William Sommerwerck wrote:
"Cydrome Leader" wrote in message
...
William Sommerwerck wrote:

I'm curious as to how my GE works.

If, at 50% (say) you were full "on" for one minute, then off for one
minute,
you'd be running in that first minute at a power level that would cause
localized boiling. (This is a problem with soups and oatmeal.)

I do not see that. Therefore, I have (???) to assume that PWM with a
cycle
of less than one second is used.

1 second seems pretty excessive. I don't recall what the timing cycle on
the Tappan ones were, but it was less than a minute for sure, but not
every few seconds.

What do you mean by excessive? If a magnetron can be modulated by varying
its B+, why shouldn't each PWM cycle be just one or two seconds long? You DO
NOT want the magnetron running at full power for "long" periods, followed by
even longer periods off (eg, one minute, four minutes off, for 20%).

If you like switching a kilowatt sized transformer on and off every
second, power to you. Same for a reed relay rated at kV at hundreds of mA.

It would obviously be easier with one of those switching power supply
microwaves, but that's not how the old microwaves worked.