Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Homebrew PCBs

Hi,

Doubt I'd mess with this, but I just caught a behind the scenes
glimpse of a new George Foreman grill my mother got for Christmas.
They've now made it so the shaped grill pieces can be removed for
cleaning and the body hinge is more solid. Under the plates there are
big, flat, solid pieces of something which looks like aluminum.
There's a large rectangular section bolted into the center of each
piece, which I assume are the actual heating elements. They measure
about 4x10", and are clean, brushed metal, other than a "warning hot
surfaces" label lightly engraved in them. The surrounding outer area
is similar metal, which is perfectly flush with the heaters, and looks
as if it may be usable as well, if an insert plate were spread across
them and the heater, but 4x10 may be enough for lots of stuff anyway.

It looks adequately flat and solid on the inside, and with a sandwich
of thick metal insert plates, it may even be usable temporarily,
without modding the grill. With the plates removed, the jaws holding
the heaters actually sit about a half inch apart, when you've got them
parallel (to accommodate the grill inserts), so I doubt you could put
a board directly on the heaters without adjusting the hinge, but a
pair of aluminum inserts should put it almost perfectly flat. There's
also a momentary switch, flush mounted in the outer area of the bottom
(for safety I guess), but anything put inside it would probably keep
that turned on.

Just thought someone might take a look at it, if they're out at the
mall or something. It's the newer "space age" looking, low profile
model (mean lean fat grilling machine or something). Couldn't help but
notice the resemblance to the expensive heat presses someone
recommended to me. Could even be more solid or consistent for board
sized stuff than some of the budget presses. The temperature area
looks nice too. It has a bunch of small seven segment displays and
buttons on the top.

-George (not him or any of his sons)