Are Panasonic microwave ovens still considered high quality these days or are we just paying extra for a brand name? Just curious. I may need to buy a new microwave soon because my LG microwave oven occasionally trips out on 30 second EZ on mode so my guess is that it’s on its way out.
@@guitareveryone I have a newer Panasonic inverter type in SS circa 2010 and it is still going good. I have had to replace the bulb and the steam sensor. I once had a 1980's Panasonic Genius passed down to me from my parents and that is still working without ever having an issue. We had commercial microwaves at my work that were in constant use and they would often have problems with arcing on the butt connectors for the door switches. Cutting off the butt connectors and soldering the wires to the switches would fix the problem.
Our Panasonic similar to this one was retired as the door started to distort.Replaced with the same but from China and it failed after 11 months.Panasonic repair call center were extremely unhelpful saying a engineer could not call for three weeks.We decided to purchase a much cheaper Kenwood microwave and await a engineer.He could fix it but after a week it stopped working.This time the call center would not repair and we are not going to buy any more Panasonic overpriced Chinese made products
@@guitareveryone I bought a pretty basic Panasonic microwave about 9 years ago from Costco for 70 dollars and it's still going strong. I think it was made in an actual Matsushita plant (in China), not from an ODM like Midea like most other microwaves. I have no idea if anything has changed since though.
I have one that is 35 years old used almost daily as an oven not microwave. Its a madam grill which has radiant elements in the top and bottom so it bakes like a conventional oven but faster it can use microwave at the same time to speed up cooking but still brown food. I got it free about 33 years ago with a dead magnetron. Replaced it with an after market and it has been great ever since.
@12voltvids I am really pleased you pulled apart the flyback transformer. I was initially surprised by the primary being lots of wires in parallel, but then remembered my old RF lessons about skin effect and Litz wire (I think that is what is is called). Lots of little wires gives lots of surface area on the wire for the current to travel through. In an earlier video of yours I learned that one of the door switches interrupts the power and the other shorts out the magnetron power (so it blows the fuse if power gets past the other switch and the door isn't closed). Thanks for the video showing us what's inside!
I only learned about inverter microwaves recently... Haven't had the pleasure of opening one up though. 😊 P.S. the info you gave us when you took out the magnetron was excellent 👌👍
Much better power control. First gen were not very reliable, but the new ones are. Early ones ate magnetrons but newer magnetrons with higher ratings fixed that issue
I really like the power control. I can BBQ burgers, freeze them, and then in a month or two thaw them (power level on my machine for 3-4 minutes) and they taste 99% as good as coming straight off the grill. Never could get that kind of control with the ones that just turn the magnetron on and off.
I kept the fan out and microwave and put it up in garage made a nice breeze when it got hot had it up for yrs the pan stat looks like the same one in daughter's heater and does reset I tested it with a lighter and have had loads of the micro stitches they used to have them in the tannoy down pot I worked at had a load out old ones of them as well another great video thanks
Hi Dave ... A little trick for your solder sucker ... cut a small notch in one side of the tip, just big enough to let you fit it over your soldering tip .... then you can trigger it without pulling the iron aside. Works better for me...
@@gorak9000 I didn't say to put a half inch hole in it... just a couple of strokes with a round jeweler's file so you can keep the heat on while you suck away the solder.
It's amazing what high voltage and arc-ing can do to wiring and insulation. I have seen aerial telephone cable get FUSED / welded together like a solid copper rod where lightning has struck during a storm. More than once during my career in telco that I have been close to getting DEEP FRIED by high voltage discharge. I learned to stay in the truck when a storm approaches. Oh the stories we can tell the kids.....
I never descended a pole so fast than when a heard thunder. Into my truck I went and I stayed there for a few hours before putting my ladder away and calling it a day.
They haven't used beryllium oxide in magnatrons in a long time. Those insulators are alumina now - the same pink material that tig welding cups are made of. Years ago I found a very nice microwave that had the exact same issue - the inverter transformer arced and created a ton of smoke. I put the whole thing back right where I found it - in the recycling bin!
This is what i cal tuning for maximum smoke! At least we now know what fails on these inverter microwaves. I hope the Panasonic that i have keeps working for a few more years
Good idea to keep the IGBT of the inverter, these are we quite expensive and I’ve had them fail on multiple devices that use this exact same inverter. Also one of those caps across the secundary sometimes goes open circuit, 5.1 of 5.6nzF i believe. I also used an electric solder sucker, hakko 474, but expensive parts and now no parts available, so i also use that big blue suckerthingy, works great in my opinion
To desolder parts from Cricut boards I put them in a vice and then use a small propane torch to heat the soldered side while i use plyers to pull the parts off when the solder melts. I don't need to add fresh solder, saving it for replacing parts. It works great. The propane lasts a long time. It's easier than using a soldering iron. The soldering iron is great for replacing parts.
If you're just harvesting parts, heat with heat gun, and whack the board on the ground - the parts come off pretty easily. Unsurprisingly, I call it the "heat and whack" method of component salvage
Back in 2015 I went to Lidl and bought a Silvercrest (Lidl brand) stainless steel Microwave oven with grill and air frying function. When I picked it up I immediately knew it had an iron transformer. Still going, but I had to replace that pesky rotary encoder. The one I put in unfortunately has the phase angle reversed so I now have to turn it left to increase the time. But it works!
I repaired a 2002 Sharp 1000w inverter microwave last year.. It was a complete rebuild. door relays, repairs to the inverter board, new magnetron. Succesful repair but took some time.. parts were not overly expensive either.. bridge rectifier and a transistor, couple of diots and the relays / magnetron. The owners grandfather uses it to heat food.. he's geriatric and couldn't use a new one properly but has no problems with this and he is unsafe to use a hob. Modern stuff is such a pain when it breaks. I have a 500 watt Toshiba from 1989 that still works fine. Hardly anything in the thing. Expect it to keep going until a door switch shorts of the magnetron finally bites the dust.
