In article ,
"William Gothberg" writes:
On Sat, 29 Dec 2018 17:38:04 -0000, Clare Snyder wrote:

On Sat, 29 Dec 2018 08:07:42 -0800, Bob F wrote:

On 12/29/2018 6:37 AM, trader_4 wrote:
On Saturday, December 29, 2018 at 9:23:42 AM UTC-5, Bill Gill wrote:
On 12/29/2018 7:43 AM, William Gothberg wrote:
Shouldn't we have faster microwaves by now giving out a few kW? They
were invented decades ago.
Higher powered microwaves would require higher powered electric
outlets, probably 220VAC (in the USA).

Also it is questionable whether higher powered ovens would be
practical for use. Getting warming times down to a couple of
seconds might not be a good idea. More speed is not always better.

Bill

+1

That about covers it. Not sure how useful more power would be. For example,
last night I was thawing out a tomato sauce in a quart plastic container.
The Panasonic has a defrost mode that uses about 30% power and cycles that.


It gets the 30% power by cycling the 100% power on 30% of the time.

(By the way, adjusting the level does not actually change the wattage.
It simply means the microwave will pulse on and off at its fixed wattage
until the desired level is reached.)

https://lifehacker.com/5974788/famil...-cooking-a-joy
That was true of the first generation of Microwaves, but the current
"inverter" driver units actually CAN throttle the power. Inverter
microwaves are much better for defrosting AND cooking.

We've had ours for about 2 years now - replacing our original that we
bought in about 1985.

BIG difference (but the old one would likely still be working by the
time this one dies)

Why is it called an invertor? I thought an invertor was a device to increase the voltage - like running 240V devices off a 12V car battery.

To run a 5kV magnetron from 240V.

And why on earth would you not want to cook on full power? I've never had a reason to lower the power from the maximum of 800W. I want the meal as soon as possible!

Microwaves do not penetrate all the way through larger volumes of
food - the heating is done in the outer 1-2cm. Heating the middle
is done by conduction (and by convection if the food is a fluid).
If you pile in energy faster than it can conduct all the way through,
you will have a burned outside and a cold middle.

Domestic microwave food products are not designed to be heated in
2kW ovens. Many would fail to cook properly/safely.
Commercial microwave food products (some anyway) are designed to be
heated in 2kW microwaves.

And in reference to your other post, it's not simply a matter of
dividing the cooking time by two. The amount of energy absorbed by
a food product also depends on the surface area exposed to the
microwaves (1 pea in a 2kW oven will not absord 2kW), so the cooking
time in a 2kW oven depends on the size and shape of the item - it
would have to be calculated by the manufacturer and included on the
packaging, but in practice, most domestic food products will not have
sufficient heat conduction to be able to absord 2kW and cook properly.

--
Andrew Gabriel
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