New Microwave!

[Chetlaham]

Variety makes the world go round

I think we can both agree on this! Diversity drives the economy and the best progress. Freedom is the ultimate inventor and perfecter.

One thing I forgot to add regarding my Sharp is that it cancels the cooking time when the door is opened. When we used a JCPenney rotary oven I remember sometimes we'd close the door after taking food out with time remaining and the oven would continue to run empty. Also with the Sharp the rotary knob will not set a time if the door has been closed for more than one minute. Great way to extend the life of the Magnetron.

@Jerome: Are you referring to the Sharp? I bought mine through Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074RCGYL...lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9kZXRhaWw&smid=A2Q1K7P9UYD1V2

Highly recommend you give it a try.

 

[48bencix]

1965

I visited a fellow student's home in Los Angeles in 1965. She showed me their new undercounter oven. She said look how fast a potato would cook. A few minutes later a fully cooked potato was produced. Many years later I wondered what that GE oven was. Very advanced for the time. Must have been the VersaTronic.

I got my first microwave oven in 1980. I don't remember seeing them much before this time.

 

[petek]

By far the best MW oven we had (and there's been a few since the mid 70s) was the full size GE of the 80s. It was also CR's top pic for quite a few years iirc because of it's even cooking without a turntable. Ours was a more TOL model rebadged from the Bay dept store. Easy to clean, a metal rack, probe, auto cook, auto defrost, auto roast. The "auto" features worked extremely well in that one. I seem to recall back then CR did test for evenness with bread and cheese laid out on the floor so you could see hot spots.
Today I just use the cheapest of cheap midea made RCA compact because that's all that will fit in our mw cabinet space and I put the old Radarange downstairs. For a $50 Walmart mw it's lasted since 2009 of multiple daily usage.

 

[neptunebob]

Chetleham, your MW looks like...

The one called General (but NOT General Electric) that consumer reports liked. It looks like a commercial oven but sold to consumers.

Oh, and I think you need The Angry Mama on that splatted microwave.

https://www.amazon.com/Microwave-Cl...=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy

 

[neptunebob]

Here's a General link

Link to General oven

https://generalfoodservice.com/prod...digital-microwave?_pos=2&_sid=a83b03e33&_ss=r

 

[circlew]

Our first microwave was a Magic Chef that my mom bought sometime in the mid 80's. It was still working when I got a new one, so gave it to the church sale. The new one was a GE that I got in 2006, and it only lasted about 4 years. Was very displeased as I had bought the trim kit to build it in. I went without one for several years until I bought the little Sunbeam at Target in 2019.

 

[panasonicvac]

Well this thread has inspired me to show off the microwaves that we have. I won't be counting the ones that I've used when I was living in other places since I don't remember some of them anymore. Anyways, this first one is our Amana. The original microwave for the house. It was put in our kitchen just shortly before my parents moved in the summer of 1991. After the basement was finished somewhere in the mid 90's, this Amana got put downstairs it's in now and my parents bought another Amana for the kitchen. Both of them are good, I think the basement one is much slower than the other one. Then just a few years ago, my dad bought this Toshiba to replace the other Amana in the kitchen because he wanted a convection oven. Originally we tried putting the other Amana from the kitchen and put it downstairs where the original Amana is at but it was just too big to fit in so we have it in storage now. The Toshiba is trash, it's like chetlaham's GE plus we also had something splatter on the inside once before. It was a mess. And the convection oven is a joke, our LG stove with a convection oven does a much better job but I'm just not a fan of convections myself. I'd like to put our other Amana back in the kitchen one of these days or I'd instead get a Panasonic Inverter. The Whirlpool was later added on. We bought it back in Christmas of 2005 I believe. I remember we nearly had to return it when it was going to be WAY closer down to the stove until we downsized our cabinets to where we made it work still. I think this is my most favorite over-the-range microwave ever. It's showing it's age but I'd like to try and fix this up for as long as I possibly can. As you can see we upgraded it by adding a stainless steel extension hood and we also upgraded to venting it outside ever since we bought the LG stove a few years ago. Last but not least, we have a High Pointe in our camping trailer we bought brand new in 2018 that's also in storage. I don't think I've ever used that one yet.

