• Liz@midwest.social
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    10 months ago

    Don’t all microwave ovens have an inverter? Like, isn’t that the thing that produces the photons?

    • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
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      10 months ago

      No, that’s the magnetron. Normal microwave magnetrons have 2 power settings, on and off, and reducing the microwave’s power just means switching the magnetron on and off at different intervals.

      An inverter just allows to keep the magnetron running at a lower power. Whether that has a better effect than just on/off-switching the magnetron I do not know, but it’s probably more energy efficient over long usage periods.