Richard et al,
I too have a shelf of snack masters and have found the exact same thing as
you WRT temperature stability. I've charted it out to 48 hours many times
and typically see the same +/- 2 degree F window. I have gone one step
further and have the Fluke probe stuck in the side that will trip the power
to the machine at 145 degrees F. Not rocket science to implement but have
only seen it work when I purposely set it off.
All the best,
-mark

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 9:51 PM, Richard L. Hess
<[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> Hi, Tom,
>
> I actually have three American Harvest dehydrators. One is a "Mold
> Machine" the other is the main one which I have used for years and I bought
> a larger one last summer for the Mt. St. Helens 14" reel seismic
> tapes--though you must de-flange the reel to make it fit. Pity.
>
> Anyway, this picture is a sample that I saved, but I do run tests on my
> dehydrators with recording thermometers to see how they work.
>
> I've seen a lot of nasty eBay stuff (and lots of good stuff), but I'm not
> certain I'd trust a thermostat or controller in a lab oven that's meant to
> go to much higher temperatures any more than (or perhaps not as much as)
> the food dehydrator. I suspect that if the food dehydrator thermostat stuck
> on, there there is a fusible link in there some where to get its UL label,
> though I have not dissected one.
>
> http://www.richardhess.net/**arsc/am_harvest_fd50.pdf<http://www.richardhess.net/arsc/am_harvest_fd50.pdf>
>
> I think staying within a 2.5 °C window (not plus/minus--that's plus/minus
> 1.25 °C) is pretty good and all you need for tape baking. That's about +/-
> 2% Celsius and I hate to think what it is in Kelvins...perhaps +/- 0.006%?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Richard
>
>
> On 2012-02-19 7:57 PM, Tom Fine wrote:
>
>> By the way, the American Harvester dehydrator is quite "repeatable" as
>> far as producing playable tapes, many times over many years. Results speak
>> for themselves. But again, horses for courses. There are more expensive and
>> complex ways to skin the same cat.
>>
>