Microwave spontaneously turned on by its LED display(blog.stuffedcow.net) |
Microwave spontaneously turned on by its LED display(blog.stuffedcow.net) |
Manufacturer didn't consider this an interesting defect and refused to swap out-of-warranty. The lack of give-a-shit in appliances is becoming apparent.
Have you contacted anyone other than the manufacturer?
Because most budget name brand kitchen appliances are just rebadged Haier/Midea OEM designs. I know HN has a hate boner for Samsung and LG appliances but for me they seem to be the most trustworthy budget appliances since at least they have their own designs instead of rebadging Chinese OEM ones like the rest.
Sure, if you have money you can go with a reputable brand like Bosch & Siemens, and if you have even more money you can go with Miele, but for one, not everyone has money, and two, I've even noticed even Bosch appliances made in Germany still have some issues due to poor design.
Just FTR they're exactly the same -- "BSH Hausgeräte GmbH" -- with just a different label on it. ... And I didn't have a single good experience in the last years, IMO they're designed for planned obsolescence.
E.g. my premium Bosch Hand mixer broke after 2.5 years. Afterwards I bought a >35 years old used RG28e for half the price and it's still going stronger than the Bosch ever was, 5 years later.
> if you have even more money you can go with Miele
If you buy cheap (or uninformed) you most likely buy at least twice.
A week later, I heard back:
> [...] The product or particular concern that you describe does not fall within CPSC’s jurisdiction. You may wish to contact the agencies listed below, which we believe can best handle your concern.
> U.S. Food and Drug Administration Center for Devices and Radiological Health Document Control Center – WO66-G609 10903 New Hampshire Avenue Silver Spring, MD 20993-0002
> https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/getting-radi... [...]
(BTW, I suspect the process apparently not forwarding a report between two agencies will result in some problems falling through the cracks. And it did, in this case, since I stopped holding the defective unit (I'd asked in my report that they let me know if they wanted to examine it), returned it to the store, and never looked into starting over the reporting process with a different agency.)
The only fix was to unplug it then swap the logic board. Once it happened again with the new board we threw it out.
So you basically got exposed to microwave radiation. That's dangerous. Have you checked in with a doctor?
Or a YouTube video with a pack of microwave popcorn that spontaneously pops and burns and smokes.
This microwave has exactly UI element other than the door - a digital dial that goes from 10s-6m. No start/cancel, no power level, no defrost, no program mode. I don't "cook" using the oven, only reheat or very rarely heat/boil small quantities of water.
The microwave beeps only once after complete and it's not incredibly loud.
Despite my kids literally abusing this device, it's been rock solid for 7+ years. Amusingly my company started putting these same exact models in our office break/kitchen areas a couple years after I bought mine.
The two dials select on-time and duty-cycle (cooking time and "power"). The third input is the safety switch which deactivates the cycle when the door opens.
This design is the most userfriendly, the most economic and the most reliable.
This is the hill I will die on.
I’d take a steam sensor as well.
Thanks to Technology Connections, great channel. Convinced me to read all the fine print until I found a Breville that had it. https://youtu.be/UiS27feX8o0
For casual use the UX is superior as it requires less micromanagement. Also lot more difficult to engineer well, though.
- open to send a "stop microwaving" signal to the controller
- open to physically open the power circuit to the magnetron transformer
- close to short out the power after the above relay (the crowbar part)
The bottom two relays (in the list, not necessarily physical order) are independent of what the control board does. If due to mechanical slop, the bottom one switches before the middle one, boom goes the fuse. Even if you're just opening the door of an idle microwave. That's why, at least in mine, it says on a label inside, if the fuse is blown, replace the door switches along with the fuse.
The sequencing is very tight. You have to push the button veeerrry slooowly to actually observe the switches clicking in sequence.
I have another in the kitchen (Panasonic NNCD997) that has an interlock system which blows the primary fuse if a) The door is open and b) The magnetron is currently active.
Unfortunately, with this model, the incandescent bulb dying kills the inverter PCB.
Edit: The service/repair manual[1] for the Panasonic is an interesting read, if anyone is interested
I’m quite impressed by how many independent mechanisms there are to prevent the magnetron from accidentally turning on. Not only are there three door switches to ensure the door is closed, there’s also a mechanism to guard against a faulty microcontroller or software.
