- Oct 25, 2006
- 391
DiscoInferno said:To be really picky, the units are not Ohms/deg C, but just 1/deg C. It’s a scale factor, to be multipied by the temperature difference (to make it unitless) and then multiplied by the resistance (which already has units of ohms) at the reference temperature to get the resistance change.
So, a 1kW nichrome heating element would have a nominal resistance (at 20 deg C, say) of (110V)^2/1000W = 12.1 Ohms. At 120 degrees, it would have a resistance of 12.1 Ohm * (1 + 0.00017/deg C * 100deg C)=12.3 Ohm, and put out a power of (110V)^2/12.3 Ohm = 983W, a 1.7% loss of heating power.
Yep let one slip there.
Now really picky would be if we get into linearity.
Depending on the thermal resistance out of the heating element, a 120°C could give you a boiler instead of a water heater.