Plastic water boiler

[manasecret]

Originally Posted by Angrist

Aah that makes sense... So if you use 120V, is it ok to put your fingers in the outlet? Because here you'll probably need to see a doctor or hospital after that.

Haha nice.

Originally Posted by gekko

I believe the reason is it takes forever to heat water on 120V. We bought some of those things in Iraq and on 240V they were magical, but when we had to plug them into 120V, I could've boiled it faster with fire.

That's just simple electric theory 101. These heating units are just simple resistors, much like a light bulb. If you plug in the same resistor heating element into 240 V and 120 V, you're going to get twice as much current with the 240 V. BUT, with twice as much current, the power generated in the same resistor element (i.e. the heat you get) quadruples.

This comes from V = IR, and P = IV = I^2 * R. The quadrupling comes from the P (power i.e. heat) = I^2 * R.

But, there's nothing from keeping you from choosing the right resistor element that would work just as fast on 120 V. Your particular boiler was most likely designed for 240 V, not 120 V.