International Appliance Manufacturing 2008 - (Page 56) The Searmaster II grill from TEC uses infrared energy to cook the food. This image shows the cooking grate and the glass panel emitter that emits 100 percent infrared energy. make a splash in the market when it does. The patented cooktop features trivets and a gas burner that rises and lowers through the glass cooktop. The pan supports and the burners retract flush into the ceramic glass surface. A push of a knob “wakes” the appliance and lifts the pan supports into place while a turn of the dial instantly ignites the burner. The support pins, which can be removed for cleaning, have seals around them to ensure that spills won’t leak into the pan support cavities. The company has not released much information about the system, but Scott Davies, product manager for Project Luna, says that it uses a fast, hot-surface ignition system for the burners that delivers near instantaneous flame. The cooktop comes with three of company’s patented Aero burners, which are independently operated with linear flame control. According to the company, the Aero burners mix fan-forced air at lower temperatures to reduce peak temperatures for simmering and help ensure even heat distribution. It can be used in its higher settings for wok stir-frying and in lower settings can melt chocolate in a pan without scorching. According to Davies, the Aero burner started with two design criteria. One was to operate over a full cooking range from simmer to boiling. The second was to deliver heat efficiently, which translates to fast boil times for the user. He adds that the designers wanted to avoid the uneven heating that can be the result of burners when different sections are turned off to achieve a low turndown. The Aero, he says, refers to the fact that the Luna cooktop has a “fan pressurized basepan to ensure good combustion over a wide operating range,” he says. The cooktop is a frameless black ceramic glass that measures 900 mm by 410 mm, making it long, but not wide. Unlike most conventional 36-in. cooktops that have four or five burners, the Luna cooktop uses only three gas cooking burners. Company research determined that, during normal cooktop use, respondents used an average of only 2.1 burners at one time. The cooktop features both audio and visual feedback to the users. Davies says the company considered using touch controls for Project Luna, but wanted consumers to have the “intuitive control of a knob.” He adds that the knobs provide a tactile feedback that people associate with high-end stereos. The knobs produce a tactile “click” for each increment in burner power. “At the same time this is visually displayed with a bar graph of LEDs to show the set temperature,” he says. “Feedback is provided through a proper loudspeaker, not a piezo ‘squawker,’ using custom designed tones to confirm the users actions.” The device has been showcased at a couple of industry trade shows, but is not yet ready for the market. Davies says that the product is currently undergoing the CSA, EU and Australasian approvals process. Intense infrared The powers of infrared energy are well known, but few have harnessed such power as deftly as Thermal Engineering Corp. (TEC) of Columbia, S.C., which makes This cut away shows the stainless steel burner, radiant emitter panel, and the cooking grid. 56 International Appliance Manufacturing 2008
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