Duxtop 1800W Portable Induction Cooktop Countertop Burner, Gold 8100MC/BT-180G3

I have only had it a week, I found a favorite stainless pan that works wonderfully, So I fixed the handle to it. I tried mac & cheese, the water boils quickly, I spilled some food on the cook top, but it was cold, so it wiped away.I have always appreciated electric frying pans, they hold a lot of food, & they have temperature control, So cooking with this induction over is not much different, because I tell it the temperature, & it always cooks it right. I made a couple eggs so far.I use the @2 setting to toast the bread in the pan with butter, & add ham & cheese & cook the egg, then I put the egg on the bread, . I love the resturant style, because they always taste better that way. I tried the temperature setting, but with eggs & sandwiches, the pan gets too hot, too fast, before the temperature gets regulated, but with larger dishes, I prefer the temperature control better.If the butter burns the bottom black, on the carbon steel pan, that is a good quality, that makes the pan slippery, & the eggs won stick. I also tried sausage in the pan, & if you burn the sausage to the pan, just splash about two teaspoons of water in the pan & scrape it a bit with the pancake turner & take out the sausage before it gets too dry again. When you are finished, you can wipe out the pan with a towel, If you wash it with water. You need to dry it with a towel, so it does not rust & add oil & wipe it out with a towel.I have heard many people complain about the fan noise, My hearing is as good as anyone else, & it was very quiet to me, a little fan, much like one in the computer, is all you hear, & is a very quiet wind noise.I did make one mistake, I had a little stainless mixing bowl, I had the burner set on high, took off the big pan & for 3 seconds, I left the stainless mixing bowl on it. I never thought it had time to get hot, but it almost burned me.I think its great, no heat around the pan, only the pan & the food gets hot.If this thing works forever, I will never have a complaint against it.I made some french fries in the carbon steel pan that I just bought, I can tell you that the cooking process of frying, made more noise than the fan did, for a second, I thought the fan was not running, until I turned off the cooking cycle.I made some mac cheese for grandson, but with vegetables & extra cheese, I turned up the heat to #10, to heat the water quickly, when the water boiled, I turned it to 210 degrees, The stove top then goes to its normal #5 setting. This is good,& since water will not get hotter that 212 degrees, but to steam up the house. I let stove top watch the temperature until it was done.I only enjoy two pans on the stove, the one carbon steel pan for frying, & the stainless for things that could affect the pan seasoning. Cast iron is great, but I dont want to lift them anymore.I tried making popcorn in the carbon steel 12 inch pan with lid, it worked wonderfully, I worried about scratching the stove top surface, but had no problems, a little oil bubbled out of the pan & lubricated the bottom of the pan & it slid so smoothly, & when the pan is at 390 degrees, I believe it is when the e2 error command comes on, telling me that it is done anyway. The 390 degree limit protects the pan & the food, It also happens to me sometimes when I do my stir fries. When it happens, you dont need to cook it any more, it is done.I took a towel & wiped the stove top, & it still looks like new.I could not find a good stainless wok, that would work on the Ductop stove, so I got some two gallon stainless mixing bowls, They heat evenly on the magnetic inductive stove, So now i can make soups & spagetti too.I tried them & they work fine, just remember to use a hot pad to move the pan when cooking in it, a dry folded washcloth will work,they can get as hot as 212 degrees as long as there is food with water in them.Well it has been about 6 months since I bought this tuxtop magnetic induction stove top, almost everyone is using it now, no hot stove, no smelly smoke, the pan gets hot, & it cooks the food. Lately I ran low on food, grandson always like egg ham & cheese sandwiches, but he always leaves the crust. I decided to make pancakes, we have bisquit mix, self rising flour, margarine & eggs, So i took a couple slices of ham & two slices of cheese, chopped them up, & put 1/2 cup bisquick mix, 1/2 cup self rising flour, two eggs, some bacon bits( more flavor) stirred it up & put it in my favorite stainless pan, one that the magnet sticks to. I heat the pan until the butter begins to smoke. I had it on #10 & turn it down to #6 & make pancakes until the mixture is gone. 3 pancakes to each pan (12 inch pan)Grandson loves them, they are nutritious ( don't tell him that) easy & quick.We add a little syrup, He goes wild on sugar, so we are very conservative on that. He loves them, they are a cheap breakfast, & he is not hungry all the time.If you like them, change styles, you can use hamburger, sausage, Try a cheap sausage that is good for you, make hamburger, sprinkle a little sage on your hamburger while