• @Droggelbecher
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    611 months ago

    Why isn’t it intuitive that a device designed to evaporate water quickly gets hotter than the boiling point of water

    • @MotoAsh
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      1011 months ago

      Because it is intuitive that water doesn’t need to hit boiling point to dry off.

      • @Droggelbecher
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        311 months ago

        But when it doesn’t it takes a long ass time to dry, else we’d just line fry instead

        • @MotoAsh
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          11 months ago

          Yes, but you seem to be forgetting that we’re talking about the difference between room temperature and melting plastic. That’s hundreds of degrees F. Even twenty degrees makes a substantial difference for drying water.

          It’s fully within reason to expect a dryer to be less hot than melting plastic unless it’s a gas dryer. Even then, many clothes are literally made of plastic. Nylon? Radon? Plastic. It’s totally reasonable to expect a dryer to not melt typical kinds of clothes. (though at least nylon’s melting point is significantly higher than some other kinds of plastic)

          • Tlaloc_Temporal
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            fedilink
            211 months ago

            And you’re forgetting that water needs huge amounts of heat to evaporate. The heat capacity of plastic is rather small in comparison, so a machine capable of quickly vaporizing water also has the power to melt crappy thin plastic.

            Modern dryers usually have a safety thermostat, but lint buildup is still a big fire hazard, so there are obviously temperatures in significant excess of boiling here.