Dedicated pizza ovens are all the rage right now, as they provide a better-distributed and higher heat that many find more preferable than a conventional kitchen oven. But even a nice gas-powered pizza oven like the Ooni Koda 12 will have some hot spots and cold spots. To get an even bake every time, Yvo de Haas designed the Spin Meister rotation controller for the Ooni Koda 12 pizza oven.
The Spin Meister is a DIY device that controls the rotation of a pizza stone in the oven. The Ooni Koda 12 doesn’t come with any hardware to spin the pizza, so it is susceptible to uneven cooking. With the Spin Meister, the user can set a specific rotation speed and time to ensure that the pizza moves constantly and cooks consistently.
An Arduino Nano R3 board controls a stepper motor through a TMC2100 drive. That stepper motor’s shaft goes through the bottom of the oven to the pizza stone, which sits on a Lazy Susan-style turntable bearing. To avoid heat damage, the Arduino and other electronic components sit in a 3D-printed enclosure that the user can place a couple of feet away from the oven.
The controls consist of two buttons and two linear potentiometer sliders — one set for spin, the other for time. The status and time information shows up on a bright 12-digit vacuum fluorescent display (VFD). Power comes from a USB battery back, so users can cook anywhere. Finally, a DFRobot DFPlayer Mini MP3 player gives the Spin Meister the ability to play sound effects, like button press tones and a timer alarm.
The Koda 12 already has very good reviews, but we think that the Spin Meister would make it even better.
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