Cleaning the KKTO turbo oven

[borat123]

For anyone else who is silly enough to try and disassemble the TO...
(the usual disclaimer, I dont recommend you fiddle with 240V equipment. Or at least unplug it from the outlet first)

I had a peek through the plastic slits and could see what looked like a lunar landscape inside.... Mounds of sticky grey dust, almost like a hairy fungus covering everything. This stuff was even surviving a vac from the outside, after each roast.

Anyway, I removed fan #1, and soaked and scrubbed in cafetto, then took the element / glass & cover off to clean inside. The nut that holds the fan on is a reverse thread btw. There are three screws around the perimeter, about an inch long, that hold the glass, element etc.

Once inside, more of the same crud was cleaned out, and the inner fan was dark brown, with the centre black. More soaking and scrubbing.

I put it all back together, remembering that the inner fan sits under the spacer & mounts upside down, and the shaft for the (element relay?) has to be aligned with the temp control.

Now everything is back together & sparkling clean, and strangely enough it still works!

[Bean_Bear]

Re: Cleaning the KKTO turbo oven

I took my TO to bits to put a 10A heater relay inside, sounds like exactly the same innards as the one you have.

My TO wasn’t very gunged up yet , I’ve only done about 5kg of beans so far. The top of the inner fan was the only bit that was very dirty in mine, the oils must condense out on the coolest metal parts.

All the components in the one I have look to be of surprisingly good quality (for a cheap unit).

The bi-metal thermostat is well made, but sadly has too much hysteresis, the adjustment shaft is hollow, and has a small screw inside that allows you to adjust the set-point. If you adjust this be very carefull, overdo it and you will melt your unit (maybe even set it on fire).

All the spade connectors are very good quality and have locking pins on them so they can’t escape even if the heat does loosen them a little.

The wiring is a bit of a mess, most of the wire used looks to be OK, I don’t like the thin stuff they have used for the motor and the indicator neons, doesn’t look to be high enough voltage rated for the job (current should be ok).

Warning: If you don’t know what you are doing, do not take it apart, they didn’t put the “tamperproof” screws on the heat shield to protect their intellectual property!

BB

[borat123]

Re: Cleaning the KKTO turbo oven

The bi-metal thermostat is well made, but sadly has too much hysteresis,

I think the dead band on all these thermostats is way too wide, but it doesnt really matter as its much easier to use the oven mit method of temp adjustment than playing with the temp control.

Just lift the oven up on one side to burp it when the temp ramp gets too steep.  Its a very easy and accurate way of following the roast profile.  Ive found much better results with this method.

If you experiment with different roast batch sizes youll find a sweet spot for your roaster / temp probe position that will need minimal or no fiddling with the temp.   In my KKTO with the jaycar probe mounted on the bottom row of holes, its about 750gms.    

Youll know when the roast size is too big when the temp ramp is quite slow (say less than 10C/min) for the whole roast, with temp at max and no burping.