Stainless Steel Heat Diffusers for Dry Baking

Dan, do you have a link detailing how these are used?

Dan, could you please confirm the SS  mesh type is the same for the discs and the square piece?.  Looks a bit different on the picture.

The square is made of nichrome wire.

Nichrome is used in a very wide variety of devices where electric heating is required.

Almost any conductive wire can be used for heating, but most metals will be rapidly oxidized when heated in air. When heated to red hot temperatures, nichrome wire develops an outer layer of <span style=”color: #0066cc;”>chromium oxide</span>,<sup id=”cite_ref-1″ class=”reference”><span style=”color: #0066cc; font-size: small;”>[1]</span></sup> thermodynamically stable in air, mostly impervious to oxygen, and protects the heating element from further oxidation.

Nichrome is used in the <span style=”color: #0066cc;”>explosives</span> and <span style=”color: #0066cc;”>fireworks</span> industry as a <span style=”color: #0066cc;”>bridgewire</span> in electric ignition systems, such as <span style=”color: #0066cc;”>electric matches</span> and <span style=”color: #0066cc;”>model rocket</span> igniters.

Industrial and hobby <span style=”color: #0066cc;”>hot-wire foam cutters</span> use nichrome wire.

Nichrome wire is commonly used in <span style=”color: #0066cc;”>ceramic</span> as an internal support structure to help some elements of <span style=”color: #0066cc;”>clay</span> sculptures hold their shape while they are still soft. Nichrome wire is used for its ability to withstand the high temperatures that occur when clay work is fired in a <span style=”color: #0066cc;”>kiln</span>.

Nichrome wire can be used as an alternative to <span style=”color: #0066cc;”>platinum</span> wire for <span style=”color: #0066cc;”>flame testing</span> by colouring the non-luminous part of a flame to detect <span style=”color: #0066cc;”>cations</span> such as sodium, potassium, copper, calcium etc.

Other areas of usage include motorcycle <span style=”color: #0066cc;”>mufflers</span>, in certain areas in the microbiological lab apparatus, as the heating element of plastic extruders by the <span style=”color: #0066cc;”>RepRap</span> 3D printing community, in the solar panel deployment mechanism of spacecraft <span style=”color: #0066cc;”>LightSail-A</span>, as the heating coils of <span style=”color: #0066cc;”>electronic cigarettes</span>.

dk, I don’t have any links for you. Maybe later.

A video of some tests:

Interesting.  Any idea on how much is the “thermal feedback” in each of those options?  if you had a kitchen thermometer and put the probe on top of the gas canister I wonder if you could measure the thermal feedback objectively.

The top of canister is definitely getting warm during the tests.

I’ll see what kind of thermal tester I can come up with. I know I have an infra red gun around somewhere. It’s easy to lose kitchen thermometers in my workshop :)

The kitchen thermometer works well to assess “thermal feedback”. I just tried it using a MSR pocket rocket stove and a evernew UL 0.9L pot. When you set the pot on the stove it raises the temp on top of the gas canister to 78F and 2 cups of water reached a rolling boil in about 2 minutes.

Then I tried a DIY diffuser I made from a can lid with some holes on it. The diameter of the lid is slightly smaller than the diameter of the imaginary circle where the pot sit on the stove so it the difusser does not touch the pot (there was about 0.25” gap between the bottom of the pot bottom and the diffuser)

I took measurements again and this time, using the diffuser, the temp on top of gas canister got much warmer (raised to 107F) and 2 cups of water reached rolling boil in 4 minutes.

I would imagine all your diffusers would provide better results?. Your corrugated disk should channel some of the heat to the sides not back down (and if you are using a cone type of windshield, on an alcohol stove, up to the sides of the pot) and your mesh diffuser should let more of the heat to go thru and not back down. Looks they do also a nice job spreading the flame wider too so this may be beneficial in wider pots?

Looking forward to what numbers you come up with.

Cheers

I like the 2 layer mesh disc so I did the test with it first. Temps at the canister radius rim gets warm and stays pretty constant. The base of the canister stays pretty cool. I had to move the infra red temp tester back away from the canister to get an accurate reading.

testing a new design