And that's about it. I know we used to have a few more that I'll go ahead and talk about. When we bought our first cabin back in 1995, we had I believe a white GE countertop. After we renovated it a year later, we replaced it with a white GE over-the-range which I believe was a Spacemaker. At our last cabin, we had that stainless steel Sharp Carousel countertop I mentioned earlier. Again that's my all time favorite microwave ever. In our first camping trailer, we had a white Magic Chef countertop from 1997 I believe. We took it when we sold the trailer so we used it for a bit inside our house in the kitchen then we later brought it up to our last cabin for the basement and left it behind along with the Sharp when we sold the place. Our second camping trailer had a black Dometic over-the-range which was made by LG from 2004. And we had one white countertop that we bought for our trip down to Disneyland back in fall of 2013 and never used it again afterwards, I don't remember what brand it was but I did remember that it had a ridiculously fast turntable.

 

[petek]

Re the Whirpool. It makes me wonder with Whirlpool that on the tag where it says where they're manufacturered they use PRC instead of China. Do they think people might wrongly assume that's Puerto Rico. They do it on Kitchenaid appliances as well

 

[panasonicvac]

I'm not sure. I've also seen this on the Aerus CentraLux central vacuum power units that they've been doing since 2009 I believe. At least when they started making their tanks brushed finished.

 

[Chetlaham]

@neptunebob: It does need a steam clean, but at this point I will probably eventually end up replacing the unit. I feel like investing further effort into this micro is not worth it. But who knows, if I find some cheap interlocks and a descent control board on Ebay I might refurbish the unit.

The General micro is made by Media and it looks like copy of the Panasonic bottom feed commercial microwave:

https://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-NE...e6d374b3&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1

The bottom feed might explain why it was so well rated. I am stating to think bottom feed produces the best heating results.

 

[Chetlaham]

@panasonicvac: Now that Amana is a serious microwave! By today's standards that unit would be listed as commercial and sold to restaurants. I love the flatbed design and the shelf too. How does the shelf work?

 

[combo52]

Microwave ovens without start buttons

In my experience, only a few of the very earliest microwaves did not have a start button, it’s probably a UL requirement.

You should never use a metal shelf in a microwave unless you’re cooking two large plates of food at the same time it is not intended that you leave the metal shelf in it when you’re cooking just one item, it leads to uneven cooking, and it can start arcing at the shelf brackets and causes a small fire.

I have found in general that the larger the cavity of a microwave oven, the more evenly, it cooks. There’s just more room for the microwave to ricochet around as it finds the food.

Waiting for some cooking videos chet to show how evenly your new microwave cooks. You can also do speed test by using a liter of water and see what the temperature rises over given amount of time. These are the proper ways to assess evenness of cooking and heating speed, with a microwave oven.

Combination convection, microwave ovens, unfortunately are too slow in the US because there’s not enough power in the outlet to run the heater and the magnetron at the same time so they’re a bit of a compromise. This is one place where the European ones work faster because there’s more wattage available in the typical household wiring.

This was why the advantium 240 V unit was so good it had nearly 600 W of halogen heat combined with 900 W of microwave power if you ever get a chance to use one of these, you can do a lot of cooking fast .

 

[Chetlaham]

I think I found the best oven

I did boil water in a tall glass cup (about 2 - 2 1/2 cups water) for tea- in 1 minute and a half it was boiling. Sharp here again heats faster than my GE overall, and food evenness is just unreal. Not just evenness but food does not look like its microwaved at all.

I keep forgetting just how strong this microwave is. I heated 18.8oz of Campbell's chunky soup for 3 minutes by accident yesterday and while evenly heated it was way to hot to eat. I had to transfer bowls and let it cool down. On the GE the soup would be warm in the center, crusty around the edges and the bowl so hot you needed gloves. Often I'd stir the soup, then let the heat from the bowl transfer into the cooler soup. If I had limited time I'd pour it into another bowl and heat it again, and the heat from the first bowl drying the residual soup to the side of the bowl.

