Microwave Misadventure...

[gizmo]

My nephew and his partner have recently purchased a house. This move coincided with my father moving to a nursing home, so a lot of his stuff has become their stuff. Including a relatively new LG microwave oven in white. It works perfectly and doesn't need to be replaced, but any way...

The young lady of the house loves anything in teal green, and found a green microwave oven online. She ordered it from Amazon, and it has arrived. OOOPS...
It is a US spec microwave oven, a Daewoo KOR-7LREM. Link below.
It requires 110-120 volts 60 Hz.
Here in Australia our supply is 230 volts 50 Hz.

To make matters worse, when it arrived they noticed it had a "funny plug", found a plug adaptor, and plugged it in. Nothing. I assume it blew an internal fuse immediately?

Now they have called in the technically minded uncle. (me.) I doubt they can send it back, and the cost of postage would be ridiculous any way. (Sending a simple calendar to friends in the US cost me $17 at christmas...)

SO...
does anyone have any clues about substituting the power board inside this green piece of junk with one from a 220/230 volt version? Is it likely to be a simple changeover of a stand alone switchmode power supply board, plus fan, turntable motor and light globe? Or will the magnetron and display board have to be swapped too, which makes it an expensive paperweight?

I have offered to respray the outer casing of the LG microwave to the right shade of green but its front panel will remain white with black trim...

Yes it was a silly move, but in her defence the ad on Amazon doesn't even mention the supply voltage.

http://daewooelecusa.com/20l-touch-control-microwave-with-eco-zero-standby-kor7lbkm.html

 

[turbokinetic]

With most microwaves, the main part that does the cooking; involves a high power HV transformer. This is either wound for 120V input or 240V input. I've not seen one with multiple taps on the winding.  It's possible that the transformer could be dual-voltage, but highly unlikely.  The controls may or may not be compatible with 240V. I expect the fuse is blown, but after changing the fuse, you would need to get a large step-down transformer, in the neighborhood of 1KVA, to power this from 240V.

 

Sincerely,

David

 

[dustin92]

It's a cute little microwave, but 700 watts? That thing needs all the help it can get, seeing that most 120v microwaves are at least 900w. I would just chalk it up as a loss and repaint the current one!

 

[arbilab]

side note

My 1982 GE is 600W.  That's the way I like it.  The cookbook that comes with it, works.  Even little power still sometimes needs ballast (~1/3 cup water) so as not to overcook.  I use power 3, 4, 5 & 6 a lot depending what's in it.  Also makes µwave popcorn just fine. 

 

I don't want 900~1100W.

 

[rolls_rapide]

If it is a modern machine, then the electronics will likely be of the 'inverter' style anyway.

And then there's the dabbling around with dangerous internal voltages. And finally, even if you managed to get it back to a working state, you'd have to test for microwave leakage.

Just chuck the bloody thing. And buy the lady of the house a pair of teal tinted glasses.