTW) as for how electric ovens modulate ours (when it was working) did not just on/off it would modulate how hot the elements got. It was also more stable.
Re. Electrolux/Frigidaire after going around with them on my Electrolux dishwasher and most recently having been dumb enough to buy a Frigidaire refrigerator never never never again. Over priced made in China poor quality. They even had the nerve to tell me that the reason the new fridge I bought did not work because my house was too cold for it. Thanks heavens Best Buy stood by me, took that piece of s&*t back and replaced it with a Whirlpool. Two Frigidaires would that the food in the freezer and freed the food in the fridge. The only good thing they did for me was they replaced all the food I lost. Another company that sold it's soul.
I only hope this new LG does well.
 
Brian, a moist environment is desirable for some breads, at least.

LMichaels, if I'd have heard that, I'd have been on the horn with the dealer and the manufacturer.... "this needs to be fixed ASAP..... it's a huge safety issue, something is clearly not right." There's no reason to ever, ever, put up with that. I'd have no problems doing whatever I could to get that on the 6 o'clock news if if wasn't fixed. I'd bet that the igniter or the orifice wasn't aligned right.

Frigidaire is pretty much on my $hit list right now, I'm pretty sure my email address has been sold off (after a stove purchase a years & a half ago) and my inbox is now getting filled up daily by lowlife spammers, and all originating from a single system. Just about time to go resurrect some ancient *ix procmail stuff.
 
LMichaels, one other thing..... looking up your stove online and snooping on circuit boards, there are a few places that purport to offer the control board at around half the price..... but it looks like it's without the relay board. And the relay boards are also available on their own, for about the same price.
 
J, my wife does not bake bread for what she does it works. It was not a safety issue like Larry said and mine is before the time when they got acquired if that is the case. Did not know that.

As Rich says happy wife, happy life. Doing wedding cakes, graduation cakes brownies cookies that is what she wanted she swears by the electric oven me I got no clue it was a painful purchase but I get no flack rebuilding a Weber so all good to me. Plus I love my beer and wine and I still smoke not much but that oven was cheap compared to what I spend.

Happy Holidays to all.
 
JKalchik said:
LMichaels, one other thing..... looking up your stove online and snooping on circuit boards, there are a few places that purport to offer the control board at around half the price..... but it looks like it's without the relay board. And the relay boards are also available on their own, for about the same price.
Click to expand...

If there were I could not find them. I did exhaustive searches and while I did find a couple used ones brand new $515 plus tax and shipping were the cheapest I could find it and only matched with the control PCB (inside the panel) and I think for good reason. Since they need to be matched to perform best perhaps or because a failure in one can cause or exacerbate a problem in another. In any case what with it being a soon 12 yo stove with a cook top I never enjoyed using I could not see spending the close to $600 on PCBs and another $55 on the heating element. Not to mention my wife has been assigned cookie mission for the Christmas holiday and I have a standing rib roast to roast in it on Monday. No time or motivation to be trying to sweat out getting parts, will they do the job, I still hate the cooktop, etc. So I felt throwing $$$ at it was just not in the cards.
Re, the other issue I had YEARS ago with my old stove. What's the point of complaining on something so far out of warranty? The door hinge on one side had already failed and you had to hold the door up to open it or close it. Enough was enough and besides I found this Bosch through a wholesaler online at EBay for a fraction of retail which was well over $2k and in the stores was close to $2k. I got it brand new crate shipped to my driveway for $750! At that time and for what I needed it went well.
Anyway the LG should be here tomorrow PM. Excited? No. It's and appliance I need to buy not want to buy. I think I will be happier with the cooktop though LOL
 
Hrrrm...

The house that my g/f & I bought 8 years ago had a ceramic top electric stove. I grew up cooking on gas, and once I went to college, I ended up on electric for the next 25+ years. The house was/is stubbed out for a gas stove. We've been talking about a gas stove ever since we bought the house, and this is the least objectionable electric stove I've ever used (and always seems like there's something better to spend money on.) G/f finally got me to look at a Frigidaire Pro gas stove, 5 burners, convection oven, really not a lot of bells & whistles for under $800. Only a couple of minor issues, one of which was taken care of fairly promptly after purchase (burner control valve replacement.)

Now..... back to slicers..... Love to have one. Just don't have enough use for one, and really not enough storage for one.
 
Another vote for the Chef’s Choice 615. I had a $70 special for years and while functional, those units are a pain to use and a horrible pain to clean. They don't hold the thickness setting and the plastic pieces flex and break.

I just got done slicing a whole (semi frozen) ribeye into shavings for Cheesesteak and 1/8" slices for Bulgogi. At each setting the slices remained uniform unlike my previous slicer. It took around 20 minutes to slice and only around 10 to clean the slicer. They come apart easily without having to undo any screws and there aren't any little crannies that the meat can hide in. The other thing I haven't seen mentioned is the length of "throw" on different slicers. The cheap ones will handle around 5-6" wide slabs but the 615 handles nearly 11" slabs of bacon.
 
Before I was able to latch onto a (used, circa 1945) Hobart 1512, all my research pointed me to the 615. That would be my goto choice for home use if I were buying new. Also, the non-serrated (ie smooth not wavy) blade.
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Apparently there is a newer version out:
Chef's Choice 665 Professional Electric Food Slicer, Gray that replaces the 615. So the 615 will be the cheaper option ;)
 
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Just purchased a chefs choice 610 with both blades off craigslist. It was new for 30 bux. Hope im gonna like it. Its build qualitsy seems good and appears to be ez to clean. Ive been wanting one for a while now. Im excited😀
 
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