10 years, 10 seconds

[vakkotaur]

The bad part is that my microwave oven, which I've had for about 10 years, stopped working last night, while in use. The good part was that there were only 10 seconds to go on what was in it. Also, it just stopped without any bangs, pops, sparks, flame, or smoke.

The clock still works, but there is no cooking. If the magnetron isn't dead, its power supply is. I am not about to attempt a repair. Microwave ovens have decidedly non-trivial power supplies. They need to in order to put out hundreds of Watts of microwave energy. An appliance repairman I once knew explained why he avoided working on microwave ovens:

If you work on a television and don't discharge the picture tube or the high-voltage capacitor in the fly-back section properly, it can throw you across the room and make you wish you were dead. Microwave ovens have big high-voltage capacitors, and with them, there's no wishing involved.

This morning jmaynard is checking on possible replacements. We'll almost certainly go pick up a replacement early this evening.

Comments

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Ten years seems to be about the expected lifespan for a microwave unit. Some can be repaired by qualified people, but when you look at the cost of a new one versus the cost of repair, and the likely improvements in the newer model, it becomes obvious that the clear choice is just to buy a new one, probably for less than half of what you paid for the old one (corrected for inflation of course.)

It still leaves the problem of what to do with the dead unit. More and more I hate dumping this kind of consumer junk in a landfill, but I know of no good recycling alternatives for a microwave.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

That's one of the things Jay is considering in his looking around town. Chances are if a place is willing to deal with disposal/recycling of the old unit that is where we will buy the new one from.

[yakko.livejournal.com]

Sounds about right. My Whirlpool lasted about as long. The Sharp that replaced it is OK; I was even able to save the TimeMaster's turntable as it fit the Sharp. I still miss the normal phone-type keypad layout the TimeMaster had, though.