Personally, I think the ones with mechnical controls, no microcontroller, are the most reliable and also easiest to repair.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36581204 - Repair adventure: A single white LED causing stuck keys on a RN988 keyboard (2023-07-05)
I wasn't thinking about the color of the LED at the time, but after reading this article, I wonder if we should prefer products with green LEDs in general, like green LEDs are just more reliable than blue/white LEDs for some reason?
Also, I can't seem to find microwave ovens with red LEDs.
My 25 year old microwave is really solid, except for the lamp, which has blown. It's an old bulb so it should be replaceable - except that physically there's no way to do it without unscrewing the magnetron, which is well into scary territory - you need to basically re-qualify it after reassembly by scanning for leaks with a professional instrument. I don't want to throw it away because it still works, but fixing the lamp would cost more than buying a new one.
My guess is that they have some broken/inverted logic related to the "turn off if the door is open" feature.
It depends on your country. I've heard of this being the case in Europe, but here in Brazil, as far as I could find there's no "long term regulation" of the power line frequency. Which makes sense to me; it means the power network operator doesn't have to artificially deviate from the correct power line frequency in an attempt to "compensate" for a past deviation.
Ok, I've never been really fond of microwave ovens so I don't use mine that much. After reading this I am starting to fear my microwave, definitely.
You’ll put less duty on one in a month than a commercial kitchen does in one day, so it will last forever. Time is money in a kitchen so they’re powerful and fast. They tend to have very simple, direct controls, rather than a myriad of popcorn/pizza/whatever buttons. Commercial microwaves often have an integrated diffuser, so they don’t need the stupid rotating glass plate in the bottom.
No issues ever. It was reliable, had some useful programming options (that nobody ever used but me, but it had them), and it did a good job of microwaving food in a consistent and predictable manner.
(But that's not an indication that inverters are reliable, or that consumer is the same as professional, or that Panasonic is good, or of anything else really other than that anecdotes are anecdotes.)
It is an engineering failure. The oven is not to blame. /s
Overall, they found that the improvement was much smaller than I'd originally anticipated.
[1] https://www.rtings.com/microwave/learn/research/microwave-in...
In the end I went with the model that looked to have the simplest design and least things to break.
I walked into our office tea room one morning and saw three engineers standing around trying to work out how to use the new microwave.
No joke.
Quite why a microwave needs anything more than cooking time and power level knob is beyond me. (This thing probably has options to ping my phone if my jacket spuds go soggy).
If I remember right the solution was to press "Cook Power" then type in the number of seconds. There was nothing on the microwave to explain this, I had to look it up online.
I have never regretted doing my "silent microwave mod".
My combo microwave/air fryer beeps if you take food out and close the door before the timer is finished, like it doesn't know what to do now.
You can achieve the same by heating full power and doing regular pauses (which is often how this is implemented anyway).
And the answer is simple: Because they can be useful settings.
The food being warmed does conduct heat, but it is not an ideal conductor of heat.
And microwave ovens (just as any other kind of oven I can think of) heat from the outside. And they're supposed to make things easier and simpler.
So let's make an example: Leftover refried beans, still cold from the fridge.
I can put them in a bowl at 100% power for three minutes, and they'll probably explode and make a mess and still have parts that are cold. This "works" but it's obviously not very good. (I can mitigate some of the mess by using a cover of some kind, but that's also kind of shit.)
Or: I can put them in for a minute or two at 100%, and then stir them, and then run them for a another minute, and then stir them again, and maybe then do another minute. This "works" but it's enough work that perhaps I would be better off to skip the bowl and warm them up in a pan on the stove instead.
Or: I can set the microwave to (say) 40% duty cycle, and put them in for whatever I think is a reasonable time for the volume of beans at that duty cycle. Let's say 5 or 6 minutes.
It's slower, which prevents layers from getting stupid-hot and explodey, and gives the beans more time to reach thermal equilibrium. It's completely hands-off once the buttons are pushed. I'll probably still give them a stir before serving, but they'll be fine.
(I'm a fan of simplicity, but I'm not a fan of lack of control like OP's microwave offers as a primary selling point.
The microwave oven that we had when I was growing up was simple and functional: It had mechanical timer switch with a mechanical bell to set the cook time and announce the end of a run, which is about as simple as it can get while retaining any aspect of automation. It also had an analog dial with which the duty cycle could be continuously set, from somewhere between ~5% to 100%, and this duty cycle could even be changed while the machine was running. No computers, and nothing particularly electronic at all. Just a timer and [what was probably] a heated bimetallic switch (just like a common, cheap electric range uses).)
