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.

[Angrist]

So why don't they exist (that much) in America?
Perhaps it's because your houses are bigger. Bigger kitchen, better water boilers. Here we need to have compact stuff. (That sounds like I live in a shed...)

[manasecret]

I bought a plastic water boiler for college. It was quite convenient when living in a dorm with no kitchen nearby, though I think it was probably against the dorm rules to have them because of old electrical wiring in the dorm. I usually used it to cook pasta, though.

I bought it from the local pharmacy store, and here, pharmacies like Walgreens and CVSes are practically on every corner, and they double as a buy a little bit of everything type store, though they're small, not huge like Walmart. Anyway, point being that they're quite easy to find, though I haven't looked for one since I bought that one some eight years ago. I think here most people have stoves with at least four burners, so there's little need for an extra appliance that only boils water to take up space.

[Angrist]

So I bought this one:



1.7 L, all stainless steel except a small piece at the top.
The stupid thing is... at the moment, the water from this one tastes even worse. I guess I have to boil out the factory taste first.