Today I found out....
Added 2022-06-22 05:13:34 +0000 UTCThat you can repair magnetrons. Not that I recommend doing it unless you really know the hazards of working with instant-death microwave circuitry.
I popped my porridge (oatmeal) into the microwave, pressed start and was rewarded with a much louder hum than normal before the unit popped the high voltage fuse on the output of the transformer.
My first thought was that the diode had failed short circuit, but testing showed that the magnetron itself had developed a fault to its chassis. A bit of Googling showed that a common fault is the filter circuit in the box on the back of the magnetron. It appears that the white connector used to power it has two capacitors built in, and they can fail to the chassis. You can buy replacements, but since I already had a good magnetron handy (sadly with different mountings) I popped the screening lids and swapped the inlet filter connector.
Not an easy task, and I don't really recommend doing this for safety reasons. But the microwave works again and is just awaiting arrival of the correct high voltage fuse before I use it again. (I put in a non high voltage fuse for a brief test.)
It makes me wonder how many complete microwaves get trashed just because of a failed filter capacitor.
Once again, I don't really recommend doing this unless you are very experienced and aware of the hazards involved. I will NOT be making a video about this.
And no. That's not a beryllium insulator.
