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Testing My Solar Oven.

Brandon — Sun, 22 May 2011 16:50:57 +0000

I have recently purchased a solar oven from Amazon.com. The oven is made in the good ol’ USA by Sun Ovens. The manual recommended that I heat a pot of soap and water before cooking anything in the oven so I thought that would be a great chance to test the oven out. It was an overcast day with the sun peaking out every 10 to 15 minutes and the outside temperature was 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

Soap, water and sun check!

As soon as I set the oven up the temperature jumped to 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Awesome! The time was 4:00 p.m.

4:15 p.m. 230 degrees Fahrenheit.

4:30 p.m. 240 degrees Fahrenheit.

Getting very steamy in there!

I had to open the oven to clean off the condensation in order to read the gauge which dropped the temperature back down to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. 5:00 p.m.

The sun was setting so I decided to follow it by tilting the oven towards the sun using the included stand.

Great feature of this oven is the built in adjustable stand.

Had to open it up to snap the picture due the condensation. 250 degrees Fahrenheit at 5:30 p.m.

The sun was setting behind some trees by 6:00 p.m. 220 degrees Fahrenheit.

I am guessing the reason the manual says to heat up a pan of soap and water is to disinfect the oven and it did get rid of the new car smell. My findings are thus: On an 80 degree day with overcast skies the oven will hold a temp close to 250 degrees Fahrenheit if you don’t open the door very often. What I have here is a free energy slow cooker in these conditions. Which is great because meat and chicken cooked all day slow is really tender and juicy! I also suspect the statements about the moist bake goods that come out of these ovens are true. The manual does recommend that you cover what you are cooking unless it is bake goods. It states you cook those just like you would in a conventional oven. The oven heated up to 150 degrees Fahrenheit very quickly so making noodle dishes or hot tea would be a snap in this little gem.

I am not sure if I could have built one myself for the price ($289). The time and the materials may have been more expensive with the cost of the metal used. I think I am going to enjoy using the oven and since my stove is an electric I hope to save on electricity bills this summer while I am running my A/C unit.

Brandonbonline.net is now brandonb.org

Brandon — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 20:22:46 +0000

I have moved brandonbonline.net to brandonb.org. Why? Brandonb.org rolls off the tongue a little better and is a shorter domain name. It is easier to remember in my opinion. Also, most people pronounced the old blog “brandon bon line.net”. And besides I had a coupon. :P

Robot festival in Tokyo

Brandon — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 05:05:43 +0000

An international robot exhibition in Tokyo showcases the changing face of robotics.

Full Reuters News Story here.

Microsoft Laptop Hunters Part III

Brandon — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:36:33 +0000

Again Microsoft is arguing that Macs are all about looks and are too expensive. The mother in the video says “these are way more expensive dude!” and the son comments on how small they are. Well, they only looked at one 13″ MacBook. They said they wanted speed. Was the MacBook Pro not voted the best computer to run windows Vista in 2007? Article here

Oh well, the more I go on the more I sound like a fanboy. But to me Microsoft needs better reasons to buy a Windows machine than they are cheaper.

Cebit Previews Future Tech

Brandon — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 21:24:42 +0000

Lots of great products at this years Cebit. I really love the robot that makes tea.

Reuters