People like to use old microwaves an Faraday cages for EMP attacks. I wouldn't know if all that is really necessary. From my understanding, and EMP attack is mostly a problem for the grid. I heard an EMP attack could cause a 50kV surge on powerlines. It doesn't sound like an EMP attack would do anything to high tension lines at or above 50kV. I get the impression that EMP attacks may not be very effective.
@@12voltvids It's interesting that the core of the transformer got so hot to crack and cause a domino effect of arcing and shorting of the secondary windings!!, possibly caused initially by hysteris eddy currents built up with years of use causing heating. Just like those high pressure sodium lights that you used to be able to buy that had the plastic housing so it could be mounted on the facia board of the roof, and over time the high voltage transformer would buzz so loud you could hear them from next door, I tried to fix one for a neighbor ( who made Pennys sqeak) the transformer was so hot it melted the plastic housing and the laminated plates were loose and the windings were showing signs of arcing ! Anyway, sorry for rambling, but the video and the 5g frequency lesson was very informative 👍
Some would freak out over the thoriated tungsten in the magnetron filament, but that's not uncommon in high emission tubes. But, the beryllium, that's the big deal. I'd grind one into sections - outdoors, with a fan blowing away and a dust rinse down, then seal the remnants with plastic just to show the cavities of the magnetron. On the planet Mercury. I'd also have to toss the space suit, it's just that nasty a substance. Disposal, not a clue, being beryllium, it is a hazmat, infamous for cancers and berylliosis, which is incurable. Nasty, nasty stuff I learned years ago when working on nukes. Checking my travel plans, I don't see any trips for me scheduled for Mercury. OK, who was the wise guy that scheduled me to go streaking on the surface of Venus? Don't worry about the transformer, it's just loaded with weapons grade stinkium. Likely, the infernal recumifier shorted, popped the insulication and released the stinkium that repels skunks. Easily repaired though at 25 times the labor of manufacturing a new one. That'd be in man hours, around 100 times the price of the inverter, which in parts pricing would be around twice the value of the entire oven. I think I've well expressed my opinion of those HV circuits. Just had rectifiers short, overheat the windings, insulation broke down and it would dutifully arc to the core and overheat it. End of the day, six of one, half dozen of the other, but one approaches the diodes with caution... Oh, unrelated, but an HV electron gun fueled destruction festival, vertical output failed in a weird way, deflecting the beam straight up out of the electron gun of a CRT, straight into the deflection yoke, cutting a nice neat hole in the neck of the CRT. Think it was an old Sylvania, but it's been ages. Pinhole in the CRT neck, slagged yoke. Vertical output circuit was modern art. I also see that you're as bad as me when it comes to scavenging parts. ;) Which reminds me, I'll have to go scavenging soon for a mylar cap, just to steal the mylar from, around 1 cm or so for a radiation detector window...
I have a regular 2 knob analog microwave oven from 2004 and still works great, very fast too. Is there any danger if i unplug the powercord and open up the cover just to take a peeks and clean bread crums off? Not sure if it ever had a light, if it does it hasn't worked in years
Thank You for the reference to one of Canada's finest exports, SCTV!! By the way, how do Panasonic products rate nowadays? Pity we can't get the tv's In the states...
In Germany WiFi 5GHz has 1W power from Channel 100, and radar is on the high band here AFAIK. But keep in mind, phones are not allowed to send with that high of a power level back for the Tx because you can hold it to your head plus it takes a lot of battery power. Tablets and Laptops usually also have their Tx at 1W.
The power is controlled by the cell site. We have microcells all over the place, like every couple hundred metres so the power level is very low. Now with the 5G network, power levels are even lower because the cell sites are even closer to each other, however if you are away from the city the phones can still put out a fair bit of power. Low power not so much for health concerns as it is for battery life. More power translates into more power consumption. Thats why your battery drains faster when you are out on the highway away from urban centers. The towers are more spread out and more power is need to reach them.
@@12voltvids Ah I was talking about Wifi 5 GHz, not 5G. My iPhone for example has no trouble receiving data from the AP, but sending data back is troublesome for it because it doesn't Tx with the same power level as the AP, because it is a phone. I really need to get a better AP than the one in the Fritz!Box router modem combo unit, so I can move it in the middle of my apartment to get better coverage.
It's a pity you broke the inverter board. It's usually the IGBTs that go bad, these were still good. If an other one of these show up, you could just replace the transformer and have a good inverter. You can transplant the IGBTs from this one, but the problem is, the shorted IGBTs often cause the drivers or even the controller chip to fail. Probably the only bad part on this board was the transformer. Since this oven was nice and clean, I would have kept the whole thing and wait for a transformer donor. This is still a Japanese made one, a lot better than what you can get now.
In my apt the microwave is I n the same circuit as the fridge. Everything is on one, very annoying when I try to use two appliances at once and it blows the breaker
Until not too long ago, I thought what they meant by magnetron tube was a vacuum tube. I found out months ago it's not a glass enclosed tube. Why they called it a tube? I guess it's like a tube, like toothpaste tubes, ha ha. I also watched a video about how they work. Interesting!
Because it is a vacuum tube. Just because it's encased in metal its still a vacuum tube. It has a heated kathode, anode and they are separate in a vacuum chamber. The magnets and tuned chamber make it self oscillating.
OHH Boy I guess I am doomed. I have ripped apart many of Magnetrons to salvage all the different metals . Mostly with a Hammer & Chisel. Mostly the Ancient commercial Nukers that were stacked up in the Back shop area. You know the 150 Lb behemoth ones. Our Shop at the time was the only Comercial Repair Depot in the area before I started.. A local HAM that was a Microwave transmission Tech hooked a Magnetron to an antenna and modulated it and beamed out almost 10 Mile with it. HAHAHAHAHAHAAHA
I know many hams that have modulated magnetron. Your hv dc runs through the secondary of another microwave transformer and then the primary of that is connected to the output of your audio amplifier. Magnetron stuck in a wave guide that went up the tower and beamed the direction they wanted to send. Wave guide made with 4" duct pipe if I remember. The guys that did this are all dead. All died the same way. Cancer. They all smoked too so was it the cancer sticks are playing with microwaves. Probably both. I actually have a video number of years ago when we were experimenting with 1 W microwave transmitters into high gain antennas testing them and tuning them and one of the guys that was played around with that walk right in front of the beam and you can hear another guy say add a walk right through the f****** beam. The guy that walked through the beam died of cancer. We was also blind in 1 eye due to an accident with radios. Looked into a waveguide when it was on and cooked his eye. Hey but he was a true ham. Like to experiment. Had huge tracking dishes in his yard to do moon bounce work. Nothing cooler that sending a signal towards the moon and hear it echo back several seconds later.
