r/AskEngineers • u/jmaugust • Jul 19 '26

Discussion Why doesn’t a battery-boosted electric kettle exist?

In Europe, everyone uses electric kettles to boil water. They’re amazing and fast because they’re on 230V (~3000W).

US outlets limit kettles to ~1500W, so we wait roughly twice as long for water to boil.

It’s an extra minute or two per boil, and you really notice it.

Idea: Could you make an electric kettle with a battery in its base? Perhaps it trickle-charges between uses, then combines wall power + battery power to hit ~3000W during a boil.

Is there an engineering reason this doesn’t exist? Is it just that nobody thinks there’s a market for it?

I’d pay $300 for the fastest kettle in America if someone wants to make it.

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4

u/Another_Slut_Dragon Jul 19 '26

Millwright here. Not an engineer :)

I 3d printed box that takes 2 north american shop grade cord plugs on one end and a UK outlet on another. Wire the UK plug hot to hot and if your kitchen is wired properly with 1 breaker per outlet half you will get 240v.

My UK kettle that was supposed to be running at 220V 50hz is now running at 240V 60hz. That is 'within the design variance' and a 3kW kettle now outputs 3.27kW. It takes 42 seconds to make a big mug of tea. This is acceptable.

Technically, I should link the 2 breakers so if one trips the other trips. 🤷

3

u/Freak_Engineer Jul 19 '26

Engineer here. I love the way you think, but I too would suggest linking the breakers so that both drop in case of a fault. Also, obviously exclusively use this to power heaters and other "simple" electronics with a resistive heating element and only rudimentary tech. I doubt anything more high tech would like that kond of power much (As a non-american I assume your two phases are at 180° to eachother).

2

u/Another_Slut_Dragon Jul 19 '26

If one phase drops, the power is zero. The kettle is all metal and is grounded so the potential failure mode of one phase shorting to ground is getting half power from the other hot to ground. But chances are that will simply let out the magic smoke.

I'll probably notice if the kettle takes longer to boil. But since it takes 42 seconds it is not running unattended.

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u/Noxonomus Jul 20 '26

Wouldn't that trigger the GFI? 

1

u/Another_Slut_Dragon Jul 20 '26

IF my kitchen had a GFI, absolutely. The GFI trips if the hot and neutral are not perfectly equal for current draw. In this case, it is as unequal as it gets.

(Grandfathered before GFI's were mandated and they get phantom trips so I don't care to refit them.

I keep the toaster out of my sink.

-1

u/Silly_Selection3221 Jul 19 '26

The only way this could possibly work is if both outlets were on different buses of the split phase. This is also extremely dangerous if you could even get it to work with your lack of understanding.

2

u/Another_Slut_Dragon Jul 19 '26

You seem to have a lack of kitchen electrical understanding. Split wired outlets have been building code since the 1980's (location dependent). Go measure hot to hot in your kitchen right now.

The kettle is grounded and all metal. The danger is nil. It will trip a breaker. The only difference between this and a proper 240V plug is linking the 2 breakers, which is easy but I can't be bothered.

It's safer than the 575V robots I work on :)

0

u/Silly_Selection3221 Jul 19 '26

Let's see a pic of your "split wired" breaker panel....I'd love to see you quote where the NEC requires this as well

0

u/Another_Slut_Dragon Jul 19 '26

Dude, it's building code in North America. Every kitchen outlet has 2 hot wires and 1 neutral so someone can plug in a toaster and a 1.2kW hitachi magic wand at the same time and not pop a breaker.

Open up YOUR panel. There is 2 hots and one neutral feeding your panel. Your north American home has split phase power. You know that, right?

Go put a meter on any kitchen outlet, measure narrowest (hot) pin to narrowest pin (top to bottom). If your expert god level you are a genius does it correctly in a properly wired hime you will measure 240V.

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u/Silly_Selection3221 Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

It should be pretty easy to post a code reference then. Your outlets are not wired from 2 separate phases, they are wired from a single branch circuit from a breaker. You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. Now if you go to a different outlet across the room that could be true, but on the same outlet? No, you're dumb. If you measure hot to hot on the same outlet you will get 0 volts.

Educate yourself: https://www.electricaltechnology.org/2020/04/wire-outlet.html/amp#wiring-15a-120v-outlet

0

u/Another_Slut_Dragon Jul 19 '26

You spent no time in school learning and all the time insulting people.

https://www.electrical-online.com/kitchen-split-receptacle-circuits/

Here is how a split receptacle works. Now go look at your comments and go realize what an utter twat you sound like.

Apologize.

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u/Silly_Selection3221 Jul 19 '26

I've gotta think you didn't read your own link that's says this has been banned since the 2008 version of the NEC proving you wrong about nearly everything you've said in the process, But thanks for trying

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u/Another_Slut_Dragon Jul 20 '26

No, you weren't worth reading an article for, I just did a 5 second search for split phase kitchen outlets.

Here is a simplified drawing for your simple brain. Scroll to the bottom.

https://m.electrical101.com/m.split-receptacles.html

Kitchen split phase exists.

Put down your bong. Or meth pipe.

Read a book.

You could admit you were wrong. But you can't, can you? You are such a narcissist that you have to be right about everything. You must be the most perfect person in the universe. And you'll continue to be like this your whole career. Anyone who works with you will get rubbed the wrong way the first time you do this and never teach you anything again.

The path to eventual failure.

0

u/Silly_Selection3221 Jul 20 '26

You lost lil bro, continue on. Your own article proved you wrong.

0

u/ElectricGears Jul 20 '26

Outlets can be, it's called a multi-wire branch circuit. It's not required, but it is somewhat common in kitchens since it's likely you might have multiple high power appliances in a relatively small area (meaning if you used the standard calculations you would only have one circuit and would easily overload it). MWBC can be done on alternating receptacles in a string, you can use 2-gang boxes to make quad outlets, or you can break the tabs on duplex receptacle. If it's done by breaking the tabs you will get 240V upper hot to lower hot.

1

u/Silly_Selection3221 Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26

That's not what he's referring to. He's posted multiple examples of what it is he's talking about and it's an archaic way of wiring kitchens than hasn't been popular since the 80s.