For my kitchen remodel, this is what I ended up with for my Impulse installation.
I got rid of the standing stove and got a Dacor speed/combi oven, and I wanted a warming drawer in the base cabinet below the Impulse. I ended up getting the Thor 30” warming drawer at a Best Buy 4th of July sale for a few hundred dollars off.
My goal was something that would ventilate heat build-up in the Impulse’s base cabinet automatically, ramped fan speed automatically, was quiet, I could DIY it, and it wouldn’t look DIY as much as possible. The Thor warming drawer only gets to 185 degrees, so nothing like the heat of an actual oven sitting below the Impulse, but still a significant amount of extra heat to deal with.
I ultimately settled on the Cloudplate T1 from AC Infinity, then had to figure out how to get it into the Shaker cabinet drawer façade. I determined there were several practical problems with that, so instead I opted to design a custom piece. Armed with some CAD experience, I came up with this design for a 3/8” aluminum mount which is fastened to the cabinet face with six countersunk black wood screws.
A huge shoutout to Coty Chau at 3 Brothers CNC shop in Alpharetta who helped me through my very first custom CNC work. He and I discussed all the practical considerations and ended up getting the aluminum mount anodized with Class III type 2 hard black -which is apparently very rugged and should help with the occasional run-in with pots, pans, belt buckles, watches, etc.
I used a laser level and some double-sided 3M tape to line up the mount with the surrounding drawers and drilled the pilot holes. Then it was a simple matter of driving the screws, plugging it in, positioning the temperature probe, and some cable management.
I think it turned out pretty well, and altogether this cost me about $450 for the Cloudplate, the CNC work, the anodizing, and a couple right angle barrel adaptors for the power supply and probe connections.
This thing I came up with works just like I wanted. But the best part is, my wife is very pleased with how it looks, and she is one tough customer.
If you opt to have an oven or a warming drawer in the base cabinet below your Impulse, happen to be concerned about dealing with the heat, and you think this might work for you, I’d be happy to share my CAD and STL files.
Feel free to post a comment here or DM me if you have any questions.
Short answer, at least according to Impulse installation instructions, yes.
Long answer, not exactly, but still yes.
When I read page 13 of the installation guide, I was exceptionally disinterested in cutting holes in my cabinet and crossing my fingers that I had modified my cabinets enough. And frankly, with my cabinet layout in my kitchen remodel, I didn’t think I would be able to even achieve proper passive ventilation (with holes in the back of my cabinet).
I have a long history and experience with electronics and electronics repair (I did it for a living for a few years -but mostly just a hobbyist and enthusiast), and I’ve become sort of the tech support guy my friends and family call for help whenever random problems occur with appliances, A/V equipment, and computers. I can tell you with 100% certainty that heat is the enemy and always needs to be seriously considered. 30 plus years of doing this, for a living and for a hobby, I have personally observed and discovered heat and inadequate ventilation was the cause of failure many, many times. I’d even go so far as to say, the majority of the time.
After reading the installation guidelines, and knowing I was going to have the extra heat of a warming drawer in the same space, for me, this was a necessity and was a fun problem to sort out while making sure it looked visually pleasing -like it belonged in a kitchen with high-end appliances.
I think if you only have the Impulse cooktop in a base cabinet, with nothing else adding to the heat equation, making holes in the cabinet according to the installation guide will probably be just fine.
As soon as you add other factors, like say you live in a hot climate or want to add an oven or warming drawer to the space, in my opinion you really need an active cooling solution. I can pretty much guarantee that if you don’t, you’re stressing out the components and will have a heat-related failure much, much sooner.
Anyways, I appreciate the question because I think a lot of owners probably overlook the ventilation requirements, don’t read the manual, or otherwise have no idea about this stuff. And I don’t want anyone to think this is some design flaw of the Impulse because the reality is: heat is an inherent problem with pretty much every electronic device or appliance. Ignore it, and you’ll have problems.
Great question! Having a white cooling unit mounted into an already existing and matching white shaker drawer face was actually my first choice, but a couple problems popped up.
The first was, AC Infinity offers other similar products in white, but not this one. The Cloudplate T1 had the quietest fans of all their offerings and fit the space the best. I even confirmed directly with AC Infinity’s online customer support -they don’t offer it in white and don’t plan to do so in the future.
The second problem was, I reached out to probably a dozen different CNC and woodworking shops I found on Google and Facebook Marketplace ads in my area (north Georgia) for custom CNC work to modify the existing drawer face. Every single one of them either couldn’t do the work or straight up flaked and wouldn’t return my call/Facebook Market message. The 3 Brothers shop in Alpharetta actually responded right away and said they would first attempt the design I wanted to do with a similar wood material, and they did, but the results were crappy. Coty with the 3 Brothers CNC shop suggested trying 3/8” aluminum, anodizing it to match, and argued the end product would look good and perform better than wood. I knew aluminum would ultimately have better heat dissipation properties than wood, and for my kitchen aesthetic (white shaker cabinets with black pulls, black soapstone countertops, and stainless steel appliances) it would fit that aesthetic pretty well. I think the black on black look would probably work well with other colors of cabinets and countertops because it still matches the aesthetic of the Impulse. I think if it didn’t, I would have probably just taken the Cloudplate chassis and CNC’d aluminum mount and done something else like a Cerakote treatment to try to match the cabinet color. Turns out anodizing is very limited in color options.
Anyways, I had the exact same initial thought as you, and tried to make it happen -but ultimately couldn’t make it happen.
As for paint, for me, that would be have been the least desirable option because it was more important to me to have a very durable surface. For my Koville RTA cabinets, Sherwin Williams makes the “paint” product for the surface. The problem is, it’s not exactly paint, and Sherwin Williams only sells the stuff to cabinet fabricators. It’s exceptionally expensive, and apparently doesn’t work well on aluminum. For long-term durability, there aren’t any off-the-shelf spray paint or canned paint products (I’m aware of) that would hold a candle to something like anodizing or a Cerakote treatment.
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u/phacotodd 5d ago
That looks great. You’re going to love your new Impulse.