It runs constantly. Unlike a conventional microwave where the power is always 100% and it is turned on and off. The inverter type change the duty cycle of the mosfet to vary the output voltage which changes the output power. So inverter types can go from a low 300 watts to 1200 watts. They can ramp up and down too such as for defrosting.
@@12voltvids I was about to ask this question too, "basically what's the difference with the types" I guess it's more clever but easier to die, like this one.. 👍🇮🇪
The conventional are perhaps slightly more reliable. The early inverter type had some reliability issues. The second gen they fixed most of the issues. The first gen came out late 90s. This one was made 2004 so it lasted 20 years and was used every day or should I say abused because it was used for warming up coffee making popcorn ect which is hard on them because small loads leave plenty of standing waves. My inverter microwave is a 2015 and its like 5th gen. Old conventional microwaves would eat capacitors and stack diodes. The first gen used 2 transistors in a push pull configuration and sometimes the transistors would fire at the same time and poof. Second gen used a single Mosfet. Also the ceramic caps were replaced by film caps. 20 years is a good life for a microwave used daily.
@@12voltvids Thanks! Just to confirm i'm getting it right -- conventional is obviously pure analog, in USA 120V/60Hz gets bumped up by the transformer to ~2kV then 4kV through the doubler... then power settings on the microwave cycle on/off with a period on the order of seconds? Using an inverter microwave drops the average power by duty cycling the PWM, but is the peak voltage delivered to the magnetron always the same? still ~4kVish? Surely the magnetron isn't getting a lower peak voltage -- but it could since it's all FET driven?
In conventional they turn the ac power to the transformer on and off. Full power is juat that 100 on tome. Half power might be 5 seconds on 5 seconds off. 30% might be 5 seconds on 15 seconds off or whatever they chose as the cycle. You can hear it turning on and off. Inverter changes the duty cycle or the frequency. Changing the frequency will bring the transformer in or out of resonance which changes the efficiency which changes the output voltage as does changing the duty cycle. Changing the duty cycle the voltage remains the same but the current can be changed. Lower either the voltage or limit the current and the output power changes. The result is more even cooking as opposed to full power on then off for several seconds. Remember the food is rotating. So As the food turns if the microwaves are being pulsed on or off there will be portions of the food where there is no cooking especially if the duty cycle happens to coincide with the rotational speed you could end up with cooking all on one side and nothing on the other. But with an inverter the magnetron is running constantly as the food is turning so you can lower the power and have things heat slower. Going to the inverter was not a cost-cutting measure as some people might imply because you don't need the big iron transformer however that is not the reason that the inverter technology was developed it was purely on the performance on how it cooked and the inverter based units are superior especially for things like defrosting. Conventional microwave would turn the power on full for like 5 seconds and then off for 17 and then back on for 5. The problem with this approach is being it's on full power for n extended period while it was defrosting the food at the surface starts to cook from the heat produced before the center defrost. With an inverter based microwave the power is turned down quite low so that there's not enough energy to start the surface of the food cooking while the center is still frozen solid. That was the reason that inverted my quotes were developed and had nothing to do with cutting their costs because it actually does cost more to build an inverter based unit than a standard unit with a conventional transformer.
No home microwaves use or as far as i'm aware have ever used beryllium oxide. It's very expensive, toxic and hard to work with. It is / was used in some military radar & telecommunications equipment. It still gets widely circulated on the net that domestic ovens contain hazardous material but it's just a misinformation / rumour that won't die. The pink rings are fused pink aluminium oxide. Manufacturers add chromium oxide to the aluminium to produce the pink color. I've worked in areas where Beryllium is used and may be present and health and safety labels are everywhere.
Do a search, they still have beryllium oxide. Some magnetrons use beryllium oxide as the "ceramic" looking insulators inside of the ring magnets on both the "Stem" and the "Antenna" ends. Reference the image below, the beryllium oxide parts are the pink items in the middle. They are totally inert if undisturbed.Feb 3, 2018
Fourth time's a charm? TH-cam AI automods keep deleting my comment about microwave fuses. I think they figure its commercial content spam. Anyway, for five bucks you can get microwave fuses at a store that is has a name involving Canada and Car Wheels. Fifteen amps, two in a pack. I've got them in my microwave oven for the last year. Noma
if you mention prices or stores, yt will delete your comment every time. You can probably get the fuses online at the usual places even cheaper, or even at digi key or the mousey supplier of parts
And my fuse comment was deleted again. Second time. Weird. I think it is an TH-cam AI moderator that is doing it, but I am getting no warnings or messages
@@12voltvids yeah, I know you didn't delete it. In my last comment I had put in a comment about youtube AI automods probably deleting it and then of course the automods deleted both comments, including the one about the AI automods.
I believe that they phased out the use of Beryllium Oxide in microwave oven insulators. But I would treat each one with care anyway. Because ya know: Made in China......
@@12voltvids My "Made in China" comment was not made to that specific item. A lot of manufacturers have phased out the use of beryllium in microwaves, but not all, so my comment was a bit of a sarcastic snipe at certain places/manufacturers that don't care too much about health and safety.
Just hook it up to a generator that doesn't have a voltage. Regulator that isn't controlled by a computer chip that is controlled by the governor speed of the engine. I was such a generator like that. It's a little too stroke and boy. That thing will put out 480 V or more if you want it to. And yes, I had blown many things up doing that on purpose. Because cheap cell phone chargers do not deserve to be used. Let's hook Them up to the old generator and let Them go pop
I think the inverter ones are junk. My brothers inverter microwave lasted just past the warranty. Of course the parts cost allmost as much as a new one .
