I recently bought a new microwave oven from a popular warehouse store. As I began using it I noticed it wasn't heating the food as well as the previouse oven, even though the new one is rated at 1200 watts "cooking power". The spec in the owners manual says that the new oven should be drawing 12 amps from the line while running at full power. I wondered how it could be undercooking with 1200 watts "cooking power". I decided to measure the power consumption of the new oven while operating. Was I surprised to discover that while cooking at full power, the oven was drawing 17 amps! That's 5 amps more than expected. Where are the extra 600 (5 A * 120 V) watts going? What is getting heated up by that 600 extra watts?
It's drawing 600 watts more than the spec says, yet it's not cooking as well as it should given its 1200 "cooking watts" rating. Are those extra 600 watts a fire hazard?
Edit: Here's the spec showing where I got the 12 amp figure.
It's drawing 600 watts more than the spec says, yet it's not cooking as well as it should given its 1200 "cooking watts" rating. Are those extra 600 watts a fire hazard?
Edit: Here's the spec showing where I got the 12 amp figure.
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