Site for Asking Home Appliance (Microwave Oven) Repair Questions?

[fuzzoli]

Hello world!

sci.electronics.repair has gone down hill since the "good 'ol days".  There are 9 junk posts for every good one.  So my question is:  Where do we go these days to ask repair-type questions?  I have a microwave oven acting like its fried itself.  I have a feeling I'm on the right track, but would like some community input.

At the risk of being off-topic, but to satisfy the curious, here's what's going on:   The MO seems fine when idle -- the clock is good, and all the buttons work.  Once you try to cook something, everything goes dim and / or slow -- the display, the interior light, the fan motors, etc.  So there's not much that would effect the low-voltage stuff (uC, display, etc), as well as dim the bulbs and slow down the motor other than the mains voltage.  I have a GCFI testers plugged into the 2nd outlet of the electrical box.  The interesting part here is the tester shows all wiring as good (two lights on), but as soon as I plug the MO into the other outlet, *both* lights of the tester goes out!  A meter across the 120v AC Mains shows 60 volts at this point too.  There is no open neutral as far as I can tell, no significant load being placed on the mains, and other high current devices work fine in the same outlet.  Obviously at the lower voltage, the MO struggles to run, if at all.

The only thing I see which might be a problem is maybe a bad cap or something else on the "Noise Filter" board.  For reference, the MO is a Frigidaire / Electrolux GLMV169 (I have the service manual).

So does anyone know a good place to post?

Thanks!

-Frank
Holland, PA
USA

[Tinkerer]

While not an expert, a voltage drop etc seems characteristic of a partial short somewhere.

[SeanB]

If the mains voltage is dropping have you tried another outlet in the house? If the wiring was done with the push in terminals in the socket then they can go high resistance and have the 60V drop. I would replace the socket outlet as a first fix, and screw the wiring to the terminals rather than using the push in holder.

[richard.cs]

It's definately sounding like a wiring fault rather than anything to do with the microwave, the low voltage is probably just more noticable with a microwave that with other large loads.

[KJDS]

What happens when you plug a kettle into that socket?