Slow microwave ovens

[William Gothberg]

Shouldn't we have faster microwaves by now giving out a few kW? They were invented decades ago.

[Bill Gill]

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

[Andy Bennet]

High power microwaves (>1MW) are used in industry in for example ore extraction/rock pulverizing.

1MW into a cup of water is not pretty, explodes the water contents and breaks the cup.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Most commercial microwave ovens are higher power - typically twice that of a domestic oven (they often use a pair of magnetrons). We have them in the office kitchen areas (I think they are 2kW). One problem is that retail food products do not state cooking times in commercial microwave ovens - we have warnings posted on the ovens that they are much more powerful. Also, not all food can be heated faster - often heat conduction is still a critical part of the process, and the ability of food to conduct heat limits the power input some food products can absorb without burning whilst other areas are still cold.

There's no problem with standard socket outlets in most countries. In Europe and many other countries outside America, standard sockets are designed to provide 3kW or 3.5kW (depending on country). Many domestic microwaves in Europe are combination ovens with convection, fan, and infra-red (grill) heating too, and often run at 2.5kW when using combination heating (with a 1kW magnetron). In a domestic environment, combination heating is generally more useful than simply a more powerful microwave.

[William Gothberg]

Not a problem in Europe where everything is 240V. Another reason you ought to stop that low voltage crap! Do you seriously have to hard wire all your washing machines, dishwashers, tumble dryers, etc, etc? And what on earth do you do with hoovers?

It can take 5 minutes to warm something from frozen to eating temperature. I see no reason that couldn't be made into 2 minutes.

[Bill Wright]

Conduction

Bill

[William Gothberg]

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

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too expensive

[William Gothberg]

Is the average person not able to divide by two?

Then the oven needs to have a more even waveform.

Not when I want to heat something in 2 minutes, conventional heating won't even get going in that time.

[William Gothberg]

Most food is very high in water content. Double the microwaves, double the speed the water heats up.

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is that what your wife said

[Arthur Conan Doyle]

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.

[William Gothberg]

Which would be way faster if the water content the microwaves were hitting was heated hotter. Plus, make the microwave waveform more even, and you would need less conduction.

[William Gothberg]

[William Gothberg]

You can get a 700W microwave for £30. Surely 2kW would be less than triple that, so under £90.

[William Gothberg]

I'm not stupid enough to marry.

[William Gothberg]

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?

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.

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.

[Bill Gill]

1200 watt consumer microwaves are widely available. Check your Walmart or whatever you have.

Bill

[William Gothberg]

1200W isn't much more than the 900W most are.

[Arthur Conan Doyle]

The idea is not to cook the food as its defrosting. Full power is fine if you want the end item hot. It's not good if you want something room tempurature or slightly cooler to use as a part of preparation of something else.