Is a magnetron recoverable at home?

[coppercone2]

I would call that 15% damage, mine was at like 70% at the tip + the hole in sheet metal next to it

[rsjsouza]

mine melted the cap/antenna of the magnetron and then the bit under it about half way and blew a hole in the wave guide and kept on sparking and throwing sparks into the chassis until I turned it off, luckily that one is connected to the outlet, when i walked in on it it looked like someone positioned an arc welder electrode in the microwave.... I heard it arcing for a while before I figured out WTF was making the noise

Ours failed that way as well - a 13 year-old GE microwave that took anything we threw at it like a champ, until near its end where arcing was clearly visible on the waveguide once I disassembled it.

[coppercone2]

did you have a hole in it?

[rsjsouza]

did you have a hole in it?

Check my video at 7:53
https://youtu.be/uoYqH9rDwiE?t=473

[bsfeechannel]

Sometimes living in Brazil sucks. I cannot find these connectors/caps locally, from eBay or Amazon it would cost me R$10+R$50 - and from China they never make trough the customs.

You were not even trying. Those connectors/feedthrough capacitors can be easily found for around 6 US bucks a pop delivered, depending on where you live in Brazil. You can even pay it in four installments, if you are really budget constrained.

Anyway, at the end of last year I had a magnetronic failure of the same kind. The connector turned into a 30 ohm resistor. The magnetron stopped working, but didn't blow any fuse. I ordered a replacement and started the surgery.



I used a 3.5mm drill bit to remove the rivets that held the connector in place.



This produced filings that were immediately attracted by the magnets of the magnetron and needed to be removed.



I also noticed some discoloration on the base of the filament support and on the internal plate of the casing, suggesting the occurrence of arching.



This is the final result.



To replace the rivets I used these screws for hard-disk drives. I've got lots of them.



I applied solder between the nuts and the screws to prevent them from becoming loose with vibration.



The magnetron is working OK ever since.

[rsjsouza]

Pretty nice job, bsfee

[james_s]

Another option is just sub in another magnetron from a junk oven. I did that a couple times and it worked fine, most magnetrons are pretty similar, I just found one that was about the same size with the same mounting hole pattern and it worked. Old microwave ovens are easy to get for free, they get all scuzzy looking or some other part fails and people toss them out.

[macona]

Industrial magnetrons use BeO, Im talking the 5-10kw+ ones used in things like RF excited mercury lamps for curing adhesives and stuff. Thats probably where people thought BeO came from. Also small argon ion lasers use it for the plasma tube, its pretty much the only thing that will stand a couple kw of plasma passing down it without magnets or water cooling like the larger ion lasers.