Informational content by Jamie @ Immersion Heaters UK Ltd.
Regularly our most consistent seller, but not entireley sure why this is over other power ratings, a 6kW immersion heater obviously suits many industrial applications.
The popularity could be down to the fact that, with the correct wiring, fuses, etc, you can get away with 6kW on a Single Phase feed, or as it houses three elements, it is also fine for a Three Phase feed. If the heater is wired 4 WIRE STAR, it can even be reconfigured to single phase by shifting ther busbars around, but that is clever stuff, for cleverer folks than me. If you are sufficiently intrigued, the images on this page will hopefully show this theory in practice.
It could also be down to the immersed length at 20″/500mm or below being a good fit for many liquid vessels. Some customers fit multiple 6kW heaters into a vessel as a bank of heaters, rather than fit an 18kW immersion heater, at about twice that length.
This may also effect the control side of things, with an 18kW immersion heater consisting of 3 x 6000w elements, whereas our friend the 6kW heater has 3 x 2000w elements. Some customers switch entire heaters in a bank on /off for temperature control purposes, some cleverer folks switch phases of just one heater on/off. Others use thyristor control, which basicaly varies the voltage, dialing up & down the power to fine tune temperature.
Insider Knowledge, you can put any voltage thru an element & get proportionally more or less power.
Thank you for visiting, & kudos to you for reading this far. If you have any feedback, suggestions, etc, please feel free to contact me.
elementsofheating 