> On Wed, 2005-10-19 at 14:07 -0500, Juan Cubillo wrote:
>> Hello group,
>>
>> About a year ago some spikes in the main power lines damaged my
>> microwave oven. I bought a new one and stored the damaged old one under
>> some books. Today, I was thinking about opening the oven "just to see
>> what it looks like inside". I know this things have some dangerous high
>> voltage capacitors on them.
>> I was thinking about connecting a 10k/47K resistor to the cap leads to
>> discharge it just in case it had some stored volts that may shock me.
>> Is there any chance that the cap still has a stored charge?
>
> Any chance? Yes. But the chance it has any charge left is pretty much
> zero.
>
>> Are there any other precautions I should look at?
>
> Not really, microwaves are pretty simply devices with only a few
> components, none of which is much of a treat if it's been unplugged for
> a while. About the only thing I can see is something sharp. TTYL


The transformer is bloody heavy, don't drop that on your foot.  Try not to
get your fingers between the magnets you pull out of the magnetron.  Don't
stick the magnets on your filing cabinet near to your PC and the next day
spend a few minutes wondering why your screen (CRT) has suddenly gone all
wonky.

Oh, and you could probably fix it by replacing the MOV (metal oxide
varistor).  When they wear out, they usually fail shorted.  This blows the
fuse.  Change both (well, fuse at least) and it'll probably work.

Failing that, one of the door microswitches (up to 6!) might be burnt out.
 If you look closely, you see they're often rigged to short the active
line to ground if the door is open and you attempt to defeat the door
switches.  Rather than fry the idiot doing that, it blows the fuse and
maybe the switch.  Opening the door while the microwave is running can
damage the switches as well (arcing on the contacts)

Of all the microwaves I've scrounged parts out of, only one was truly
faulty; rather impressive sparks came out of the transformer.

Tony


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