It wasn't getting fixed. She has another one. Only if it had been something like a switch or the light for the display. Soon as I saw the smoke its game over. Nobody's fixing a microwave unless it's a high end unit, like an old convection or one like I have which uses radiant heat to brown. I would fix that as we use it all the time to bake and roast in. The 3 most used appliances here are the panaaonic madam grill microwave / radiant heat oven, the Breville smart oven and the instant pot duo with the air fryer lid. Of course the gas range. The big gas oven is seldom used as its too big for what we use regularly.
@@12voltvids If you can change the region, you have to set it to Japan, then you can use ch 13 (and sometimes 14, but 14 only at reduced power). Commercial ones allow you to set the region - the consumer junk is mostly locked and won't allow you to change the region, or use ch 13 or 14
Microwaves with the digital inverters and everything - they just randomly blow up. From soundbars up to microwaves - please bring back the old traditional transformers that lasted for years instead of this crap.
Someone has been drinking the kool aid. Japanese products were not better products than Korean and Chinese. Perhaps 50 years ago because Korea and China (Hong Kong) were just starting production but it didn't take them long to tool up. Especially Korea. When Samsung first started making cell phones the very first batch was pretty pathetic. The chairman of Samsung gathered all the workers into the warehouse where there was a pile of all the phones that they made and he proceeded to crush them in front of all the workers telling them to go back and make them properly. If you go back to the 60s when japan was just ramping up their electronics they were not very reliable. Faulty parts poor workmanship medals have just disintegrated, Look at all those akai reel to reel that they metal cams just crumbled. The reason the old Japanese radios and stereos from the early 60s are still working is they've been totally rebuilt. Japanese didn't Invent video recording either. That was the americans (ampex) Sony just made it smaller, and kept doing so right down to micro mv. Perhaps 40 years ago stuff from China wasn't as good but today they make very high end equipment. So does Vietnam, Taiwan, Korea. This microwave is also 20 years old BTW. 40 years ago I changed hundreds of magnetron, stack diodes, hv capacitors, power transformers, interlock switches, and door hooks. On average at the shop we did 3 or 4 microwave ovens a day. All made in Japan. Occasionally I would get an American made Amana. It was always the same thing a bad door seal because old Amana used a pull down door and they would get leaned on and bent and then wouldn't latch closed. Was a kid I always remembered my parents saying it's made in Japan it's junk and a lot of it was but they cleaned up their act as did China and Korea within a few years.
@@12voltvids Got a point there, I remember Sanyo & Fisher was horrible back in the days. Amana is Whirlpool if I remember correctly as they make washers & dryers also here in the US not sure about Canada. I have a GE Microwave from the early 2000's & still running great today & it was made in the USA. Not sure about now I am sure they make them in China I could be wrong.
Time needed to go collect it, run around by sellers that are not there when you get there and have to wait for them because "they forgot I was coming over despite me messaging them and telling them I was on my way and would be there in xx minutes. Its the same with customers. Calling me telling me they are coming right over to pick something up and they show up 2 hours later. Same thing happened to my wife last week. One of her friends wanted to but a cotton candy machine. Since they were together my wife figured they would take her car because being a plug in hybrid was cheaper than her friends jeep. Drive 65KM one way and seller doesn't show up. So 65km back home, gas wasted. Seller "forgot" they were coming over.
@@12voltvids I hate it when people make an appointment and forget or show up two hours later... 🙄. In any case, I must confess that it took me about 10 minutes using Google translate to understand what you wrote here because I don't speak English, in fact I'm studying, my teacher said I need to listen to a lot of English, watch films, series, TH-cam, anyway, This is all part of learning. That's why I follow your videos, I like the content and the maintenance you do, especially when it comes to old CD players and receivers.
Just remembered some very clever people at a radio telescope thought they were listening to aliens but it turned out to be their microwave 😅
I still have a Panasonic microwave of 32 years and still going strong.
I have a panasonic madam grill microwave. 1989. Thats 35 years old and going strong.
Are Panasonic microwave ovens still considered high quality these days or are we just paying extra for a brand name? Just curious. I may need to buy a new microwave soon because my LG microwave oven occasionally trips out on 30 second EZ on mode so my guess is that it’s on its way out.
@@guitareveryone I have a newer Panasonic inverter type in SS circa 2010 and it is still going good. I have had to replace the bulb and the steam sensor.
I once had a 1980's Panasonic Genius passed down to me from my parents and that is still working without ever having an issue.
We had commercial microwaves at my work that were in constant use and they would often have problems with arcing on the butt connectors for the door switches. Cutting off the butt connectors and soldering the wires to the switches would fix the problem.
Our Panasonic similar to this one was retired as the door started to distort.Replaced with the same but from China and it failed after 11 months.Panasonic repair call center were extremely unhelpful saying a engineer could not call for three weeks.We decided to purchase a much cheaper Kenwood microwave and await a engineer.He could fix it but after a week it stopped working.This time the call center would not repair and we are not going to buy any more Panasonic overpriced Chinese made products
@@guitareveryone I bought a pretty basic Panasonic microwave about 9 years ago from Costco for 70 dollars and it's still going strong. I think it was made in an actual Matsushita plant (in China), not from an ODM like Midea like most other microwaves. I have no idea if anything has changed since though.
I have a Panasonic Microwave oven is stills going strong at 26 years old with no problems!!
I have one that is 35 years old used almost daily as an oven not microwave. Its a madam grill which has radiant elements in the top and bottom so it bakes like a conventional oven but faster it can use microwave at the same time to speed up cooking but still brown food. I got it free about 33 years ago with a dead magnetron. Replaced it with an after market and it has been great ever since.
3 minutes in and I am terrified. Need popcorn for the rest!
@12voltvids I am really pleased you pulled apart the flyback transformer. I was initially surprised by the primary being lots of wires in parallel, but then remembered my old RF lessons about skin effect and Litz wire (I think that is what is is called). Lots of little wires gives lots of surface area on the wire for the current to travel through. In an earlier video of yours I learned that one of the door switches interrupts the power and the other shorts out the magnetron power (so it blows the fuse if power gets past the other switch and the door isn't closed). Thanks for the video showing us what's inside!
