Hello there,
I FINALLY got around to doing this experiment. I was planning to try it for years now and even talked about it now and then on sites like this one.
For those that know the Panasonic brand microwave ovens, some of them have what they call "Inverter Technology" and that allows the oven power to be controlled in a linear non pulsed way. The inverter inside the oven lowers the power level when you select a lower power level. Unlike most more conventional ovens, it does not PULSE the oven ON and OFF to achieve the lower power settings, it just simply lowers the power getting to the magnetron, and that is what changes the power level.
In the past however, i had more conventional microwave ovens, that pulsed the power. But one thing i noticed was that when the line voltage went low. the oven would take longer to cook something like a piece of chicken. Needless to say, i thought that maybe varying the input voltage to a regular microwave oven would allow me to change the power levels without having the microwave pulse on and off.
Well as it turns out, i got to try it yesterday. Turning the line voltage down with a variac allows the power level of the oven to go down and thus cook the food more evenly. It's a very sensitive adjustment though because you reach a point where just changing the voltage a little makes the input power go down quite a bit, so the adjustment really has to be made while monitoring the current or power into the oven. It worked pretty nice though.
I dont have any measurements yet except for input power and i can say that at one setting i got an oven that normally draws 1100 watts input power to draw just 600 watts, and cook more slowly, at an input voltage of around 90 volts AC when the normal line voltage is around 120 volts AC.
The reason for doing this is twofold.
First, the line voltage drops significantly around here for loads as high as 10 amps, so turning the current down to say 5 amps would be much better.
Second and also important though, the food cooks more evenly and comes out more tender. I believe that is because the food never gets banged with the full power of the oven every time it turns on, and that tends to dry out the outer surface of the meat and sometimes inside too.
So if you are curious about how well this works, give it a try. You'll need a decent variac however, one that can handle the full input current of your microwave oven.
I FINALLY got around to doing this experiment. I was planning to try it for years now and even talked about it now and then on sites like this one.
For those that know the Panasonic brand microwave ovens, some of them have what they call "Inverter Technology" and that allows the oven power to be controlled in a linear non pulsed way. The inverter inside the oven lowers the power level when you select a lower power level. Unlike most more conventional ovens, it does not PULSE the oven ON and OFF to achieve the lower power settings, it just simply lowers the power getting to the magnetron, and that is what changes the power level.
In the past however, i had more conventional microwave ovens, that pulsed the power. But one thing i noticed was that when the line voltage went low. the oven would take longer to cook something like a piece of chicken. Needless to say, i thought that maybe varying the input voltage to a regular microwave oven would allow me to change the power levels without having the microwave pulse on and off.
Well as it turns out, i got to try it yesterday. Turning the line voltage down with a variac allows the power level of the oven to go down and thus cook the food more evenly. It's a very sensitive adjustment though because you reach a point where just changing the voltage a little makes the input power go down quite a bit, so the adjustment really has to be made while monitoring the current or power into the oven. It worked pretty nice though.
I dont have any measurements yet except for input power and i can say that at one setting i got an oven that normally draws 1100 watts input power to draw just 600 watts, and cook more slowly, at an input voltage of around 90 volts AC when the normal line voltage is around 120 volts AC.
The reason for doing this is twofold.
First, the line voltage drops significantly around here for loads as high as 10 amps, so turning the current down to say 5 amps would be much better.
Second and also important though, the food cooks more evenly and comes out more tender. I believe that is because the food never gets banged with the full power of the oven every time it turns on, and that tends to dry out the outer surface of the meat and sometimes inside too.
So if you are curious about how well this works, give it a try. You'll need a decent variac however, one that can handle the full input current of your microwave oven.