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Comment by Siecje | Hacker News Reader

Your comment implies that you could hook up a ordinary electric range but not an induction range.

I thought induction used slightly less energy. Or is it that it uses more energy for a shorter time so the net is less but the peak is higher?

I assume I could replace my electric stove with a stove with induction "burners".

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I believe the answer is that induction is more efficient at getting heat into your food.

With electric, it heats up a coil that heats up your pan (and the air around it) that heats your food.

With induction, it skips the coil and simply heats the pan. The pans are specially designed to contain a heating coil in them which implicitly is closer to your food.

It also means the work surface tends to cool quickly (or never get hot in the first place), making it safer.

>The pans are specially designed to contain a heating coil in them which implicitly is closer to your food.

Just to note, you don’t need special pans to use an inductive stove. Any magnetic cookware will do, which includes cast iron and most stainless steel. As an intuitive rule of thumb, if a magnet will stick to the bottom, then it’s compatible.

The pan doesn't have a heating coil in it - it's just a solid slab of metal. However, that acts like a single turn of wire in a "coil" shorted out.

Induction compatible cookware doesn't have a heating coil. They just need ferrous metal in them. They can be clad in aluminum, with a ferrous core etc. A cast iron pan works fine, and most stainless steel cookware is fine. It's just the cheap teflon stuff that's out of luck.

> It's just the cheap teflon stuff that's out of luck.

And copper and aluminium. Some stoneware too as well as glass when needed.

Copper and aluminum can be used as a cladding around the ferrous metal core just fine. I guess you could do the same with some of the ceramics/stoneware as well.

It really isn't just fine. You lose the entire purpose of the pans and might as well be cooking on an electric stove at that point.

>The pans are specially designed to contain a heating coil in them which implicitly is closer to your food.

This is not correct. Any ferric-metal pan/pot will work. If a magnet can stick to your pot it will work.

I wonder did anyone did a comparision between ones sold as "induction" vs plain old steel pan.

Like, do the induction ones do something to make the heat distribution more equal compared to slab of steel ?

Induction ranges are more efficient, so to heat at the same rate as an ordinary electric range, use less energy. But many people want an induction range that is more powerful than a typical electric range.

Yeah an induction range most likely wouldn't require any more power than a resistive range. The only caveat to that is that higher end ranges might have higher power draws due to having more burners and such and induction ranges tend to be the higher end. That being said it looks like most ranges require a 40 amp circuit now, while code now requires wiring a new range outlet for 50 amps even if you put a 40 amp breaker on it.

As an aside, for those watching from home - you can put LARGER connections downstream of smaller ones (50 amp outlet on a 40 amp breaker) because the worst case is your breaker will flip.

You can put SMALLER outlets on a larger breaker (40 amp outlet on a 50 amp breaker) because the outlet is SUPPOSED to keep you from overloading it (and the outlet will actually be rated for more than the "plug size")

The DANGER you must avoid is having a 50 amp outlet on a 50 amp breaker but only having wiring between them that can support 40 amps - and the amount of amperage a wire can support DROPS over longer distances. So it's best to size everything correctly from the beginning.

Standard non-metallic 8 gauge wire is only allowed to handle 40 amps. If you want to put 50 amps to the outlet you need more expensive wire (most likely 6 gauge, but there are other forms of 8 gauge that are approved for 50 amps). Since most stoves only need 40 amps electricians will run non-metallic 8 gauge by default and put a 40 amp breaker on it - then since there isn't such a thing as a 40 amp outlet they have a 50 amp outlet on the other end.

Yeah the main relationship that matters is the breaker to wire.

There is a fun semi related thing. Can you put 15 amp outlets on a 20 amp circuit? The answer is yes you can, but only if there is at least two receptacles, and a standard duplex outlet counts at two receptacles.

Which is another reason you don't want to oversize a breaker; you can have ten, twenty two-receptacle outlets on a single circuit, and if lots of stuff was plugged in you could easily draw tens or hundreds of amps, which would melt normal Romex pretty quickly.

This is an exception to the electric code, not the rule.

Almost every outlet must be paired with the appropriate wire size and breaker. A 30A outlet must be backed with a 30A breaker (no exceptions!) and wire must be at least capable of carrying 30 amps. There's also restrictions on wire size based on the outlet/breaker, since certain breakers/outlets cannot handle certain wire sizes. For instance, NEMA 5-15 outlets generally can't support wire sizes above 12 gauge, so you're limited to 12 or 14 gauge only.

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