The knowledge in this man's brain is just amazing.
Yeah...sometimes his head gets alittle inflated.....lol.
I only learned about inverter microwaves recently... Haven't had the pleasure of opening one up though. 😊
P.S. the info you gave us when you took out the magnetron was excellent 👌👍
Much better power control. First gen were not very reliable, but the new ones are. Early ones ate magnetrons but newer magnetrons with higher ratings fixed that issue
I learnt so much in this video.. still am just at the inverter take out part of the video. 👍🇮🇪
I really like the power control. I can BBQ burgers, freeze them, and then in a month or two thaw them (power level on my machine for 3-4 minutes) and they taste 99% as good as coming straight off the grill. Never could get that kind of control with the ones that just turn the magnetron on and off.
I wish i had the knowledge on electronics like this guy has. Very entertaining videos and always look forward to the next one 😁👍
I kept the fan out and microwave and put it up in garage made a nice breeze when it got hot had it up for yrs the pan stat looks like the same one in daughter's heater and does reset I tested it with a lighter and have had loads of the micro stitches they used to have them in the tannoy down pot I worked at had a load out old ones of them as well another great video thanks
Hi Dave ... A little trick for your solder sucker ... cut a small notch in one side of the tip, just big enough to let you fit it over your soldering tip .... then you can trigger it without pulling the iron aside. Works better for me...
Also a good way to have less vacuum and let air in through the slot instead of sucking the solder out... sounds like a great plan
@@gorak9000
I didn't say to put a half inch hole in it... just a couple of strokes with a round jeweler's file so you can keep the heat on while you suck away the solder.
It's amazing what high voltage and arc-ing can do to wiring and insulation. I have seen aerial telephone cable get FUSED / welded together like a solid copper rod where lightning has struck during a storm. More than once during my career in telco that I have been close to getting DEEP FRIED by high voltage discharge. I learned to stay in the truck when a storm approaches. Oh the stories we can tell the kids.....
I never descended a pole so fast than when a heard thunder. Into my truck I went and I stayed there for a few hours before putting my ladder away and calling it a day.
They haven't used beryllium oxide in magnatrons in a long time. Those insulators are alumina now - the same pink material that tig welding cups are made of. Years ago I found a very nice microwave that had the exact same issue - the inverter transformer arced and created a ton of smoke. I put the whole thing back right where I found it - in the recycling bin!
I was referring to magnetron from back when I was on business. 40 years ago they certainly did because there was a warning on the box.
This is what i cal tuning for maximum smoke!
At least we now know what fails on these inverter microwaves.
I hope the Panasonic that i have keeps working for a few more years
You already have too many fans! Most of us only blow hot air though...
That sounds like a you problem
Good idea to keep the IGBT of the inverter, these are we quite expensive and I’ve had them fail on multiple devices that use this exact same inverter. Also one of those caps across the secundary sometimes goes open circuit, 5.1 of 5.6nzF i believe.
I also used an electric solder sucker, hakko 474, but expensive parts and now no parts available, so i also use that big blue suckerthingy, works great in my opinion
To desolder parts from Cricut boards I put them in a vice and then use a small propane torch to heat the soldered side while i use plyers to pull the parts off when the solder melts. I don't need to add fresh solder, saving it for replacing parts. It works great. The propane lasts a long time. It's easier than using a soldering iron. The soldering iron is great for replacing parts.
Heat Gun
If you're just harvesting parts, heat with heat gun, and whack the board on the ground - the parts come off pretty easily. Unsurprisingly, I call it the "heat and whack" method of component salvage
Back in 2015 I went to Lidl and bought a Silvercrest (Lidl brand) stainless steel Microwave oven with grill and air frying function. When I picked it up I immediately knew it had an iron transformer. Still going, but I had to replace that pesky rotary encoder. The one I put in unfortunately has the phase angle reversed so I now have to turn it left to increase the time. But it works!
Just reverse 2 of the 3 leads.
@@12voltvids Yeah, I would need to cut traces on the PCB and stuff. Not worth the effort. I just got used to it as well.
It's nice that you re-use working parts, so do I those are not so old
As Shango066 would say "Baked!"
I was going to say I blew the tranny but some might get the wrong idea.
This is not a PC channel lol.
I repaired a 2002 Sharp 1000w inverter microwave last year.. It was a complete rebuild. door relays, repairs to the inverter board, new magnetron. Succesful repair but took some time.. parts were not overly expensive either.. bridge rectifier and a transistor, couple of diots and the relays / magnetron. The owners grandfather uses it to heat food.. he's geriatric and couldn't use a new one properly but has no problems with this and he is unsafe to use a hob.
Modern stuff is such a pain when it breaks. I have a 500 watt Toshiba from 1989 that still works fine. Hardly anything in the thing. Expect it to keep going until a door switch shorts of the magnetron finally bites the dust.
You can use the fan in the bathroom vent,same type motor, infact that fan actually it's the same fan& motor Panasonic uses as bathroomfan!
Best... Video... Ever!
People like to use old microwaves an Faraday cages for EMP attacks. I wouldn't know if all that is really necessary. From my understanding, and EMP attack is mostly a problem for the grid. I heard an EMP attack could cause a 50kV surge on powerlines. It doesn't sound like an EMP attack would do anything to high tension lines at or above 50kV. I get the impression that EMP attacks may not be very effective.
Love the intro It was like watching Canon back in the day or Barnaby Jones 🤣
It will show up again
Dave, you're having too much fun!!, lol 😆
Dam right
@@12voltvids It's interesting that the core of the transformer got so hot to crack and cause a domino effect of arcing and shorting of the secondary windings!!, possibly caused initially by hysteris eddy currents built up with years of use causing heating. Just like those high pressure sodium lights that you used to be able to buy that had the plastic housing so it could be mounted on the facia board of the roof, and over time the high voltage transformer would buzz so loud you could hear them from next door, I tried to fix one for a neighbor ( who made Pennys sqeak) the transformer was so hot it melted the plastic housing and the laminated plates were loose and the windings were showing signs of arcing ! Anyway, sorry for rambling, but the video and the 5g frequency lesson was very informative 👍
@@b.powell3480In other words, the microwave microwaved itself (at least the transformer)
Some would freak out over the thoriated tungsten in the magnetron filament, but that's not uncommon in high emission tubes. But, the beryllium, that's the big deal.
