On Sun, 30 Dec 2018 04:24:23 -0000, mike wrote:

On 12/29/2018 7:02 PM, FMurtz wrote:
William Gothberg wrote:
On Sat, 29 Dec 2018 17:34:22 -0000, Arthur Conan Doyle
wrote:

"William Gothberg" wrote:

I don't need a MW, but the usual 600W to 900W in domestic ovens is
pitiful. What's wrong with 2kW?

There are higher rating consumer units, but you have to look for
them. I had a
1.2kw range hood type that worked much better than the 900w types. I
think
commerical units (i.e. convenience store) can be found that are 1.8kw.

That said, what I find annoying is that the power control for every
consumer
microwave I've seen is duty cycle based. That is, so many seconds of
full power
followed by so many seconds of no power.

Some foods and defrosting would work much better if the actual power
level could
be adjusted. Panasonic claims to make an inverter based design, but
I'm not
convinced they actually adjust the outpout power.
They adjust the AVERAGE power at a rate much faster than the
thermal time constant of the food.

I'm unsure how magnetrons work, but what's the big deal with running
them at half power? Do they have to be on full power, and also can't
be cycled more quickly?
I don't think you can change the operating voltage far enough to
get a large enough range of power. And how would you do that anyway?

I was thinking just tappings on a transformer.

You'd have to use an inverter to do it efficiently. Might as well
just switch the power on and off directly. Everything works at
optimum efficiency or is off.

Well if it doesn't like running at low power, then yes I guess cycling is better. Like an incandescent lightbulb sux at producing light at half voltage. You just get heat.

Anyway, I've never used a microwave on anything other than full power
- even when defrosting, which for some reason people think you have to
select "defrost". Why? It just takes longer. I can defrost food
much faster on full power.

Break an egg into a bowl. Stick it in the microwave on high.
Be ready with the cleaning supplies to get the egg off the inside
of your oven. The yoke usually explodes first.
If you break the yoke, the whites will explode anyway.
You really have to whip it up to prevent explosion.

Eggs are unusual. Most foods aren't explosive.

You can get a similar effect with soup.

I don't, I regularly heat soup on full power.

Because that is not defrosting it is cooking, Not remotely like
defrosting, methinks thou art a dill.

Another weird thing my current (Hyundai 800W) microwave does is to
switch off the heating completely for the last 15 seconds but continue
to run the fan, light, and turntable (if you've selected at least 4
minutes time). So er like why not just remove the food 15 seconds
earlier? Which I often do. Funnily enough nothing ever exploded.

Might have been a design tradeoff to let the magnetron run too hot
and need 15 seconds for it to cool down sufficiently.

No need to make the user wait though! I'd have it switch off the turntable, lamp, and magnetron, then just run the cooling fan, like some cars do. It also means it's subtracting 15 seconds from your cooking time, which means you get the wrong cooking time.

I don't remember any explosion issues with my old 600W Amana.
My Panasonic Inverter on High will explode an egg faster than
you can say, "oh crap, I forgot to cover the dish."

Try xmas tree lights :-)