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Microwave Oven problem
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I have an over the stove microwave oven which I think has 2 related
problems. The first is that its 20 Amp circuit breaker keeps tripping
intermittently. It is the only device on the circuit. This has been
occurring for a 2 months. Recently the microwave appears to be producing
too much power while cooking. For example, it melts plastic plates where do
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You do not say how old the oven is. Designs have changed over the years.
My Panasonic is almost 30 years old. Still works fine, although I had to
replace the light bulb in it once. Chances are a replacement would last 3
years, if I'm lucky :-(
Microwave ovens can only produce the max amount of energy, that the tube is
rated for. If you set it to lower power, the tube is turned on-off, some
percentage of the time.
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This might be in response to my suggestion to try other levels, since
I think I"m the only one who suggested this.
Yes, I know what you are saying and you're right. But that doesn't
mean that trying other levels wouldn't get around a problem in the
logic circuit. I wouldn't say it is very likely to work, but it might.
At the very least, the OP will start to get into the habit of testing
every possibility and looking for every symptom. OTOH if it does
work, it could work for years.
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It may be possible that due to some component failure in the power supply,
the whole thing is acting strange. Or that door switch, as someone
suggested (I did not know they were designed that way).
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My guess would be that the OP's mixer (a moving part that sort of stirs
the microwaves as they go into the box may have failed.
BTW you are right that that today's are not designed to last as long.
They also are better in some ways, but longevity is not one. They are
generally lighter weight, and more efficient as well as they tend to cook a
little more even.
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Many years ago I worked in a service department repairing microwave
ovens, among other things. One day a woman brought one in and said
everything was cooking in half the time. This seemed odd but a test
heating of a cup of water showed a remarkable temperature rise. Primary
voltage was normal but secondary voltage to the magnetron was triple the
normal voltage. The primary of the transformer had developed a short,
burned open the winding and then fused to another layer of the winding
resulting in a primary with only 1/3 the normal number of turns. This
tripled the transformer turns ratio and turned the oven into a super
cooker. Weird things can happen.
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Yeah, thrash it, as some suggested and your next one will fail even sooner.
Short of tube replacement, these things are fixable. Even the tube can be
replaced. Of course if you can't live w/o it for a few days, make a deposit
to the thrash heap, that's becoming the trademark of the American
Consumerism.
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My sister-in-law couldn't wait. She bought a new one while I fixed
the old one (in this case just a fuse) and gave it to Goodwill
Industries. In fact she bought another one of a different brand at
the first store she went to and said she'd hire a (probably
lower-than-average-priced probably Mexican illegal) carpenter to make
new moldings around the new microwave. It's also going to need stops
to keep it from moving back or sideways.
As cheap as Mexicans sometimes are I think she's going to end up
costing my brother a lot more money then if she'd just looked a bit
longer to find one the same size that used the same mounting kit which
they already had. But I kept my mouth shut.
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Find a local repair shop that is reasonable and support them with repairs.
I know there are very few left and not all are reasonable.
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Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let
me know if you have posted also.
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not before and cooks items hotter than before. My thought is that microwave
has had it.
Any comments?
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Yea, I would go for a new one. They are really designed as throw away
appliances.
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The microwave may be broken but I don't see how it could use more than
20 amps even if it is. Sometimes breakers get old and trip when they
shouldn't. (But if you replace it, don't throw it away until youre
sure the new one works better.)
Do you have power levels on your microwave. Try using a lower level
all the time. It's even possible that level 10 is bad, but levels 1
through 9 work fine, but if not that, 1 through 10 might still be
proportional, even if they are all high.
At the very least you'll learn something about the psychology of
microwaves, and you may get many more years out of your device.
BTW, iiuc, plenty of plastics will work well in a microwave, but the
ones that are really designed for them won't get hot at all, even if
the oven runs longer and hotter than it should. I certainly have some
melmac type stuff that get's warmer than it should (which also means
that the food isn't cooked as much as otherwise) and other melmac type
stuff, or china, that doesn't get hot at all. I try to remember to
use the latter.
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The door has a switch that shorts out the power line if the oven tries to
come on with the door open. That is the first place to look. There are two
switches, one breaks the power so it won't turn on, the other shorts out the
circuit if something goes wrong with the first one.
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Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let
me know if you have posted also.
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