Total cost of reinvention: 200 bucks and one day’s labour. A computer and keypad failure paralyzed our 2005 Jenn Air. It would be $700 repair if I bought the parts and did it myself. Originally $3K, it would be a hard thing to throw the whole stove out. I had only $150 invested in it (picked up second-hand as the previous owners were redecorating) so my willingness to fix it was high. Dual fuel, the top is gas and the oven electric. But the oven barely kept within 50 degrees of what it said and the CPU was right above the door where it baked in the seeping heat, leading to countless complaints and failures listed by the online community- Rather than replace bad design with expensive replacements in the same bad design, putting parts back into the same heat zone, we decided to risk reinventing the oven. I needed a thermostat and to maintain existing controls which could be made mechanical. Hamish helped identify and re-connect essential parts, adding relays to control elements individually by toggle switches. Adding a CPU cooling fan for high temperature baking and replacing the keypad with a PID, a Second-Jenn Air was born. As the parameters are set in the PID menu we set it with a ceiling of 700F, most baking in the 520F range in convection mode. Hamish helped make a great oven from an overpriced appliance that was poorly built. Thanks to Hamish Madrus and the Lettering Shop for electrics and graphics.
