Cydrome Leader wrote:
Say there is a moisture detector in ther sniffing the air being pulled
from the cavity. It doesn't prevent a frozen pot pie from burning, it
doesn't prevent anything from overcooking. It doesn't seem to know when a
frozen sausage is transitioning from thawing to outright cooking. I really
have no idea what it's doing. It's too mysterious to take seriously.
Really old microwaves sometimes had the temperature probe- that made
sense, assuming you were into cooking a turkey in the microwave oven for
30 minutes.

I had one of those in the shop at Clybourn, the probe had a 1/4" jack which
plugged into the interior wall. Was made by Sharp. Never used the probe
though.

Only reason I mention it is because I bought that from a store that only
sold microwave ovens. Nothing else, just microwave ovens and cookware for
microwaves. Guess those died out with laserdisc stores.

Say it's real. Do the just modulate the cooing duty cycle? It doesn't seem
to speed up or slow anything down, ot at least I've not found a mode that
isn's still time based.

What were the delicious things you could pull off with the sensor as sous
chef that just don't work with the magic chef?

Well, I only used it for reheating leftovers. Things like yesterdays mashed
potatoes or vegs (corn, peas or string beans) would come out evenly cooked
(hot all the way through) and not over cooked. When I tried the mashed in the
Magic Chef, I figured 2 minutes at full power would be enough being it only
takes 3 minutes to cook from the fridge but no, was cold in the middle.

I'm not saying the reheat mode with moisture detection is an end-all
solution but it worked correctly most of the time. Several times I put
something in there and it just didn't work, after 3 minutes or so it would
beep with "Sensor failure" on the display panel. Then it did a 30 second
countdown and end.

Even things like a leftover half corned beef sandwich came out good.

The sensor/reheat function just eliminated the guess work for time and duty
cycle (power level). It just gets you into the ballpark.

Any parted out ones on ebay? No real need for "new" as long as it works.

I didn't see anything but since I'd starve around here with a microwave I
didn't put a lot of effort in besides the appliance parts places on the web.
Home Depot (cash and carry, no delivery schedule to mess with) basically had
only 3 in stock, 2 of the Magic Chef and one Panasonic for double the price.
Since I plan on replacing the overhead one at some point soon, I just didn't
see a reason to spend the money on the Panasonic (although it did have a
sensor).

I was approached with a friend asking how to fix their above range
microwave oven too. I want to help, but until they can read me the model #
off the door, I can't do much with suggestions on what the next move is.

If you are bored mine is a JVM1653WH01 but I don't think it's wise to put
that much money into a 16 year old unit. The control board for a similar
vintage dishwasher that went out a couple years ago was fetching $150 and
up, used. Being I replaced the whole thing with a brand new one for a little
over $300 (and no interest for 12 months), whats the point.

One weird thing about that microwave which I mentioned once on chi.general,
when you set the time, the first entry it wants is the month, day and year.

Now being there is no advanced timer like putting in a potato and telling it
to cook it this saturday at 4pm (or a year from this saturday), you figure
the mm/dd/yy would be for the daylight savings switch.

But no, even before they changed the dates for dst/std, it never would
adjust the time by itself. Weird.

-bruce