I disassembled a bunch of old fusers out of laser printers, and found they have a halogen infra-red lamp installed in them. They heat up the fuser roller, and bond the toner to the paper when it is printed on . These are also found in copiers. Back when I was repairing computers and printers, I had a huge pile of old fusers out of HP II and HP III laser printers. They have a 8-inch long 500 watt halogen bulb in them.
Well, I had a bright idea (literally) several years back after I saw a demonstration of an infrared oven at a home show. They are using the exact identical heating technology that the laser printer uses...so why did it cost $2000! Well, I got home, disassembled an old toaster oven I had and removed the calrod heating elements and replaced them with the halogen lamps out of the laser printers.
It worked pretty darned good! It heated a little bit unevenly though, placing a cooked "stripe" in the center of the toast. I imagine 4 250 watt lamps would work better than the two 500 watt did. It did make some nice cookies and other small baked goods though with it switched to "bake" and running only the lower element. It was also MUCH faster than the calrod elements. The only odd thing was that you thought you were on a movie scene when the thing was running because the toaster gave off so much visible light!
Well, I had a bright idea (literally) several years back after I saw a demonstration of an infrared oven at a home show. They are using the exact identical heating technology that the laser printer uses...so why did it cost $2000! Well, I got home, disassembled an old toaster oven I had and removed the calrod heating elements and replaced them with the halogen lamps out of the laser printers.
It worked pretty darned good! It heated a little bit unevenly though, placing a cooked "stripe" in the center of the toast. I imagine 4 250 watt lamps would work better than the two 500 watt did. It did make some nice cookies and other small baked goods though with it switched to "bake" and running only the lower element. It was also MUCH faster than the calrod elements. The only odd thing was that you thought you were on a movie scene when the thing was running because the toaster gave off so much visible light!
