larry moe 'n curly wrote:

mike wrote:
larry moe 'n curly wrote:
mike wrote:

My 27 year old microwave oven was down below 400W output and taking a long
time to heat my coffee.
So, I went out and bought a 1100W one.
Big mistake.
It works fine on coffee, but WAY overcooks small stuff.
Yes, it has a power level setting, but the on-time is 15 seconds
and they modulate the off-time.
Suggestions?
Put in a smaller high voltage capacitor?
Thanks for repeating one of my suggested options.
Can you be a little more theoretical?
One reference suggested that the cap is actually
sized to resonate with the transformer. That would make
the change of cap value much more sensitive than just a power
ratio.
Relevant input?
Thanks, mike

I thought you meant adding another capacitor and switching between it
and the original.

Yes, that's what I had in mind. All you need is a switch that can
handle that much volts safely...and maybe some means to make sure
that switching a charged cap doesn't explode the diode or the switch.

Some months ago, I had to replace the diode in my old one.
Hooked a resistor to a couple of clip leads and hooked them to the cap.
I never did find any of the resistor pieces. May have gotten swept up
when I cleaned up the puddle I made. ;-)

I doubt the capacitor resonates because years ago someone mentioned a
line of microwaves being identical except for power rating, cavity
size, and the size of the high voltage capacitor, which ranged from
about 0.6uF to 1.0uF.


Get an oven with inverter power control, like a Panasonic?
Simple matter of price ;-)

They're not as expensive as some people implied.
It's all relative. Paid $80 for mine. I did visit a few stores and the
inverter ones seemed to be almost 3x that and they don't go on sale
often. Knowing what I know now, I might have gone with the inverter.
Spilt milk now...