Radarange Update: Cooking Power

Automatic Washer - The world's coolest Washing Machines, Dryers and Dishwashers

Help Support :

cadman

cadman

Well-known member
Platinum Member
Joined
Sep 7, 2004
Messages
1,560
Location
Cedar Falls, IA
With a more responsive thermometer and some new capacitors, I decided to try out the cooking power calculation in Phil's thread. Here's how it breaks down:

RR-2: 449 Watts averaged over 2 runs. This seems low but this machine has never been tuned up (magnetron current is adjustable on these). One thing's for sure, cooking is EVEN.

RR-8A: This unit is my daily driver with a newer model magnetron. 636 Watts over 2 runs. I believe it's rated for 750W or so and it does have hot spots which I may not have been in.

Mark V: I made a number of warmup runs and then averaged 3 official runs to calculate 1480 Watts. Each magnetron is rated at 750W cooking power so this is pretty darn close to factory performance.

All tests performed for 30 sec runs, plastic container, 250mL of water and stirring at time 30 which DOES make a difference.

It's also worth mentioning that Ben came out last weekend with a 6.5 pound ham that we quartered and tossed in the Mark V. We were at 170F "doneness" in 19 minutes! Below is a link to a quick vid I shot at that time (and yes, the damn thing still smells like ham, LOL)!

http://https//youtu.be/zU_1SFMtYw4
cadman-2015041820411009256_1.jpg
 
MW Oven Performance Tests

Cool information Cory, it would also be interesting to see how much power your MWOs used during your tests.

 

I have had an RR-4 built-in my kitchen for the past 25 years, it has the magnetron with the electrically powered magnet magnetron, and it cooks fast and pretty darn evenly, I believe it was rated at 720 watts, but it has always seemed to cook things faster than recipes call for.

 

Hopefully you will find time to get the 58 Westinghouse oven going that I brought you last year, I would love to see what you think of that one.

 

John L.
 
John, good idea on power consumption. I should plug my kill-a-watt into the 2 one of these days and see what it registers. I've also been curious about the Mark V but I don't have a good way to measure that beast.

Cuffs, that is one of the magnetron ends that protrude into the cooking cavity. The filaments stay lit all day along with the cooling pump and fan when in normal operation. Kind of scary to see if you're not expecting it!

Hey Eddie! We had ham sandwiches (spicy mustard on mine) along with coleslaw and potato salad. ....so...much...ham! LOL.
 
Cory, Big thanks for doing a few of these test runs and sharing the results. I think it does give a pretty good idea of the actual RF output. I have tested about six MW ovens so far but all mine were pretty mundane, not the cool historical models like you have!

I'd be curious about that RR-2, it does sound like it tested low. Be neat to compare to another oven of the same model. As for placing your container in a "hot spot" I don't think that matters, the RF has to be absorbed in the water, it will just bounce around till it gets there. Uneven power distribution will only matter if you have a large area that can absorb the RF power where some areas absorb more energy.

The strongest oven I tested yet was a mid-2000 era Panasonic Inverter oven which calculated at over 900 watts. I ran the test twice to confirm. On the 2nd test I plugged in the Kil-A-Watt just to get a read on efficiency. The oven overloaded the Kil-A-Watt with its draw! The meter flashed and beeped, I'd never heard it do that before. I don't remember the exact number but it was over 15amps, crazy. I'd love to see an affordable meter like the Kil-A-Watt that could do 120v 20amp of better yet 240v. I can get a good approximation of a steady state load with some true RMS voltage and current instruments I have but logging would be nice.

I've had the idea of doing some of these calorimetric tests with various heat sources to gauge efficiency of heating water just for kicks. Resistance electric vs induction vs microwave etc.
 
Wow, Cory, this microwave really is something else!  I am not surprised that it was built for speed cooking - I would love to know more of the history of this oven.   I can't help but wonder if the original owner was a restaurant owner or manager who got this with the intention of using in his humble Nashua home....  

 

I've got to get back down there to visit. I want to see this in use for sure!

 

Great work!!

 

 
 

Latest posts

Back
Top