I happened to be checking out hair dryers (for someone else) and came across dryers like this:
Does one plug it into the clothes dryer outlet to make sure her hair is really dry?
Or are they lying?
20 amps breaker @ 120 volts = 2400 watts
Rated at 127 volts, 1875va is 14.76 amps. Being strictly resistive va and watts are equal. That is an 8.6 ohm resistance. that's 13.9 amps at 120 volts - or 1668 watts. At 117 volts it is 13.6 amps and
1591 wattsSo not necessarily LYING but bending the truth to fit their narative.
110V * 15A = 1650W 120V * 15A = 1800W 125V * 15A = 1875W
Not lying, but deception through arithmetic. Something really common in advertising.
Lying If I really had 120v it would be that 1440w that the NEC limits a 15a circuit to.
I don't know if they are lying or just fudgine the numbers. I have checked several hair dryers out over the years with test instruments and they do not consume as much as they are stated as.
I do not recall the exact number,but by code many 120 volt devices are supose to only be rated for something like 1500 watt in the US.
I guess that the dryers could be rated similar to what I have seen on computer speakers in the years past. They are rated 50 watts music power, driven by a small wall cube. Open them up and you will see a 2 to 4 watt speaker. The music power is like when a drum is first struck and the very peak may reach 50 watts for a micro second or so.
Maybe when the hair dryer is first turned on, the resistance of the heater is very low and a second later it heats up and the resistance goes up. So it starts out at 1800 watts for a second or so and falls back to 1500 . Some vacuum cleaners are rated the same way . The motor draws a lot of power for the first few seconds as the motor speeds up and then back to a lesser running power. Other devices with motors are fudged the same way.
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