wigglytoes
Premium Member
- Model Number
- KB6524PS
- Brand
- Sharp
- Age
- Less than 1 year
Hi:
Kind of a science question here. You might not know the answer, but your knowledge of how microwaves work could put me on the right path.
My Sharp microwave is basically brand new. (Unfortunately it's also out of warranty because it sat for a year waiting it's turn to be installed in a kitchen remodel)
I used it 4-10 times and it worked fine.
Then it broke. It won't heat food.
Everything powers on. The unit powers up, the display works perfectly, I can start a cook cycle, it will go through that normally, the light will come on, the unit will hum, but anything inside the MW does not heat up.
Additional details.
I've taken it apart, a little. (I even built a nice resistor wire with alligator clips to drain the capacitor)
Everything checks out visibly. The magnets in the magnetron don't look cracked.
The magnetron checks out. In that I get close to a 0.0 ohm reading when I connect a multimeter to the two prongs. (My multimeter is analog, pretty old, and I would have a hard time seeing a small reading. Like 0.1 ohm or 0.2 ohm.) In fact it looks like it's exactly 0.0 ohm (But the accuracy of the multimeter is questionable) Perhaps that's a clue. What would cause a 0.0 ohm reading? I know the reading is supposed to be tiny, like 0.3 or so, but 0.0 seems too much.
Also the magnetron shows an open circuit when I measure resistance between either prong and the body of the magnetron. As it's supposed to.
Here's the big clues.
1) If I run the microwave for a couple minutes, the magnetron gets very hot.
So the magnetron is heating up, but the food is not. It's like it's creating microwaves, but they aren't being moved into the food compartment of the microwave.
The stirrer is turning, when the unit is running.
2) The fan that is supposed to cool the magnetron wasn't working, until today. So the magnetron could have gotten quite hot in the couple weeks that I used it. However, I never ran a cycle over 2 minutes. No baked potatoes, or anything else which took a long time. But the magnetron was definitely on, without a fan blowing any cooling air on it.
3) During the short time that the unit worked, I hadn't tried any of the fancy settings. Just time and Start. The unit failed the first time when I tried the 'Sensor Reheat' button. It was at this point that I pulled out the directions. Sensor reheat is supposed to measure the steam coming off the food, and heat it accordingly. It didn't heat it at all, and eventually I canceled the cycle. It hasn't worked since.
To me, the fact that the magnetron heats up but food doesn't probably tells us what's going wrong.
Kind of a science question here. You might not know the answer, but your knowledge of how microwaves work could put me on the right path.
My Sharp microwave is basically brand new. (Unfortunately it's also out of warranty because it sat for a year waiting it's turn to be installed in a kitchen remodel)
I used it 4-10 times and it worked fine.
Then it broke. It won't heat food.
Everything powers on. The unit powers up, the display works perfectly, I can start a cook cycle, it will go through that normally, the light will come on, the unit will hum, but anything inside the MW does not heat up.
Additional details.
I've taken it apart, a little. (I even built a nice resistor wire with alligator clips to drain the capacitor)
Everything checks out visibly. The magnets in the magnetron don't look cracked.
The magnetron checks out. In that I get close to a 0.0 ohm reading when I connect a multimeter to the two prongs. (My multimeter is analog, pretty old, and I would have a hard time seeing a small reading. Like 0.1 ohm or 0.2 ohm.) In fact it looks like it's exactly 0.0 ohm (But the accuracy of the multimeter is questionable) Perhaps that's a clue. What would cause a 0.0 ohm reading? I know the reading is supposed to be tiny, like 0.3 or so, but 0.0 seems too much.
Also the magnetron shows an open circuit when I measure resistance between either prong and the body of the magnetron. As it's supposed to.
Here's the big clues.
1) If I run the microwave for a couple minutes, the magnetron gets very hot.
So the magnetron is heating up, but the food is not. It's like it's creating microwaves, but they aren't being moved into the food compartment of the microwave.
The stirrer is turning, when the unit is running.
2) The fan that is supposed to cool the magnetron wasn't working, until today. So the magnetron could have gotten quite hot in the couple weeks that I used it. However, I never ran a cycle over 2 minutes. No baked potatoes, or anything else which took a long time. But the magnetron was definitely on, without a fan blowing any cooling air on it.
3) During the short time that the unit worked, I hadn't tried any of the fancy settings. Just time and Start. The unit failed the first time when I tried the 'Sensor Reheat' button. It was at this point that I pulled out the directions. Sensor reheat is supposed to measure the steam coming off the food, and heat it accordingly. It didn't heat it at all, and eventually I canceled the cycle. It hasn't worked since.
To me, the fact that the magnetron heats up but food doesn't probably tells us what's going wrong.
