In alt.engineering.electrical Michael Moroney wrote:
| David Lesher writes:
|
writes:
|
|| I envy EU houses. If we had regular 240V/30A+ outlets, I'd be able to
|| buy a snowblower with real guts. The 120v@15A ones are wimpy.
|
|So put one in.
|
|The issue is not the outlets available in my house [but I sometimes wish
|for 3 phase..].
|
|Rather, it's the ready market of consumer appliances that would take
|advantage of them. That would require many houses to have them.
|
| Yes the inability to go to the nearest WallyWorld and buy a 240V 4kW
| cooker/microwave/whatever is a big problem. European appliance could be
| got, but I'd worry about anything with a motor (50 Hz), clock (do their
| electronic clocks operate off the line frequency like some in the US?),
| microwaves (don't they use frequency-dependent constant voltage
| transformers?).
It's all chicken and egg.
People don't usually go to the added expense of installing a 240V outlet when
there are hardly any (and none at WallyWorld) 240V appliances.
Appliances are not generally made at power levels requiring 240V, at least for
homes, because there is nowhere to plug it in by default.
BTW, one appliance I am interested in is an electric induction wok. Normally
a wok just doesn't work right used over an electric burner surface. So most
wok cooktops are gas based. However, the induction technology with the right
kind of work actually does work fine on electric power. The catch is it needs
a lot of power. Only the smallest version can run on 120V. All the rest need
240V. Here is the smallest 240V version:
http://www.selectappliance.com/exec/...ct/ck_mwg-2500
And from this, it indicates world plug options for the 240V versions, which
suggests to me the lowest wattage unit isn't marketed outside of 120V parts
of the world (and hence is probably considered a wimpy model intended to at
least work where 240V isn't available).
http://cooktek.com/product_info.php?c=3&s=24&p=12
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