Try heating something you cooked yourself recently and you'll see the difference clearly.
Lower power levels are great when heating things that are prone to boil over. The pause between heating cycles gives time for the heat to "soak" into the interior of the food, avoiding excessive heating on the outside.
Porsche does this with special stripped-out models that cost more (less unnecessary stuff, less weight).
Similar thing here, "simplify and add lightness".
And by "microwave light bulb" I don't mean the 25-Watt appliance bulb that is buried inside of your Moulinex, but a light bulb that was meant to be placed in the corner of the microwave oven.
Microwave on? Light bulb turns some of that RF energy into light energy, and illuminates the interior. Microwave off? Light goes dark.
I couldn't find any reference to them having existed when I last looked a few years ago, and I don't have time to look again right now, but it was a thing that was advertised on TV and sold on J-hooks in big grocery stores. It definitely existed. (It may have even been something that my mother bought once, but that concept is less clear in the ol' memory hole.)
An example is the atrocious slow cooker that I somehow ended up with that has so many settings on its terrible display I can never remember how to run it. Oh and it maxes out at 6 hours, when my work day is typically 8+ hrs. The old one had two settings with a physical switch - high (for saute) and low (for slow cooking). Perfection.
Fast forward two years later, and the fuse tripped inside the microwave after I forget a bottle sterilizer overnight, on Christmas Day.
I said fuck this, and went and got a Panasonic NN-SG158. The twist was that it looked like it was a different version of the first GE microwave we had from the same OEM, but a little reworked.
The board that I replaced is a Midea MD1001LSE EMLAA5G-S3-K VER17. Not an exact match to the OP but in the same family.
Mr. Wizard demonstrates:
I've never had a problem finding such models. My previous microwave is similar and was also one of the cheapest I could find then. It's about 10 years old now, and now sits at work because we didn't need two of them at home. It's next to an older one at work that is also similar and is probably around 15 years now.
Does the trick for sure.
It’s like buying a car, the moment an automaker starts adding long lists of exclusions to their extended warranties, you just know their quality is going down.
If you bypass the door interlocks and operate the magnetron with the door open and then stick your head into the cavity, you risk have your eyes pass through one of the microwave peaks in the standing wave pattern set up by the cavity. Extremely intense, localized heating within your eyeballs is never a good idea, and you risk burning your retinas or damaging your corneas or lenses.
The eyeball is large made of water and protrudes somewhat from the eye socket. Peering forward into the interior of the microcave cavity has the potential to expose your eye to the full brunt of the standing wave peak without much other body mass in the way to absorb the energy, creating the potential for that intense localized heating.
Basically, they were really good at building big devices/projects requiring state-orchestration of capital, like their space program, and many military projects like the T-34 and MiG-19. And turning rivers around in their tracks to build gigantic hydroelectric dams and so on.
But apparently that model does work so well when applied to consumer devices. That, and plus the fact that their population was generally too poor to buy them, is what kept them falling ever behind. The Soviets and their client states did make valiant efforts, but they tended to cost huge amounts of state capital, and for that and other reasons they never panned out.
For example the GDR once thought it could reverse its fortunes by devoting its capital and brainpower into the development of ground-breaking microchip (the U61000) that it hoped would take the Western market by storm. A brilliant achievement it was, but the production economics were never viable (from WP):
From 1977 the attempt to achieve a competitive edge in microchips against the research and development resources of the entire western world – in a state of just 16 million people – was perhaps always doomed to failure, but swallowed increasing amounts of internal resources and hard currency. GDR was some five to eight years behind the leading producers of USA and Japan. To produce one 64kb chip cost 40 marks, while in the West it cost 4.50 marks. To produce one 256kb chip cost 534 marks, while in the West it cost 5.00 to 7.00 marks.[2]
Thinking about this makes me nostalgic for the day when this was how competing empires once sought to attain supremacy over the other, and leave them in the dust.
In any case it's important to keep in mind that it definitely isn't a Western-style capitalist system (in either practice or its ideology). Whatever the current reality, it's very quite significant that the CCP strenuously maintains the song and dance that it will still bloom into a "true" socialist/communist system someday:
The Chinese government maintains that these reforms are actually the primary stage of socialism[97] and the Chinese Communist Party remains nominally dedicated to establishing a socialist society and subsequently developing into full communism.[98] This was reiterated by Xi Jinping at the 2023 G20 New Delhi summit.