Why is it that every darn microwavable thing gives instricutions for 650 and 750 watt microwaves, while every darn microwave I’ve ever seen has been over 800 watt?
WAG is that a lot of folks still have the 750W models from yesteryear? So it’s possible they are writing instructions for the older models that haven’t “caught up” yet? I’m not a microwaveologist but that’s the best i can think.
A lot of the smaller microwaves you can buy are still less than 800 watts.
Also too, alot of the higher wattage microwaves have adjustable settings so that you can lower the power, but if you have a max 750 watt microwave, it isn’t going to get bigger.
GES
Speaking of wattage here, I have a safety tip. (Not really related to the question, but still good to know.)
When you have your baby with you in a restaurant, don’t send a bottle back to the kitchen with the instructions, “Could you have the cook zap this for sixty seconds?” (Yes, I’ve received instructions like this.)
Commercial microwaves are considerably more powerful than the unit you have at home. I’m talking 1200-1600 watts or more. Sixty seconds is going to boil your baby formula.
Fortunately, the vast majority of cooks are going to be aware of this and will adjust accordingly, but there’s no reason to take chances.
OTOH, many mid-size home microwaves are 1000 watts or more. My LG Orbit microwave is 1200 watts: cooks ramen in 3 minutes instead of 5, cooks popcorn in 2 minutes instead of 3 and makes it crispy.
I think this is still somewhat rare in consumer microwaves. Most consumer microwaves (I have a higher-end Magic Chef) just cycle the magnetron on and off to adjust “cooking power.” When the mag’s on, it’s at 1200 watts (or whatever). When it’s off, it’s just marking time.
I’m not sure of the brand, but there is a newer microwave technology that’s advertised as being “inverter” operated. This means that, like you say, it’s capable of delivering variable power rather than just full power or no power. But AFAIK, these aren’t common and are limited to a single brand. And yeah, they work well – we had a common one in the office at the position I just left.
Why I don’t know: does the inverter completely replace the magnetron? This would mean these are very large, very high freqency IGBT’s or something. We’re talking microwaves, after all – can solid state get that high? I suspect, though, that the inverter merely regulates power being fed to the magnetron tube. Anyone have a definitive answer? This new tech seems to be pretty low key, but I think it’s really a major advancement.
Get that high in frequency? A microwave oven is 2.4 GHz - the CMOS circuitry in many people’s computers can run that fast, and that’s clock rates, not merely simple sine waves. I know people working with solid state devices at over 100 GHz.
1100 watts at home, but both of my jobs have OLD (think early 80’s style) microwaves. It’s ON or it’s OFF. At my second job, you have to hold the door shut or it loses it’s seal. I don’t use that microwave.
At work, it takes 7 minutes for a bag of popcorn (yet people still burn it every single day). At home, 1:15. Sigh.
I guess I meant in the sense that it would generate electromagnetic energy. A magnetron’s a tube, and it has a real good ability to interface with a waveguide, because there’s not a lot of funky impedence matching to do. A solid state device, though, may (and does) give off residual RF energy, but I meant as far as transmitting it into a completely different media. Let’s say it’s a big transistor. It’s putting 2.4GHz into copper wire. The copper wire just serves as an transmitting antenna?