On Mon, 31 Dec 2018 15:12:23 -0000, trader_4 wrote:

On Monday, December 31, 2018 at 9:43:22 AM UTC-5, Max Demian wrote:
On 31/12/2018 07:18, Diesel wrote:
Arthur Conan Doyle
news:n1ff2el7b5fc6megbeihv069t05gouso10@None Sat, 29 Dec 2018
18:27:21 GMT in alt.home.repair, wrote:

"William Gothberg" wrote:

Why is it called an invertor?

Typical microwaves use fixed AC power to drive the magnetron.
Inverter driven magnetrons use DC power, which can be variable.

Wrong.

Both styles actually take AC incoming mains, raise it to 5k or so,
and convert it with a single diode mind you, to DC to feed the
magnetron. The filament is fed by low voltage AC. Neither of them can
or do vary the voltage going to the magnetron. That's just not how it
works. You can't lower the voltage to reduce microwave energy. And
you can't raise it to get more microwave energy, either. The
magnetron requires voltage within a certain range to function. More
than that will burn the magnetron up. Less will prevent it from
making viable microwaves.

So what is the difference between inverter and non inverter types? Is
'inverter' an appropriate term? How do either control the power?

He abundantly and mostly correctly explained that in his previous post,
including the one you copied. The inverter type still pulse the magnetron,
just at a very fast rate, so that for all practical purposes, it's
like being continuous. It's like dimming a 100W bulb. If you turn it
on and off half the time in 1 second cycle times, you will see it blinking.
If you do that with a very fast cycle time you will see a dimmed but
continuous light. That's how bulb dimmers work too.

Well they're meant to, but you can see them flickering, especially at the lower quarter of brightness. Or maybe I have better eyesight than the designers?