The early Radaranges seem to get all the attention, but I'd like to give a shout-out to the RR-6W. This was Amana's first Touchmatic and for most buyers, the first product they ever purchased that contained a microprocessor. It predates the original Apple II by a year yet contains all the building blocks of those first home computers. The micro was custom made by Essex (who did most of Amana's Touchmatic panels in years to come). What's surprising is that a number of micro-level gating and other details are found in the patent that is clearly the 6W machine (see link).
My example has been working well for years with nary a problem. I rebuilt the power supply a few years ago, but recently, I lost the top right segment in my display LEDs. Teardown is a little harder on these models since the panel doesn't plug in like the later units. You have to pull the RH access panel first and carefully disconnect a number of leads internally, then pull the panel (remember, these still use the old school Raytheon magnetron setup from the first models).
I thought I'd share some pics as this is REAL quality design. The micro and LED displays are all socketed. The PCB is excellent quality. The housing is made of thick aluminum unlike the sheetmetal and cardboard used later. And the design is elegant. The micro outputs a BCD code to a 7447 which is then multiplexed to the 4 displays. Part of this driver was bad, but luckily I had new spares on hand (and added a socket for future repair).
Something else many don't realize about the 6W is that it IS programmable. Defrost-Hold-Cook and Defrost-Hold-Slo Cook sequences can be set entering the times in sequence. -Cory
My example has been working well for years with nary a problem. I rebuilt the power supply a few years ago, but recently, I lost the top right segment in my display LEDs. Teardown is a little harder on these models since the panel doesn't plug in like the later units. You have to pull the RH access panel first and carefully disconnect a number of leads internally, then pull the panel (remember, these still use the old school Raytheon magnetron setup from the first models).
I thought I'd share some pics as this is REAL quality design. The micro and LED displays are all socketed. The PCB is excellent quality. The housing is made of thick aluminum unlike the sheetmetal and cardboard used later. And the design is elegant. The micro outputs a BCD code to a 7447 which is then multiplexed to the 4 displays. Part of this driver was bad, but luckily I had new spares on hand (and added a socket for future repair).
Something else many don't realize about the 6W is that it IS programmable. Defrost-Hold-Cook and Defrost-Hold-Slo Cook sequences can be set entering the times in sequence. -Cory
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