Air Fryer - Power Pulsing or not?

[wildebus]

Wondering if anyone knows the answer to this question .....

Take the typical Induction Hob ... If you run at full power , it uses the full power. But if you set it to a lower setting, it does not run at the lower power, it runs at the full power for a time, then turns off, then full power, etc. cycling between the two to average the power setting chosen and you see that in a pan of water with the water bubbling, stopping, bubbling, etc.
The typical Microwave works in the same way, power cycling between full and on to average the power set.
This is important to know as if you are using an Inverter, you don't want the power of the Hob or Microwave to exceed the Inverter rating.

Now the question ... Does an Air Fryer do this pulsing power cycling or is it a more basic device where if you set it at 50% of the max power, it draws 50% of the power all the time (rather than 100% for half the time and 0% for the other half)?
I *think* it is a fairly dumb device when it comes to the power as they are usually an electric element (like a kettle or old-fashioned electric cooker coil) that is powered and a fan above it that pushes the heat down to the food basket, but I would be interested if anyone actually knows (I am just guessing).

reason for question is got to get myself a new one (see Air Fryer recall post) and thinking could maybe get a more powerful bigger one and restrict using it to a lower power when off-grid but could 'unleash' it if hooked up?

 

[Pudsey Bear]

Would a clamp meter not tell you if it's pulsing or not? Of course, you don't want to damage the lead, but a short split extension would work.

 

[wildebus]

Would a clamp meter not tell you if it's pulsing or not? Of course, you don't want to damage the lead, but a short split extension would work.

It would - except I haven't bought the air fryer I am interested yet

 

[Molly 3]

On mine their is no change of running note but it dose thermostatically lower the pre set temp as setting ,.ir dose not shut off heat .

 

[Landyseverywhere]

Ours (oven type and a second drawer type) are clearly controlled by a thermostat turning element on and off,like most electrical heating appliances

 

[Pudsey Bear]

Ours is basically like two very small ovens with an overhead heating ring like old cookers used to have, I forget what they were called.

 

[Floydster]

My one does pulse

 

[Pudsey Bear]

Our hob pulses, quite annoying really.

 

[wildebus]

I think I have come to the conclusion that I need to get one that will work with the inverter at max power.
Thinking about it, you don't really get to chose the power on an Air Fryer, but the temperature? And if you lower the temp in order to lower the max power I guess you may not be say crisping up the food enough sometimes?

 

[trevskoda]

Air fryer just switches of and on, the lower you set temp it just shuts down more often, same as m wave or any element cooker which all have no bleed resister or load switch, way to complicated to do, so simple of on timmer is the order of the day.

 

[merl]

I think I have come to the conclusion that I need to get one that will work with the inverter at max power.
Thinking about it, you don't really get to chose the power on an Air Fryer, but the temperature? And if you lower the temp in order to lower the max power I guess you may not be say crisping up the food enough sometimes?

As far as I know turning the active device inside a microwave oven (the magnetron) on and off at regular intervals is the only way to reduce the cooking power, this is because the magnetron needs X amount of voltage to work, below that it doesn't work at all so there's no half way house with a magnetron.
Our air fryer pulses and I'd expect all others to also pulse too. I've never come across an electric oven that didn't pulse. it's easier to do electrically and thinking about it an on/off thermostat system would perform better too.
If it didn't pulse then the warmup time would suffer according which would be a bad thing and also the temperature would be influenced more by the quantity and temperature of the food placed in the oven.

 

[Landyseverywhere]

We have 3..An oven type at home about 5/6 years old gets used every day,bought a draw type for the van due to it being smaller did a one week rally with it,got home ordered another oven type for the van 1400w it's heat is obviously from a halogen bulb type element and lights up for 30seconds then dark for 30seconds..works just as well as the one at home that has a conventional element,what life span will be ??

 

[wildebus]

We have 3..An oven type at home about 5/6 years old gets used every day,bought a draw type for the van due to it being smaller did a one week rally with it,got home ordered another oven type for the van 1400w it's heat is obviously from a halogen bulb type element and lights up for 30seconds then dark for 30seconds..works just as well as the one at home that has a conventional element,what life span will be ??

I do wonder myself how the service life would be affected by something going on and off like that rather than staying on at a reduced power (given it is a simple electric element, don't see why they can't stay on at a reduced power?)

This makes me think of a situation last year when checking the use of a hairdryer on a 1050W Inverter. At full power, the Hairdryer worked perfectly. At a lower power setting, it overloaded the inverter! (It worked on my slightly larger inverter but I could see the power draw was higher than at the full setting!)

 

[Landyseverywhere]

My thoughts on longevity of the halogen it won't last as long as a conventional element cold to white hot to cold every 30seconds and the surrounding glass ??? at least a conventional element is only getting red hot and no glass surround.
The hair drier is odd they usually have 2 elements one on for low both for high along with 2 motor speeds ?

 

[wildebus]

My thoughts on longevity of the halogen it won't last as long as a conventional element cold to white hot to cold every 30seconds and the surrounding glass ??? at least a conventional element is only getting red hot and no glass surround.

I would agree

The hair drier is odd they usually have 2 elements one on for low both for high along with 2 motor speeds ?

Looked into this ... actually fairly common turns out on some units and an example of over-complicated newer technology.

 

[merl]

Almost certainly caused by the way the hairdryer is achieving 1/2 power. Rather than switching in a lower powered element as was mentioned previously, the really cheap way of obtaining 1/2 power is to simply place a diode in series with the load, because the mains supply is alternating the diode simply passes only one half cycle and effectively halves the power. The mains can handle this imbalanced load without issue but an inverter wont like it at all and will do all sorts of strange things.

 

[Landyseverywhere]

Thanks for the explanation ....wow how bad has/is cheap production become

 

[trevskoda]

I do wonder myself how the service life would be affected by something going on and off like that rather than staying on at a reduced power (given it is a simple electric element, don't see why they can't stay on at a reduced power?)

This makes me think of a situation last year when checking the use of a hairdryer on a 1050W Inverter. At full power, the Hairdryer worked perfectly. At a lower power setting, it overloaded the inverter! (It worked on my slightly larger inverter but I could see the power draw was higher than at the full setting!)

Thats because the unused power is bleed through a heat loosing resistor, hence using more power, 2 speed black & decker drills use this method, no use for ovens and wont work on m waves.

 

[HTF]

Resistor elements have inertia so, half the power means on 50% of the time. That is what happens in microwaves, induction hobs, dimable LED's and so on. The only difference is that on heating elements like ovens and others, they add or remove elements and use the thermostat.
You can reduce AC power with old style phase control dimmers but this means you need a clean sinewave at the supply and the load only uses part of this wave. Modified wave inverters wont work with these loads and the cheaper pure sinewave ones also.

 

[Glynno]

Most electrical appliances work on the on off basis. Even your common household light switch for tungsten or led. Though these switch on and off at a very high rate. (Listen to the switch) Microwaves because they heat the food then let it dissipate, infra red etc cooker rings for the same basic reason, fridges for the same reason. This is because it’s more economical and smaller in size to switch on and off as the other way is to put a resistor in circuit. Even your radiator central heating only switches on and off. The only variable appliances are if they are fan assisted and the fan speed is controlled - by switching on and off. So whatever appliance you have, if you are looking at inverters, the inverter should be able to accept max power. I hope this answers your question. Oh! Yes the air frier is on off.