Author Topic: Christmas lunch saved courtesy of Messrs Packard and Hewlett  (Read 857 times)

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Online tggzzzTopic starter

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Christmas lunch saved courtesy of Messrs Packard and Hewlett
« on: December 27, 2022, 09:52:56 pm »
For reasons that are too involved and boring to recount, shortly before Christmas I was faced with having to cook my Christmas feast in a mini oven measuring 28*19*11cm. The 11cm high is the limiting dimension, since the only things less high than that are snacks rather than feasts. Pigeons, quails, baby chickens would all fit, but even a guinea fowl is too high.

Looking at the oven, there was little that could be done about the width and length, but the clearance between the lower heating elements and the tray was larger than necessary. So three days before Christmas, I was looking through my treasure hoard to find a way of making a shelf lower than the tray.

Now a few years ago I bought an HP5371A frequency and time analyser from a well-known barn in the middle of England. When I got it, it took only 30mins to decide that the chance of it working again was infinitesimally greater than zero. So I stripped it down into its metal panels and struts, plus it's 10811 OCXO (thus ensuring I didn't actually lose money.

So it came to pass that I found that one of the metal panels was ideal, even having 3mm nuts peened into it. Amazingly I also found four long 3mms bolts in my hoard, so everything was remarkably easy: two cuts and that was it.

Surprisingly two days before Christmas I also found a brace of pheasants in a low-end "when it is gone, it is gone" supermarket, so that was the meat sorted.

Since stories like this are nothing without pictures, there's one below. It was taken on Boxing Day, and shows how the HP5371's carcass supported the pheasants' carcasses, with maximal headroom.

It all worked surprisingly well; Christmas was saved :)
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Offline HwAoRrDk

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Re: Christmas lunch saved courtesy of Messrs Packard and Hewlett
« Reply #1 on: December 28, 2022, 12:29:31 pm »
Next up: cooking a christmas turkey in a reflow oven.

Just need to select the appropriate reflow profile:

> Leaded Sn60Pb40
> Lead-free SAC305
> Norfolk Black 6.0kg << [Select]


:)
 
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Online NiHaoMike

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Re: Christmas lunch saved courtesy of Messrs Packard and Hewlett
« Reply #2 on: December 28, 2022, 01:09:43 pm »
Install a power diode in series with the lower element to cut the power in half, then you can use an even smaller spacing.
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Online AndyC_772

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Re: Christmas lunch saved courtesy of Messrs Packard and Hewlett
« Reply #3 on: December 28, 2022, 02:32:10 pm »
Can't believe I'm the only one that's contemplated programming a profile into an environmental test chamber... start at -20C, stay at that temperature until 23rd @ 8am, ramp slowly up to +20C by 10am on 25th, then +200 for 30 min, 160 for 4 hrs, then 220 for 30 min, then power off.

Offline nfmax

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Re: Christmas lunch saved courtesy of Messrs Packard and Hewlett
« Reply #4 on: December 28, 2022, 02:47:19 pm »
That would be the Option 022 festive meal, I think (omit turkey, add pheasant, add second channel) 😉
 


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