The safety warning about CRTs is no joke. My dad used to work appliance repair in the 80s. These guys were all well trained in that shop. They had a shelf of tvs with dates on them. No tv was to even be looked at until at least 3 days from dropoff, then they discharged the capacitors. They hated the tvs most, because they ran test after test before plugging them back in. I miss the free crap Dad would drag in due to missed payments or abandoned electronics. We had a 24 in industrial microwave that I miss to this day. I could be lazy and microwave anything in that damn thing, regardless of metal content, and could defrost a small turkey.
Metal is only a problem if it gets near the sides/top/bottom. There are even microwaves that come with a metal rack for the middle that’s suspended by plastic tabs.
Bigger size makes it easier to stay away from the sides.
I was a kid, so don’t remember everything as my Dad explained it, but it used a more powerful magnetron with a pulse system and used a fan to blow the heat. It also cooked hot pockets without leaving the outside cold and lava inside. Moreso than that, I don’t remember as it was a tech geek dad talking to a 12yr old teenager that only cared to listen to the first half. I was a shit, and I regret ignoring the trove of knowledge that man had.
Also, most microwaves won’t do much with silverware as is, this just kinda went a level higher. It was from a restaurant that never paid up, and the shop always sold the leftovers for cost of parts to make up the difference. Our vcrs, vacuums, audio receivers, and other things came from that shop (also scratch and dent from some store I can’t remember the name of, it had a weird shopping procedure. They had display items and cards, and at checkout you handed the cards over and the items were brought down a conveyor belt from the storehouse in the attic. The broken things were sold cheaply in a room in the back)
Edit: looked it up, the name of the store was Service Merchandise
It might have had something that can shift its frequency.
What happens in most microwaves is you get a standing wave. The high and low parts of the wave are always at the same spot. You then get a hot spot at the peak (and trough) of the wave, and a cold spot when the wave is near the zero node.
By shifting the frequency, even just a little, you can shift the hot spots around and more evenly cook the food.
This is obviously more expensive, and these days you can get it in higher end residential microwaves. Way back when, though, it was only something you’d see in industrial models.
If I’m thinking about it correctly then either the standing wave is intentional or the oven is designed badly. You know the wavelength so you can make sure the oven is not an integer multiple of it and the hot spots move around on their own, no fancy frequency shifting required.
I repaired TV’s in the 80’s and 90’s. I worked on many of them right after they came in. It was easy to discharge any caps without damaging the units. I respected the potential for getting shocked and the voltage a flyback transformer can produce so I never did get shocked by one.
The safety warning about CRTs is no joke. My dad used to work appliance repair in the 80s. These guys were all well trained in that shop. They had a shelf of tvs with dates on them. No tv was to even be looked at until at least 3 days from dropoff, then they discharged the capacitors. They hated the tvs most, because they ran test after test before plugging them back in. I miss the free crap Dad would drag in due to missed payments or abandoned electronics. We had a 24 in industrial microwave that I miss to this day. I could be lazy and microwave anything in that damn thing, regardless of metal content, and could defrost a small turkey.
What do you mean about the metal content in the microwave? Does the larger chamber make it somehow immune to arcing?
Metal is only a problem if it gets near the sides/top/bottom. There are even microwaves that come with a metal rack for the middle that’s suspended by plastic tabs.
Bigger size makes it easier to stay away from the sides.
I was a kid, so don’t remember everything as my Dad explained it, but it used a more powerful magnetron with a pulse system and used a fan to blow the heat. It also cooked hot pockets without leaving the outside cold and lava inside. Moreso than that, I don’t remember as it was a tech geek dad talking to a 12yr old teenager that only cared to listen to the first half. I was a shit, and I regret ignoring the trove of knowledge that man had.
Also, most microwaves won’t do much with silverware as is, this just kinda went a level higher. It was from a restaurant that never paid up, and the shop always sold the leftovers for cost of parts to make up the difference. Our vcrs, vacuums, audio receivers, and other things came from that shop (also scratch and dent from some store I can’t remember the name of, it had a weird shopping procedure. They had display items and cards, and at checkout you handed the cards over and the items were brought down a conveyor belt from the storehouse in the attic. The broken things were sold cheaply in a room in the back)
Edit: looked it up, the name of the store was Service Merchandise
It might have had something that can shift its frequency.
What happens in most microwaves is you get a standing wave. The high and low parts of the wave are always at the same spot. You then get a hot spot at the peak (and trough) of the wave, and a cold spot when the wave is near the zero node.
By shifting the frequency, even just a little, you can shift the hot spots around and more evenly cook the food.
This is obviously more expensive, and these days you can get it in higher end residential microwaves. Way back when, though, it was only something you’d see in industrial models.
If I’m thinking about it correctly then either the standing wave is intentional or the oven is designed badly. You know the wavelength so you can make sure the oven is not an integer multiple of it and the hot spots move around on their own, no fancy frequency shifting required.
It’s not entirely by choice. There’s a limited range of frequencies available.
Thank you for the call out to Service Merchandise. As a kid, that store was awesome.
I saw my first Jaguar system there… and was immediately told I’d never have one because of its expense.
Probably a “strong enough to still heat stuff in a metal bowl” thing.
Taps on top “this bad boy can kill so many Wi-Fi networks”
I repaired TV’s in the 80’s and 90’s. I worked on many of them right after they came in. It was easy to discharge any caps without damaging the units. I respected the potential for getting shocked and the voltage a flyback transformer can produce so I never did get shocked by one.