Induction Cookware Problem

So this Lazy Old Geek (L.O.G.) is a big fan of Induction cooking. In fact I’ve had my Duxtop 8100mc for about 7 years. As far as stovetop, I use it almost exclusively.

Well, as many of you may know, non-stick pans seem to last about a year at least for me and my Zwilling which I really like is getting pretty non-stick. So I ordered another non-stick 8” from Amazon Prime. Well, it didn’t work so I ordered another brand, same problem.

I was thinking that maybe my cooktop was getting weaker, so did some searching. Then I remembered that my cousin had a problem with a pan not working on her stove but it worked on mine.

Size matters: Well as most induction cookers know, the pan bottom must be magnetic. What is lesser know is that size matters. What is even lesser known is the magnetic pad size matters. I took a couple of magnets and placed them as far away from the center of the pan as possible and measured the distance between them. Both pans are called 8”. On the pan that doesn’t work it measured less than 5.5”. On my old working pan it measures almost 6”. This is similar for other pans that work. Somewhere in my searching I saw something about 5.5” requirement.

Now I realize this isn’t much help because I haven’t seen pan manufacturers stating anything about magnetic ring size. I imagine some cooktop manufacturers do go into more detail than others.

All I can say is that if you buy an induction-compatible pan and it doesn’t work work than it may not be the pan’s or the cooktop’s problem but just an incompatibility between the two.

And I’m thankful for Amazon Prime, free return policy.