Can a soft start device help with oven?

[sv_isara]

Hey all! So I noticed that my air fryer is causing my inverter to stutter every now and then when the heating coils and fan start up. I've Googled but I have not been able to find anything about whether a soft start could potentially help buffer the air fryer cycling loads. I'm assuming that the biggest load is not the fan but rather the heating elements.

Since my inverter is custom built I'd very much rather not replace it. It's a 3,000 watt. The air fryer is listed at 1800 watts. Do you think a soft start device could help?

[sailorboy1]

I doubt a soft start will help with that at all. A fryer is just a resistance load that has no "starting" surge like a motor has. I would say the problem is more likely your inverter either in size or general.

[SailingHarmonie]

Originally Posted by sv_isara

Hey all! So I noticed that my air fryer is causing my inverter to stutter every now and then when the heating coils and fan start up. I've Googled but I have not been able to find anything about whether a soft start could potentially help buffer the air fryer cycling loads. I'm assuming that the biggest load is not the fan but rather the heating elements.

Since my inverter is custom built I'd very much rather not replace it. It's a 3,000 watt. The air fryer is listed at 1800 watts. Do you think a soft start device could help?

There are a lot of questions your post suggests:

• What is a "custom built" inverter? And what makes it special? Given the sophistication of design of modern inverters, it hardly seems the kind of thing worth a home-brew. Based on the questions you are asking, I am guessing you did not design and build this.
• What does your inverter do when it "stutters"? I have no idea what that actually means.
• Are there other loads running with your air-fryer that increase the load on your inverter?

But none of those have any effect on the answer: No, a soft start will not make a difference.

The fan load is trivial, and the heater elements are a pure resistance load. There is a LITTLE bit of a higher start load because the resistance is lower when the coils are cold, but that is again trivial compared to a motor startup load. If your inverter can't run this without a problem the odds are the "custom" design just isn't up to snuff.

I have a truly ancient Xantrex 2000W inverter that has no trouble with a 1800W convection oven, so your 3000W unit SHOULD be fine.

[Lake-Effect]

Does your air fryer's fan come on at the same time as the heating coils? If yes, there might be some point to starting the fan first, then the heating coils a few seconds later, to spread out the initial surges... but this would be major surgery on the air-fryer to add the coil delay circuit.

Anyway it's probably most likely that the inverter just doesn't like the total load of the air-fryer. Try to find another 1800W load like a small plug-in heater or a hair-dryer, and see if they also cause the inverter to hiccup.

[smac999]

I would check the voltage at the inverter input when this happens. it's possible the cables / connections / wire length can't handle that big load.

but a soft start is not going to help a resistive load. a 1500w motor will draw ~6000w at startup. so a 3000w inverter can run it, but can't start it. that is what the softstart is for. to limit the startup current. your 1500w heater is always 1500w even at start up

[sv_isara]

It's not a custom built inverter; but the way it's integrated is relatively custom, the ventilation and cabinet size etc. Well, I'll try it anyway and let yall know if it does work or help

[CaptTom]

I wouldn't expect the soft start cap to do anything. But there's another possibility to consider. If it's not a pure sine wave inverter, perhaps the electronics in the air fryer itself are balking at the "dirty" power. I've seen that before, and maybe the effect is worse at the higher power levels those air fryers work at. 1800W is a pretty significant load. We have one at home and I have to double-check that nothing else is plugged in when using it.