Another practical project: mounting plate

Made on a Glowforge
#1

I know you folks like to see practical projects. This is a DIY proofing box made out of a styrofoam cooler my sister sent me a ham in, a lizard heating mat, and a temperature controller I had laying around from when I was first trying out Sous vide before I got my Anova. Wanted to mount the controller on the side of the cooler but didn’t have any long screws that had the right head size. So I made a mounting plate from Draftboard:

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Here’s the controller mounted:

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On the inside, the screws I had were too long so I made Draftboard washers (3 stacked 1/8” pieces) that screwed onto the ends of the screws so I wouldn’t rake my arm on them.

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The box is maintaining a nice 82 degree temp.

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#2

Very innovative!! Can you create one that gets to -70 degrees so we can store more Covid vaccine :joy:

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#3

But what are you going to put in there?

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#4

It’s a proofing box so I assume dough?

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#5

Totally missed that sentence, and I even read it 3 times! I have travel-brain. I should drink some coffee.

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#6

Haha, I didn’t even know what that meant.

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#7

Yeah, the problem is we keep our house so cool in the winter that my bread won’t rise well. I’ve ruined a couple loaves recently that came out great when the weather is warmer. The box should help the reproducibility of the rise, and make it shorter too.

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#8

Stick it in a cold oven with the oven light turned on. That should get the oven temp up to about 80F or so. Good for proofing but not hot.

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#9

My husband is building something similar to maintain temp and humidity for storing his 3D printer spools. I think it’s PLA… it will absorb ambient moisture and ruin the print… this is precisely his solution to temper it back to quality print grade material

#10

VERY good, nice, and cool project. Or, should I say warm project. I love your thought processes.

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#11

Cool! or warm. rather! Let’s get to the important question - What kind of bread are you making?

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#12

I’ve tried that and it didn’t help (I guess we’ve got cool bulbs).

Sourdough sandwich bread. I use FoodGeek’s recipe.

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#13

It does have to be an incandescent bulb. Low energy/high efficiency bulbs won’t work. I worry about that with every new stove purchase - that I’ll lose my proofing oven :slightly_smiling_face: The new one has a proofing setting but we still use just the oven light. Old habits. We keep the house at 62 during the day and only ratchet up to 68 after 4 when we’re both home. (Although I do keep my home office upstairs warm all day now but it’s a separate zone.)

#14

LOL, I had the opposite situation. I caught the “proofing” but it took a few minutes of thinking “OK why does that sound familiar and I know I have done that, but with what?”

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#15

I really like that you protected your screw ends. Making me hungry for homemade bread.

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#16

If you exchange your stove, get a microwave that mounts above it. Hubs like to leave the lower light (the one that shines down so you can see in your pots better) on and it keeps the inside of the microwave warmer than room temperature.

#17

We have one like that. But the light above the stove is LED. No real warmth factor. I just look in the oven on new ranges to see if there’s an incandescent bulb in there or not. The sales people scratch their head :slight_smile: