The best way to heat water...

[Mentally Moribund]

So I've been on my hot water heating system rampage lately.  I thought occured to me while driving to work today.  Would a Klystron or Magnatron (Both microwave) be a better (as in less power hungry) way to heat water?  My plans right now are a coil to oil to water(coils submerged in oil to eliminate latent heat).  

[wooferhound]

The klystrons that I have seen were 3 feet tall and put out 55,000 watts . . .

[iFred]

I was thinking the same thought about a month ago. Since microwave ovens work on the theory of vibrating H2O water molecules.. Seems to be a very good way of heating water.

I drink a lot of tea and coffee in the day, all of it is nuked.. I can boil a cup in exactly 1.35 mins. It usually takes about 5 mins to boil it with a regular water boiler or stove.  

So I think it might be doable and worthwhile. I would only worry about the containment issue. Don't want to get irradiated. If metal is all around the entire structure then it wouldn't be a problem.

Very neat!

[drdongle]

I have seen Klystrons that you can hold in your hand.......but that aside I suspect that it isn't all that efficient, after all you need a heater and plate power supplies, then some control circuity, designed to interface with the high voltage plate supply. heck the heater might put out enough power to make hot water.

interesting idea, but I doubt it. simple is good = K.I.S.S.

Carpe Vigor

Dr.D

[skravlinge]

You will have chance to heat up faster, but providing the heat loss is the same in your systems the cost of energy will be the same microwaves or not. If you find it better after installing a system using microwaves, its for sure due to the system have less loss of heat., and well it would then be better.

[skravlinge]

You will have chance to heat up faster, but providing the heat loss is the same in your systems the cost of energy will be the same microwaves or not. If you find it better after installing a system using microwaves, its for sure due to the system have less loss of heat., and well it would then be better.

[iFred]

Just try a test with an old microwave. See what it does, protect balls at all costs, tell us what happened. The nice part about it is that it's fast, so it might be even better as a "hot water on demand" type system, works on flow rate. I have a electric one of these called "tankless water heater". Heats the water instantly, it takes a lot of power at the start but cheaper then heating a 40-60 gal tank.

[nothing to lose]

So what are we looking at here for a simple and fast setup?

Coil plastic pipe in microwave oven and press the popcorn button to run a preset time for hot water to fill a bathtub??

 I have a few junk microwaves I could probably try this with, but I never really considered them that fast for heating coffee so never gave something like hot water heating any thought. Of course I have a larger than normal sized coffee cup.

 I would like an "ON DemAND" type water heater as a supplement to the solar I'll be adding too. I had a really good micro wave that has a bent case, it was dropped, but worked great untill then. Maybe use it for parts?

What would we use to hold water in the micro wave though that is not effected by heat or the microwaves and does not interfere either.

Would somthing like tat be a better dump load for heating water (faster) than just an electric element?

[RC in FL]

Laws of thermodynamic apply here.  You will get better efficiency from electric hot water heater element then 50% to 80% efficient Klystron RF output.

You can totally immerse a hot water heater element in the water so there is little loss.  Once you have the hot water both approaches have the same problem with container heat loss.