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Joule issue?

sol_417995

I live in a 70 year old house. It has never been rewired. The circuit in my kitchen is on a 15 amp fuse. We I use the Joule all the lights seem to every 2 seconds or so. I have never blown a fuse. Is there anything I need to be concerned about?

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fisher23

Joule pulls 1100 Watts to heat and as long as you aren't blowing a fuse I wouldn't worry about it. I am not an electrician so keep that in mind. #electricalpower

Dan_Ahern_30344

Sol in your particular case it doesn't sound like there is anything to be concerned about.

Depending on particular home wiring, the flickering is something that can happen in some homes. This is due to the way sous vide works by maintaining a precise temperature, to do that we cycle power to our heater many times a second (right now 2 times, in a future firmware update it will be 8 times). What you are seeing with the lights dimming is the heater power cycling on and off to maintain the temperature. This is similar to the microwave's defrost cycle or refrigerator compressor turning on or off.

If you are still concerned there are some things to check:

If the outlet is on the same circuit as the light bulbs (if flipping off the breaker turns off both the outlet and the lights) this could be part of the problem and would unfortunately happen with any high power draw appliance like your refrigerator or microwave. In fact, with the microwave if you use the defrost mode you can actually see the same behavior as Joule. You'd want to try moving the device to another circuit. Most modern electricians actually wire the lights on a separate circuit to avoid these kinds of issue.

Another thing that can make this worse is the type of lightbulbs. High wattage lightbulbs like incandescents are going to be more sensitive to high power draw devices like your microwave, Joule, or refrigerator. Lower wattage LED lightbulbs seem to hold up much better to the large power draw of Joule's (or any sous vide device) heater turning on.

There is also a small chance that your home electrical service isn't getting enough power from the power companies transformer. If the lights in the entire house dim this could actually be the case and the power company could come out and test this.

Bruce_Liebert_452675

15A fuse should be OK for up to 1800W.