What do power ratings on electrical appliances and tools actually mean?

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If my blender is rated at 250W, does that mean thats the maximum amount of power it can possibly consume? or is it a minimum, or an average?
does it take into account how much load you place on the motor?

Lets say i want to run it on a small 500W inverter in my van, how can i roughly estimate how much power its going to draw once im blending my food?
i wouldn’t want to risk blowing it up and i have no testing equipment..

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4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

250W is the “nominal power”. That means upon turning it on it will draw a bit more for a short moment but then stay at 250W at the highest setting.

Anonymous 0 Comments

You should really contact the appliance manufacturer(s). Ratings are generally nominal. I’m practice, the actual power consumed will vary with supplied voltage and load. Take a resistive load, like a kettle. Let’s say it’s rated for 1200W at 120V. It will draw 10A and you can calculate the resistance of the coil as 12 Ohms. If you reduce the voltage to 110V, the current raw will be 110V/12 Ohms = 9.16 Amps, which translates to 1008.3 Watts

Anonymous 0 Comments

That’s how much power it will take from the outlet at the highest setting/configuration if u have a 500W outlet it will draw 250W leaving u with 250W

Anonymous 0 Comments

Even with a heavy load on the motor, it shouldn’t draw much more than its rating. The problem with an electric motor specifically is they draw a surge of power to initially start turning. Depending on the inverter, this could cause it to fail or turn off to protect itself – even if the steady load isn’t enough to cause it to overheat with long-term use