cooking it, It does not have as much fat as bacon or sausage & costs nearly half the price.I bought this Tuxtop 3 months ago, it served me well, despite some misuse, be cautious of overheating it. It shows that I did abuse it a bit. The bakelite top is connected to the button display pannel, in case of overheating, the display could slightly separate from the stove top, a leak could cause malfunction,& drip water on the display pannel.I took mine apart, dried up the water, checked for any other damage, then put it together & used JB weld quick a (350 degree epoxy),on the top to seal the leaky crack,to avoid additional malfunction. It still works properly, after time to dry out. I finally epoxied a small ridge in front of the control display, to keep the water out of the controls, it works well since. I make mostly french fries, grilled ham& cheese, stir fries, & popcorn.After a year of owning it, I dont think I could ever be comfortable without it.It is like any computerized appliance , water in the wrong place can cause malfunction. Even though my pans are big enough, moisture still runs over the sides of the pan during the cooking process.I bought a pop up camper, gas cooking can be very hot in a little space, but with the duxtop, all the heat goes into the pan & the food. We cook coffee & vegetables inside, but meats are messy & smokey, so we put a little table outside for the Duxtop under the awning, & cook the meat products there. Its a life saver for us campers.After two years it is still working, I turn it on, press plus until it is on #10,I boil water mostly for coffee, Great for beans, it heats quickly on #10 then I put the lid on it & cook on #1 setting, I think it automatically shuts of in an hour, I may turn it on again for a while. Makes soups, back to #10 til it boils, then back to #1 with a lid on it. I now use steel porcelain pans, they are at every thrift store in NC, I love them. I got a griddle lately & use the Tuxtop mostly for liquids & remind wife that it does not need to boil wildly, In NC at 2000 alt the water boils at 208 degrees no matter how high you turn it on, due to boiling point of water.Then I turn it on #1 with a lid.The griddle heats left overs, temperature is constant, it cooks hamburgers, warms up ready cooked fried chicken. makes toasted cheese sandwiches. BUt I will take the Duxtop camping or where ever I go, I take the griddle too & the portable gas grill, in case I can't get electricity.I bought another one, even though the old one still works too. I received this Magnetic Duxtop in fine condition & on time. My last one, I got was 4 years ago. I really abused it by cooking french fries on it. On setting #10 = 1800 watts, it cooks fast, but as it gets close to finish, the heat needs to be reduced to # 4 = 1000 watt or # 5 . This keeps the Magnetic Inductive stove from exceeding the safe range before shutting down. That mistake slightly melted the plastic below the bakalite table. I have cleaned the fan, Removed dust a few times & because of the abuse I gave it, I had to use JB weld to patch up the problems that I caused. . If it is new, all the functions will work, But, if you want to turn on your coffee & walk away to warm it up, it would be best to turn it On, press Temperature setting, & click on Minus untill you reach the 180° setting, then it will turn off when it reaches 180° temperature, & you will not have to clean out the burned coffee, from the coffee pot, when you get back. Where I live, we get good porcelain steel coffee pots for $3 at the thrift store. If you do not live near the Carolina's, this may not be so available. Shortly after I got my first Duxtop, we went camping, we cooked about everything in it for the next six months. We moved into a rental house, their stove was no good, we didn't care, our Duxtop worked just fine, even for camping, most campsites have electricity.. I did buy a Magnetic Steel pan ( flat bottom wok ) this is good for cooking greasy things. Do not wash those with soap, unless you want to re- oil it again. They are more sensitive to rust than cast iron, then I also bought a good stainless steel frying pan, But do not get tefflon, this will get hot enough to burn the teflon off.I have cooked pop corn, but you do need to be careful, not to run it into shut down. Like the problem I had with cooking french fries. When you buy Kettles, do not forget your magnet. If the magnet does not stick, don't buy it. My friend came from Florida & loved mine, so he went back to Florida to find one in a garage sale. This is the most incredible stove top that you can buy, but you have to follow the rules , if you want it to work for you. Some people returned theirs, just because they did not have Magnetic Inductive pots & pans. You can use cast iron, but they are heavy & take more time to heat up. I had to buy new pots for mine, but I love it anyway. I love cooking this way, you never feel the heat. The pan gets hot, & the food gets hot from the pan. If you spill something on it, you can lift up the kettle & wipe the stove with a moist wash cloth without interrupting the cooking process.

