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Cheap electric elements

  • MTbottle
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7 years 2 months ago #2286 by MTbottle
Cheap electric elements was created by MTbottle
In your video "How to install cheap Kettle Elements for HLT or Boil Pot Home Brewing " I was wondering if you have one of those extra (demonstrator) elements laying around that you could measure the Ohms Resistance for me. As a former appliance tech, I know a bit about heating elements, wattage, etc., so I am wanting to compare the resistance of your 220v element to my 110v element that's available here. In the video, I believe you said that the elements were 2400W, and the ones here are 1500W - IF they were the same, I believe the U.S. ones would be 600W!
Some of our stove appliances are run at lower voltage as a lower wattage element (i.e. costs, savings, etc.). For instance, if you run a 220v element at 110v it cuts the wattage by a factor of 4 (1/2 the volts = 1/2 the current [amps] = 1/4 the watts). In case someone from the U.S. is reading this and doesn't understand, here's an explanation from homebrew.stackexchange.com/questions/618...voltage-calculations :

"An electric element is a resistive load, with constant resistance. Consequently, the power rating is given relative to the voltage across the element. Since we know the power and the voltage, we can work out the constant resistance. For a 4500W element at 240V you have
P = V^2/R, or R = V^2/P = 240*240/4500 = 12.8 ohm.
When running at 240V, the current across the element is I = V/R = 240/12.8 = 18.75 A.
If you then reduce the voltage to 120V, the current is correspondingly halved also: I = V/R = 120/12.8 = 9.375A.
Calculating power, P = VI = 120*9.375 = 1125W
The key to the 1/4 power is that because of the constant resistance, when you reduce the voltage by half, you also reduce the current flowing through the element also by half, hence the 1/4 power. "

I just wish that we could find some of those K-Mart 220Volt pots here in the U.S., but here, everything is 120Volt. I like the small foot-print of your elements, compared to a stainless steel element that takes up the whole bottom of the pot! BTW, the HERMS system that I am building (little by little), will be 240V, NOT 120Volt, which costs more to run the electricity!
Hope this helps explain my request! Thanks!

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7 years 2 months ago #2287 by Gash
Replied by Gash on topic Cheap electric elements
yep no worries.

240*240/2200=26.18

Measured with my multimeter one was 29 and one was 27.5
The ones I measured are old ones I used for a couple of years and replaced just because they were old, they were still working.

These ones are 2200w.

Hope that helps , cheers!
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  • MTbottle
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7 years 2 months ago #2288 by MTbottle
Replied by MTbottle on topic Cheap electric elements
Yeah, just wanted to ask publically, because someone without an understanding of the above formulae might 'assume' that they could run them on 120V and still get 2400/2200W, not realizing they would have to have 4 of them just to get 2400W - then double that (8 elements), to get the wattage that you are getting with only 2 of them. Thanks!

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