Here is a bit of tutorial. First, do not pay as much attention to total power requirement. Instead, look at the power of the largest most powerful hob. I suggest finding something that is around 3,500 watts or better. Unfortunately, I find the stats at the induction site incorrect in some cases so you may have to contact the manufacturer to get the correct data. The total power requirement has to do with all the hobs running together. But there is a bit of complexity in that some (most) of the units cannot handle the full power. So they allow combination of hobs being on until the max is reached at which point, you lose power as you turn things on. Fortunately, I supsect few of us will ever attempt to use all the hobs at once so the max power consumption of the unit is of little consequence in my opinion. Now a bit of math :): Watts = voltage x current. The watts you already know like the 3,500 watts above (same as 3.5 Kw with "k" meaning kilo or 1000). Voltage is 240. So a 3,500 watt hob uses 3500/24 = 14.5 amps (unit of current). Induction units are about 90% efficient so you have to multiple this number by 1.1 to get its full power consumption, arriving at 16 amps. Put another way, that single 3,500 watt hob uses 16 amps. If your unit is rates at 40 amps, you can have 2 units of that power and one of lower power. Or some other combination like that. The noted comment I think talks about the fact that a 40 amp circuit may exist in a home from another electric cooktop that might have already been there. But to the extent you are rewiring your kitchen, it is not consequential that one unit uses 40 amps vs 50 amps (in grand scheme of things). Hope this makes things more clear. If not, go ahead and ask.

While a power interruption of a few hours isn't of great consequence to people with a freezer ... longer periods can be rather hair-rising. I've thought that it might be good idea for people where they have power interruptions from time to time to gather a group of, say, four to six or so, to share in buying a generator, possibly of somewhat better quality and capacity than one person would wish to, alone, to move from house to house when the power is out, to keep the food in the freezers intact. Some people where I visited with a generator wanted me to fire up their furnace, but most have an unbreakable connection to the power box and I was unwilling to risk the possibility of the main switch getting reconnected inadvertently, thus pushing power back out on to a line that the linemen understood to be dead, possibly with drastic consequences. Where codes allow, I think that it would be advisable for people to have a push-and-twist connection between the power box and the furnace. When the power is down for an extended period, most people are not going to their place of employment, so would be free to move the generator from member's house to member's house during the day and night ... or even to help an outsider, should they so choose. It would be necessary to have at least one member who had an establishment large enough to store the generator without its being a nuisance. Such a plan would provide cheap insurance for people with a substantial amount of expensive food in their freezers ... and have you noticed how the price of that food has escalated in recent times ... while the wage increases earned by most ordinary workers have been much more ... meagre? Does anyone foresee a substantial change in that scenario, any time soon? ole joyful

"so it's not necessarily an issue of the "build" of interacting components that constitute an alternator nor is the issue a matter os quality workmanship necessarily, these units output poor sine waves simply because at least one core element(s), iron, is poor?" The design does not have adequate iron for the magnetic fields being supported. It is a BAD (and CHEAP) design. Alternators (and AC electric motors) depend on a careful balance between having enough iron in their pole pieces, the shape and clearance of the pole pieces to each other. The iron must not become over-saturated by the magnetic field created. Iron can only contain a certain magnetic field strength before is saturates and the high permeability of the iron reverts to the low value of free space. There are other metals and combinations that are superior to iron, but they come at very high price premiums and are restricted by this to special applications.

"That's why the timer requires the neutral wire as well." Correct. The timer is in parallel. The timer turns off the switch which is in series. The timer turns off the switch via a relay. "Would the switchboard not work the same way?" Not sure. It depends on how the switchboard is wired. If the "timer" is in parallel with relays, then there should be a way to insert one dimmer after the circuit splits off for the timer, but before the switches. (In theory) instead of 12 dimmers. Many old "timers" and indicator lights ran a small amount of electricity through the bulb instead of needing a separate neutral. You couldn't tell that there was still electricity running through the bulb when the light was off because the current was too small to make the filament glow. (this is the situation I am thinking about) Circuit boards are often run more in a series configuration, or combination series parallel that is hard to separate for the purpose of adding a dimmer. "I'm still not entirely clear on why it doesn't matter, because the circuit board "switch" needs a certain amount of power (≥90v) to perform whatever functions it does to know when to switch the lights off/on" It does matter, you just might end up with the same problem either way. These are the same as far as voltage across any light/resistor/dimmer/circuit board, etc. "Does it matter whether I use the type of dimmer that reduces the voltage across the series vs. the type that interrupts the voltage up to 120 times per second to achieve dimness?" I don't know for sure, but my guess is that you would have other problems with the same outcome of failure. (The faster cycle may speed up the timer proportionally) Unless the control circuits on the board are truely in parallel with the actual switches.... hard to say. If the control parts of the circuit board are in parallel, then any dimmer should work on the load side of the circuit board like you were thinking.