I'd grind one into sections - outdoors, with a fan blowing away and a dust rinse down, then seal the remnants with plastic just to show the cavities of the magnetron. On the planet Mercury. I'd also have to toss the space suit, it's just that nasty a substance.
Disposal, not a clue, being beryllium, it is a hazmat, infamous for cancers and berylliosis, which is incurable. Nasty, nasty stuff I learned years ago when working on nukes.
Checking my travel plans, I don't see any trips for me scheduled for Mercury.
OK, who was the wise guy that scheduled me to go streaking on the surface of Venus?
Don't worry about the transformer, it's just loaded with weapons grade stinkium. Likely, the infernal recumifier shorted, popped the insulication and released the stinkium that repels skunks. Easily repaired though at 25 times the labor of manufacturing a new one. That'd be in man hours, around 100 times the price of the inverter, which in parts pricing would be around twice the value of the entire oven. I think I've well expressed my opinion of those HV circuits.
Just had rectifiers short, overheat the windings, insulation broke down and it would dutifully arc to the core and overheat it. End of the day, six of one, half dozen of the other, but one approaches the diodes with caution...
Oh, unrelated, but an HV electron gun fueled destruction festival, vertical output failed in a weird way, deflecting the beam straight up out of the electron gun of a CRT, straight into the deflection yoke, cutting a nice neat hole in the neck of the CRT. Think it was an old Sylvania, but it's been ages. Pinhole in the CRT neck, slagged yoke. Vertical output circuit was modern art.
I also see that you're as bad as me when it comes to scavenging parts. ;)
Which reminds me, I'll have to go scavenging soon for a mylar cap, just to steal the mylar from, around 1 cm or so for a radiation detector window...
I have a regular 2 knob analog microwave oven from 2004 and still works great, very fast too. Is there any danger if i unplug the powercord and open up the cover just to take a peeks and clean bread crums off? Not sure if it ever had a light, if it does it hasn't worked in years
Something's cooking, but it's not the food inside!!! The "China Syndrome" in miniature. We're only missing Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon!
Thank You for the reference to one of Canada's finest exports, SCTV!!
By the way, how do Panasonic products rate nowadays? Pity we can't get the tv's
In the states...
In Germany WiFi 5GHz has 1W power from Channel 100, and radar is on the high band here AFAIK. But keep in mind, phones are not allowed to send with that high of a power level back for the Tx because you can hold it to your head plus it takes a lot of battery power. Tablets and Laptops usually also have their Tx at 1W.
Phones are limited to 600mw at least they were.
@@12voltvids I wouldn't be surprised if it was much less, especially in the EU.
The power is controlled by the cell site. We have microcells all over the place, like every couple hundred metres so the power level is very low. Now with the 5G network, power levels are even lower because the cell sites are even closer to each other, however if you are away from the city the phones can still put out a fair bit of power. Low power not so much for health concerns as it is for battery life. More power translates into more power consumption. Thats why your battery drains faster when you are out on the highway away from urban centers. The towers are more spread out and more power is need to reach them.
@@12voltvids Ah I was talking about Wifi 5 GHz, not 5G. My iPhone for example has no trouble receiving data from the AP, but sending data back is troublesome for it because it doesn't Tx with the same power level as the AP, because it is a phone. I really need to get a better AP than the one in the Fritz!Box router modem combo unit, so I can move it in the middle of my apartment to get better coverage.
50:30 They cost a bit, but they're SO worth it, especially with all the soldering you do.
Can't justify the cost. If they were 100 I probably would but 500 is just too much.
I wonder if the windings can be used as solder wicks since they're stranded? 🤔
It's a pity you broke the inverter board. It's usually the IGBTs that go bad, these were still good. If an other one of these show up, you could just replace the transformer and have a good inverter. You can transplant the IGBTs from this one, but the problem is, the shorted IGBTs often cause the drivers or even the controller chip to fail. Probably the only bad part on this board was the transformer. Since this oven was nice and clean, I would have kept the whole thing and wait for a transformer donor. This is still a Japanese made one, a lot better than what you can get now.
Dave having a good time :)
So cool.
In my apt the microwave is I n the same circuit as the fridge. Everything is on one, very annoying when I try to use two appliances at once and it blows the breaker
Must be very old as that's not to code.
I’d like to send you a U-Matic tape for conversion. super important tape. where can i find more information on how to send it to you? thanks ❤
Contact me by email.
10:35 it kind smells good to me😍
Until not too long ago, I thought what they meant by magnetron tube was a vacuum tube. I found out months ago it's not a glass enclosed tube. Why they called it a tube? I guess it's like a tube, like toothpaste tubes, ha ha. I also watched a video about how they work. Interesting!
Because it is a vacuum tube. Just because it's encased in metal its still a vacuum tube. It has a heated kathode, anode and they are separate in a vacuum chamber. The magnets and tuned chamber make it self oscillating.
10:31 guys wanna see smoke holy s**t. Can we do some more 😂
When the transformer sparked and smoked did it smell like asphalt?
It smelled like burnt electronics with a little ozone added.
OHH Boy I guess I am doomed. I have ripped apart many of Magnetrons to salvage all the different metals .
Mostly with a Hammer & Chisel. Mostly the Ancient commercial Nukers that were stacked up in the Back shop area. You know the 150 Lb behemoth ones. Our Shop at the time was the only Comercial Repair Depot in the area before I started..
