What might be wrong with my microwave?

[Bert Coules]

I've now had a chance to test the grill and the convection oven, and both are still working. So the inverter does perhaps seem the likely culprit.

[alphasheepdog]

I have a panasonic nn a554w microwave. The turntable has stopped turning on all cooking options.

[Bob Minchin]

Burned out motor or stripped gears or what ever switches it on is buggered. You will have to do some diy to find out which!

[Graham.]

Turntable motor probebly.

No need to remove the cover, access is provided on the underside of the machine.

Unplug, Set it on its side, and use a rat-tail file to remove the knock-out hatch.

It should be obvious how to proceed from there, The motors operate at mains voltage and usually differ between machine makes/models only by spindle length, so you may be in luck if you have a scrap machine as a parts donor.

There will be some lugs and screw holes to refit the hatch. They may have even parked the self-tapper(s) in the hole(s)

[tabbypurr]

It was 3 yrs ago, but fwiw early nukes were water cooled

NT

[alan_m]

£7.50 from CPC

[johnjessop46]

Do you use the alternative functions at all or like many things it sounded good at the time? (like 95% of cooker timers) if you only ever microwave with it I'd suggest a new el-cheapo supermarket special might be far the simplest solution.

[Brian-Gaff]

Do some options result in a non rotating turntable on purpose? If so you might just have a relay issue. brain

[Edgar]

Our Panasonic stopped working. It turned out to be the magnetron which had overheated and cracked a magnet. A replacement magnetron fixed it. The reason for the overheating was that the narrow channels through the magnetron heat sink had become completely blocked with dust. Now, when I remember, I take the covers off and vacuum out those channels. I feel that some kind of easily replaceable air filter in the airflow to the magnetron would be a big improvement to the design - together with some warning indicator to tell when to replace.

[Bert Coules]

Edgar,

I'm grateful for your thoughts. Did you realise that you're replying to a post I made nearly three years ago?

Bert

[edgariredale]

Discovering Google Groups. Sorry.

However I think the idea of cleaning out the heat sink is still useful.

Edgar

[Bert Coules]

Edgar,

Unfortunately, I no longer own the oven in question. And I'm afraid I can't now remember if I did manage to fix it, or if I did, how. But thanks again for your advice.

Bert

[gswarraich]

Thanks for the suggestion...I m facing a similar issue... Microwave used fo r twenty minutes on full power to defrost frozen spaghetti (probably should n't have done that) since then microwave cuts out after 30-40 seconds altho ugh once or twice a day it still goes on without cutting but doesn't really heat the food, sort of warms it up... I guess magnetron is on the blink...

[tabbypurr]

for twenty minutes on full power to defrost frozen spaghetti (probably shou ldn't have done that) since then microwave cuts out after 30-40 seconds alt hough once or twice a day it still goes on without cutting but doesn't real ly heat the food, sort of warms it up... I guess magnetron is on the blink. ..

Most likely a partially shorted transformer. A damaged thermal cutout is no t impossible.

NT