Microwave odd-ball

[robgraham]

The source I suspect is age - it's a 20 year old Panasonic - and it's more a case of 'when' we replace it rather than resolve but an opinion of the source of the problem would be interesting.

About once every 2 months recently it has stopped working properly and requires to be switch off at the wall for an extended period (in the order of an hour). Once it was the touch pad that misbehaved and three times there's been no or little microwave power. It works perfectly well after this full re-boot.

Any ideas ? Thanks Rob

[Andrew Gabriel]

Worth a quick check of the electrolytic capacitors, particularly in the microcontroller power supply.

Note all the usual caveats about the magnetron PSU storing enough energy to kill you, sometimes for long after the unit has been used, and not operating it with any covers removed, etc.

[Nick Odell]

When my microwave - a catering industry Sanyo that I bought second hand in 1986 - has failed I have traced back problems with the on-switch and the microwave source to nothing more than condensed, vapourised grease that has built up in the works

Okay: you are not going to approve of this but here goes...

My cure has been to treat it like a faulty computer keyboard, strip it down, wash it out, dry it thoroughly and put it all back together again. I'm a little more delicate with computer keyboards but I've taken the covers off the microwave and dumped it in the bath where I've scrubbed the whole thing, inside and out with washing up liquid and hot water from the shower, finishing off with clean water before draining it thoroughly and leaving it to dry off for a week in the airing cupboard. You would not believe the filth that gets left behind in the bath.

I'm still alive and so is my microwave.

Nick