(PeteCresswell) wrote:

Ancient and honorable Amana RadarRange.

Built like a tank. http://tinyurl.com/3yjuzf

Was heating some coffee and it emitted several flashes, made a
"zut" sound, and then the smell of burning plastic.

Pulled off the internal plastic cover to reveal a wheel that
seems to serve some sort of stirring function on the microwaves.

Found one paddle fused: http://tinyurl.com/2t66ud


Can anybody speculate on what's going on?

My kneejerk is that the tube that emits the microwaves is on the
way out... but I don't know enough to explain why that one paddle
got fused.

I would say that the magnetron is just fine, since it evidently is still
producing microwaves.

You could leave the stirrer out and keep using the oven, but the food would
get heated unevenly. Alternatively, if you can clean or cut off all the
black carbon-looking burnt parts of the plastic on the stirrer, then you
should be able to put it back in without problems. The black carbonised
areas would get hot and lead to further burning if you don't remove them.

I can't think of a good reason why this problem would have occurred in the
first place, unless you had too little quantity of coffee in the cup, or
dirt was building up on the stirrer.

I think you have little to lose by continuing to use the oven, provided the
door fits well and it is not leaking microwaves.

Chris