Reflow Toaster Oven - Part 10 - Insulation

Yay! The thermal insulation blanket I ordered arrived today!

Cutting this stuff is fairly easy with a snap-off knife. The thickness is just about right (1 inch, 25mm) for the top.

Still have to get rid of the electrics here. That motor's gotta go as well.

Plenty of glass wool left. But I'll use that later, I'm not completely done yet.

Before insulating it I did a few test runs while logging the temperature. After insulating I repeated those tests.

Well, that's disappointing. A cold insulated oven (first run) actually performs worse than a pre-heated uninsulated oven :( It doesn't seem to matter much whether its insulated or not, weird...
But, what's more important is that the top of the oven no longer reaches 80 degrees C, but remains at a comfortable 35 degrees C. The uninsulated back of the oven on the other hand... Like I mentioned before, the back is just a thin piece of single layer sheet metal. It goes well beyond 200 degrees C; not something you'd want to touch. Also, the side of the oven where the electrics are stay below 40 degrees instead of 80. Not ideal yet but much better than before.

So what's next? I'd like to attach another piece of sheet metal to the back of the oven so I can add some insulation there. I need to strip all of the existing electrics and add some solid state relays. I also received the heat sinks for the relays this week, so I can finally make a more permanent installation. I'd like to install some thermocouples as well. I'm probably going to need a fan to cool the electronics, and I'd like a large slow fan in the oven to create a bit of airflow and help spread the heat more evenly.