Recently bough 2 portable induction tops, 2 different brands a nuwave 1300 watt (at walmart) and this one. Bought the second one because the first one was amazing. After 2 weeks with the induction decided to add another one in our office/den. Plenty willing to buy another nuwave there was even a 2 for 1 sale at nuwave website. So why did I stray from nuwave, I don't like being lied to, more later. So after owning the nuwave we found the things we loved about induction and annoyed with about the nuwave. So we kept induction and will move on from Nuwave, but it's not going into the garage sale pile.First thing would be out of the box feel.Both units feel sturdy, don't smell, but props go to Duxtop for its much sturdier cord, this could be the difference between the wattages and simple necessity.Instructions before use.Duxtop. The nuwave came with a DVD with a watch before use thing and warning stickers to remove before use. Sales pitches one after the other with miss information presented as science, by a southern pageant mom whose laugh was as fake as her lashes. Science is fact and they had none of either, with regard to induction, tell me how your product works and wont turn on with copper for "safety" reasons (sell more cookware) but don't tell me you can not heat copper with induction. I dont want a bottle cap on the counter to be 400f when I pick it up or if my stainless sink being too close for comfort so I get that. For an item to heat up from induction it does NOT have to be iron or magnetic. Both tops can make a wedding ring hot fast from proximity alone. I am guessing that both are designed to sense iron or magnets, I have a metal detector that can detect any metal through induction btw and tell me what it is (copper, iron, gold, silver so on) while still 3 feet down, so I don't see why these can not have copper, aluminum, Tin, brass, or even setting for cobalt cookware setting so that you can use what you already own. Duxtop a double sided pamphlet handled everything about the unit including safety and a card about Duxtop cookware was in the box too.Noise. Duxtop wins by a mile. There are 2 noises that come from these units. One is the fan and the other is the humming of 60 hertz. Our power is alternating current or A/C delivered at 60 cycles per second or 60htz. These units are noise amplifiers for the 60htz hum with the pan being the speaker and the duxtop wins on both noises. My Fiance noticed that the air flow is reversed from the nuwave causing the fan to be quieter and a bonus for the duxtop. The nuwave sucks air from the counter so it could catch flower, crumbs, sugar, dust and push it up into the unit where the duxtop keeps the counter around itself clean by blowing air onto the counter.Physical design.More watts in a smaller footprint goes to Duxtop, I don't like the nuwave space hogging roundness but I don't travel with it so the corners on the Duxtop are not a drawback for me. I plan on buying another Duxtop and they will sit next to each other nicely and the duxtop can slide nicely in a corner but I would not use it without some air around the whole unit. If its going to travel Nuwave would win this one, 1300 watts is a cheaper extension cord/ generator/ easier on a solar/battery system and round would be a bene for travel. The Duxtops fan stays on a min after the burner shuts off to continue cooling the nuwave goes off with the buner.Horsepower. :)Not really fair to put a turbocharged V8 up against a station wagon. In the drag race to boil 2 quarts (in the same pot) of water 1800 watts 1300 nearly 1/3 more power so this is a no brainer. If round isn't important and you're not on limited power (needs about the same power as a pro-style hairdryer). Duxtop. I said drag race but lets assume both have a top speed of 150mph. The turbo gets to 150 first but. Just like both having the top speed both have a top heat level, just one can get there faster but here is where it matters, load both cars with people and luggage and the wagon is going to really feel the extra load were the turbo still wins and now by even further. Food is the load and 1/3 more power can get there faster or recover faster as ingredients are added.Ease of use.Error "E1", for this nuwave sucks. Lift the pot/pan for a second and it screeches at you like when the smoke detector needs a new battery. Flip a pancake- "E1", add some water "E1", pour some water "E1", shake the pan "E1", This and nuwave complicated programing cost it the second sale (I bought the Duxtop being reviewed) and all future induction tops. I like to flip my food "in the air" so my pan leaves cook surface a lot. I may still get their oven. Nuwave low to sear buttons are nice but not worth a timer without a clock. Its a countdown timer from 9999m so coffee at 8am may be 743 minutes away, who knows don't feel like doing the math. If it has a feature it should be easy to use. Since boiling water enough for 2 cups of coffee is about 70 seconds away with either unit I dont need a timer like that. Both have a countdown to off timer though Duxtop is limited to about 90 min to nuwave's 9999 min or 6.94 days. Duxtop doesn't slam into stop mode for 1 minute after the pot loses contact so cook away... On/Off button score Duxtop. I dont feel comfortable leaving the nuwave plugged in because the display stays on and it only has a pause button. I might be old school but if I pause my DVD player that means it still on burning that image into my screen. The Duxtop was easy and intuitive to use all features, don't get me wrong anybody can cook on either of these there is one that is way easier. Both units have presets from keep warm to full power and both are very adjustable (I like 320 for omelets in both) so please don't base any decision on presets. Duxtop does display either watts or temp setting nuwave just temp.Price.Duxtop wins. Seems around $85ish average for the nuwave and it just doesn't have any feature(s) to push it into premium price range for similar products. Duxtops squareness sold me on the Duxtop brand over the others in its price range.