I received my Oven Tamer a few days ago and yesterday I had an opportunity to use it. The instructions were pretty straight forward and it was up and running in a matter of minutes. I let it stabilize at 200ºF before putting in a 2x2.5x5" block and let it "cook" for 2 hours. These are my observations:
1. As expected on start-up, the oven comes on "full tilt" until it reaches about 195º before it start's throttling. Because it starts to pull back so late, it has a tendency to "overshoot" the target temp to 15-20º. This was pretty consistent through several on-off cycles. I think it is important to allow the oven to reach a steady state before putting in the blocks in for curing.
2. When I opened the door, to put the block in, the temp dropped about 10-12º. The temperature control immediately tried to bring up the temp to 200, but overshot by about 10º then came back. I understand the phenomena since the heating element is much hotter than the what the control reads, and it takes time for it to cool back to a point where the temp stabilizes. I intend to look at the Mypin control manual to see if there is a way to change the "throttle back" point a bit sooner so the overshoot isn't as extreme.
3. I did notice that there was very little bleed out during the two hour curing session. This is what I was hoping for. I have another block to test this out later today. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
4. One issue I see is that the thermocouple wire doesn't not allow the door to completely close which will cause more heat to escape from the oven. I'm planning to cut a small slot in the edge of the glass door to allow it to completely close
5. Product is well made with a 110V power cable that is definitely "industrial strength"
6. The Mypin temperature controller has been around quite a long time and is frequently used to control the temp of electric food smokers, and other low amperage thermal devices; it is a well know electronic component.
Summary: Really does the job well! The issues are minor and after reading the manual there may be some "tweaks" for the overswing I observed.
My comments: Thanks for the feedback! Make sure you have autotuned the Oven Tamer for your oven which I am sure you did. Auto Tuning is just like any other automatic calibration routine...it gets it close but is not perfect every time. There are entire books on the subject of tuning PIDs. You can certainly go into the setup and adjust the parameters to reduce the overshot without any issue. I can provide guidance for those interested. The thermocouple wire on all three of my toaster ovens do not prevent the door from closing at all. There are fixed thermocouples available on e-Bay where you can drill a hole in the oven and permanently mount it. I choose to not go this route since it was looking for simplicity and ease of moving from one oven to another. Again, thanks for the comments!