A local HAM that was a Microwave transmission Tech hooked a Magnetron to an antenna and modulated it and beamed out almost 10 Mile with it. HAHAHAHAHAHAAHA
I know many hams that have modulated magnetron. Your hv dc runs through the secondary of another microwave transformer and then the primary of that is connected to the output of your audio amplifier. Magnetron stuck in a wave guide that went up the tower and beamed the direction they wanted to send. Wave guide made with 4" duct pipe if I remember. The guys that did this are all dead. All died the same way. Cancer. They all smoked too so was it the cancer sticks are playing with microwaves. Probably both. I actually have a video number of years ago when we were experimenting with 1 W microwave transmitters into high gain antennas testing them and tuning them and one of the guys that was played around with that walk right in front of the beam and you can hear another guy say add a walk right through the f****** beam. The guy that walked through the beam died of cancer. We was also blind in 1 eye due to an accident with radios. Looked into a waveguide when it was on and cooked his eye. Hey but he was a true ham. Like to experiment. Had huge tracking dishes in his yard to do moon bounce work. Nothing cooler that sending a signal towards the moon and hear it echo back several seconds later.
Does the inverter just pulse the magnetron faster? Or actually lower the amplitude of the HV to the magnetron? Compared to normal non-inverter units
It runs constantly. Unlike a conventional microwave where the power is always 100% and it is turned on and off. The inverter type change the duty cycle of the mosfet to vary the output voltage which changes the output power. So inverter types can go from a low 300 watts to 1200 watts. They can ramp up and down too such as for defrosting.
@@12voltvids I was about to ask this question too, "basically what's the difference with the types"
I guess it's more clever but easier to die, like this one..
👍🇮🇪
The conventional are perhaps slightly more reliable. The early inverter type had some reliability issues. The second gen they fixed most of the issues. The first gen came out late 90s. This one was made 2004 so it lasted 20 years and was used every day or should I say abused because it was used for warming up coffee making popcorn ect which is hard on them because small loads leave plenty of standing waves. My inverter microwave is a 2015 and its like 5th gen. Old conventional microwaves would eat capacitors and stack diodes. The first gen used 2 transistors in a push pull configuration and sometimes the transistors would fire at the same time and poof. Second gen used a single Mosfet. Also the ceramic caps were replaced by film caps. 20 years is a good life for a microwave used daily.
@@12voltvids Thanks! Just to confirm i'm getting it right -- conventional is obviously pure analog, in USA 120V/60Hz gets bumped up by the transformer to ~2kV then 4kV through the doubler... then power settings on the microwave cycle on/off with a period on the order of seconds? Using an inverter microwave drops the average power by duty cycling the PWM, but is the peak voltage delivered to the magnetron always the same? still ~4kVish? Surely the magnetron isn't getting a lower peak voltage -- but it could since it's all FET driven?
In conventional they turn the ac power to the transformer on and off. Full power is juat that 100 on tome. Half power might be 5 seconds on 5 seconds off. 30% might be 5 seconds on 15 seconds off or whatever they chose as the cycle. You can hear it turning on and off. Inverter changes the duty cycle or the frequency. Changing the frequency will bring the transformer in or out of resonance which changes the efficiency which changes the output voltage as does changing the duty cycle. Changing the duty cycle the voltage remains the same but the current can be changed. Lower either the voltage or limit the current and the output power changes. The result is more even cooking as opposed to full power on then off for several seconds. Remember the food is rotating. So As the food turns if the microwaves are being pulsed on or off there will be portions of the food where there is no cooking especially if the duty cycle happens to coincide with the rotational speed you could end up with cooking all on one side and nothing on the other. But with an inverter the magnetron is running constantly as the food is turning so you can lower the power and have things heat slower. Going to the inverter was not a cost-cutting measure as some people might imply because you don't need the big iron transformer however that is not the reason that the inverter technology was developed it was purely on the performance on how it cooked and the inverter based units are superior especially for things like defrosting. Conventional microwave would turn the power on full for like 5 seconds and then off for 17 and then back on for 5. The problem with this approach is being it's on full power for n extended period while it was defrosting the food at the surface starts to cook from the heat produced before the center defrost. With an inverter based microwave the power is turned down quite low so that there's not enough energy to start the surface of the food cooking while the center is still frozen solid. That was the reason that inverted my quotes were developed and had nothing to do with cutting their costs because it actually does cost more to build an inverter based unit than a standard unit with a conventional transformer.
Cool video
No home microwaves use or as far as i'm aware have ever used beryllium oxide. It's very expensive, toxic and hard to work with. It is / was used in some military radar & telecommunications equipment.
It still gets widely circulated on the net that domestic ovens contain hazardous material but it's just a misinformation / rumour that won't die. The pink rings are fused pink aluminium oxide. Manufacturers add chromium oxide to the aluminium to produce the pink color.
I've worked in areas where Beryllium is used and may be present and health and safety labels are everywhere.
I'm just going by warning stickers that were on some replacement magnetron warning about breaking or scratching the stuff.
Do a search, they still have beryllium oxide.
Some magnetrons use beryllium oxide as the "ceramic" looking insulators inside of the ring magnets on both the "Stem" and the "Antenna" ends. Reference the image below, the beryllium oxide parts are the pink items in the middle. They are totally inert if undisturbed.Feb 3, 2018
Yup, consumer magnetrons are alumina (pink aluminum oxide), like the original comment said - same material TIG welding cups are made from.
Fourth time's a charm? TH-cam AI automods keep deleting my comment about microwave fuses. I think they figure its commercial content spam. Anyway, for five bucks you can get microwave fuses at a store that is has a name involving Canada and Car Wheels. Fifteen amps, two in a pack. I've got them in my microwave oven for the last year. Noma
Canucktire
if you mention prices or stores, yt will delete your comment every time. You can probably get the fuses online at the usual places even cheaper, or even at digi key or the mousey supplier of parts
And my fuse comment was deleted again. Second time. Weird. I think it is an TH-cam AI moderator that is doing it, but I am getting no warnings or messages
Don't look at me i didn't delete it.
@@12voltvids yeah, I know you didn't delete it. In my last comment I had put in a comment about youtube AI automods probably deleting it and then of course the automods deleted both comments, including the one about the AI automods.
interesting video
I believe that they phased out the use of Beryllium Oxide in microwave oven insulators.
