OVEN WITH INDEPENDENTLY CONTROLLABLE SLOT JET RECONNECTION NOZZLES

Abstract

An apparatus for baking or dehydrating products includes a tunnel oven (100, 200) comprising one or more zones, one or more heaters (210) coupled to the zone(s) of the tunnel oven, slot jet reconnect (SJR) nozzles (220a, 220b) positioned in each zone(s), and a controller (240) operatively coupled to the tunnel oven. Each SJR nozzle (220a, 220b) includes an electric heating element (220) and is coupled to at least one sensor (224).The controller is configured to set an air temperature to be generated by one or more heaters (210), independently set an air temperature to be generated by each electric heating element (220) coupled to each of the SJR nozzles (220a, 220b), and obtain readings from at least one sensor (224) of any one of the SJR nozzles (220a, 220b) to determine if the air temperature to be generated by the electric heating element (220) of one of the SJR nozzles has been reached.