But I would treat each one with care anyway. Because ya know: Made in China......
Open your eyes and look at the label on the magnetron. Made in Japan
@@12voltvids My "Made in China" comment was not made to that specific item.
A lot of manufacturers have phased out the use of beryllium in microwaves,
but not all, so my comment was a bit of a sarcastic snipe at certain places/manufacturers that don't care too much about health and safety.
The pink insulators are alumina now - the same pink material TIG welding cups are made of.
That was fun!
I was amused for 5 minutes.
Dave, now you're repairing microwave ovens? How did you come to this point.
I used to fix hundreds. Never enjoyed it. Especially resturraunt microwaves.
10:35 Bankrupt Microwave!
😂😂long time whe had a spark video 😃
I like sparks.
It;s ALIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!!!, Bzzzzt, bzzzzt, bzzzzt. lol
Mine failed in the same way.
Peeew I can smell it from here lol
Just hook it up to a generator that doesn't have a voltage. Regulator that isn't controlled by a computer chip that is controlled by the governor speed of the engine. I was such a generator like that. It's a little too stroke and boy. That thing will put out 480 V or more if you want it to. And yes, I had blown many things up doing that on purpose. Because cheap cell phone chargers do not deserve to be used. Let's hook Them up to the old generator and let Them go pop
What the ....
I think the inverter ones are junk. My brothers inverter microwave lasted just past the warranty. Of course the parts cost allmost as much as a new one .
I have an inverter and a conventional madam grill. Use that one mostly as a conventional oven. Can't remember the last time I nuked something in it.
I have a Panasonic inverter MW that is 14 years old and in use everyday.. The bulb and steam sensor are the only parts that have failed.
Tell the lady to buy a new one. They are only around $35 at a Walmart. Cheap people
It wasn't getting fixed. She has another one. Only if it had been something like a switch or the light for the display. Soon as I saw the smoke its game over. Nobody's fixing a microwave unless it's a high end unit, like an old convection or one like I have which uses radiant heat to brown. I would fix that as we use it all the time to bake and roast in. The 3 most used appliances here are the panaaonic madam grill microwave / radiant heat oven, the Breville smart oven and the instant pot duo with the air fryer lid. Of course the gas range. The big gas oven is seldom used as its too big for what we use regularly.
25:13 I just checked and I can set my router to channel 13.
None of the ones I have can go beyond channel 11. The very first one i ever owned could go to 14 but it was a 802.11b only.
@@12voltvids If you can change the region, you have to set it to Japan, then you can use ch 13 (and sometimes 14, but 14 only at reduced power). Commercial ones allow you to set the region - the consumer junk is mostly locked and won't allow you to change the region, or use ch 13 or 14
10:35
The meat is well done🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🥰🥰🥰🥰
Fireworks are at 10:30...lol
Microwaves with the digital inverters and everything - they just randomly blow up. From soundbars up to microwaves - please bring back the old traditional transformers that lasted for years instead of this crap.
20 years of abuse is a good life for a microwave.
Samsung RE553T dead after 36 yrs
It's a shame as Japanese made products are great. I would expect this from a Korean or Chinese made Microwaves. -Cheers!
Someone has been drinking the kool aid. Japanese products were not better products than Korean and Chinese. Perhaps 50 years ago because Korea and China (Hong Kong) were just starting production but it didn't take them long to tool up. Especially Korea. When Samsung first started making cell phones the very first batch was pretty pathetic. The chairman of Samsung gathered all the workers into the warehouse where there was a pile of all the phones that they made and he proceeded to crush them in front of all the workers telling them to go back and make them properly. If you go back to the 60s when japan was just ramping up their electronics they were not very reliable. Faulty parts poor workmanship medals have just disintegrated, Look at all those akai reel to reel that they metal cams just crumbled. The reason the old Japanese radios and stereos from the early 60s are still working is they've been totally rebuilt. Japanese didn't Invent video recording either. That was the americans (ampex) Sony just made it smaller, and kept doing so right down to micro mv. Perhaps 40 years ago stuff from China wasn't as good but today they make very high end equipment. So does Vietnam, Taiwan, Korea. This microwave is also 20 years old BTW. 40 years ago I changed hundreds of magnetron, stack diodes, hv capacitors, power transformers, interlock switches, and door hooks. On average at the shop we did 3 or 4 microwave ovens a day. All made in Japan. Occasionally I would get an American made Amana. It was always the same thing a bad door seal because old Amana used a pull down door and they would get leaned on and bent and then wouldn't latch closed. Was a kid I always remembered my parents saying it's made in Japan it's junk and a lot of it was but they cleaned up their act as did China and Korea within a few years.
Everything can fail, also jap stuff
@@12voltvids Got a point there, I remember Sanyo & Fisher was horrible back in the days. Amana is Whirlpool if I remember correctly as they make washers & dryers also here in the US not sure about Canada. I have a GE Microwave from the early 2000's & still running great today & it was made in the USA. Not sure about now I am sure they make them in China I could be wrong.
Zzzzz zzzzz zzzzz smokin
Kkkk 😂
Time needed to go collect it, run around by sellers that are not there when you get there and have to wait for them because "they forgot I was coming over despite me messaging them and telling them I was on my way and would be there in xx minutes.
Its the same with customers. Calling me telling me they are coming right over to pick something up and they show up 2 hours later. Same thing happened to my wife last week. One of her friends wanted to but a cotton candy machine. Since they were together my wife figured they would take her car because being a plug in hybrid was cheaper than her friends jeep. Drive 65KM one way and seller doesn't show up. So 65km back home, gas wasted. Seller "forgot" they were coming over.
@@12voltvids I hate it when people make an appointment and forget or show up two hours later... 🙄. In any case, I must confess that it took me about 10 minutes using Google translate to understand what you wrote here because I don't speak English, in fact I'm studying, my teacher said I need to listen to a lot of English, watch films, series, TH-cam, anyway, This is all part of learning. That's why I follow your videos, I like the content and the maintenance you do, especially when it comes to old CD players and receivers.
Elevator didn't go to the top floor.