The more I use the Sharp the more I realize I may have bought the best microwave that money can possibly buy in 2023. The only other unit which just might exceed the Sharp in terms of even cooking is the Panasonic NE-1025F based on various customer reviews on Youtube and Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-NE...8e6d374b3&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&th=1

However, the Panasonic may not be as well designed our built as the Sharp. For example, the cavity air is exhausted out the left side into the interstitial space (with limited venting on the external wrapper) where in theory moist air can accumulate condense on internal surfaces and parts. On the other hand, the Sharp has a dedicated wide open vent in the top rear which exhausts directly to the outside. Its external louver even say do not remove to prevent RF exposure. Interstitial spaces between the outter wrapper and cavity wall only see fresh dry air. The Sharp is built to exhaust food moisture and odor right out the back with great air turn over.

Also, on the Panasonic the control board seems to have just one large relay for the MOT and a small one for the fan and light where as the Sharp has a large relay for the fan in series with another large relay for the MOT.

I'm sure I could find more flaws if I could test the Panasonic.

Internet pic showing the cavity venting of the Panasonic NE-1025F:

 

[Chetlaham]

Bottom Energy Feed

From the Panasonic listing, this might explain the Sharp's fast even cooking:

 

[Chetlaham]

Oatmeal with flax seed. Never been this fluffy!

I'm having to much fun with this. I'm going to buy tons of microwavable items today! Packets, burritos, soup, frozen meatballs, entrees ect.

Screw all the Breville roasting and pan Frying.

 

[Chetlaham]

Its the small things too

Just noticed that taking a pic of the back vent even the fan blades are rounded. The more I look at this oven in granular detail the more I see intelligent quality engineering spanning from the micro level to the macro level. Its just not what I normally see, far from it. Everything is so well thought out.

Can't say I've seen many microwaves with rounded edge fan blades.

Serious engineering consideration went into all aspects of this oven. Literally all appliances should be like this.

 

[panasonicvac]

Thanks!

Even though that and our other Amana aren't my favorite (there's a couple of newer Amanas that I liked better), these are just built like tanks! So here's our other Amana that's in storage, still works like the day it was bought brand new, just only replaced the light bulbs in it's entire lifespan. It's a little harder to see the info sticker since this got used alot more than the other one. It was made in 1993 and it has 1800 watts, that would explain why this one heats up better since the other one is 1500 watts. One of my local sandwiches shops had a few of these before I mentioned about earlier, they've since been replaced by the commercial ones. I also have a couple neighbors that had the white version before which I think doesn't look as pretty as this black one in my opinion. Anyways to answer your question about the metal rack, to be honest, I couldn't tell the difference between having one on versus not. I didn't realized from John that it can be used to heat two things at once. I was thinking the rack makes heating better and it can be taken out if you put something very large inside. But again, I couldn't tell. However I do know for certain that we've hadn't had any arching problems. We did had some metal items spark inside before by accident like tinfoil or forks but never from the racks. I was just talking with my mom about both of the Amanas. When my dad is gone, she'd rather not have the Amana back from storage. She'd like to get rid of the Toshiba and just make another cabinet with a shelf inside since she'd like to have more storage space and she'd feel like she doesn't need two microwaves anymore for the kitchen. She'd also like to do the same for the basement as well since we rarely use that microwave so I'm planning on claiming the two Amanas, either keep them as a collection or just sell them off.

And here is our High Pointe in the trailer. It's alot smaller that I realized. I remember our Magic Chef and Dometic we used to have were more bigger for being a compact size.

 

[Chetlaham]

Keep the Amanas, there is nothing like them today. In fact those single dial 1980s JCPenney micros literally had thicker metal for their frame and a door to replace the cavity bulb. Nothing today comes close.

 

[Chetlaham]

Did some shopping

Got some items! More to come. This is going to be my new hobby. I'm so excited!

 

[panasonicvac]

We'll see

I'd like to keep them as a collection but if I won't have room for them left, I'd part ways with them. I know I don't need either of them plus neither of those two are my favorite to use anyways. And not to mention I'm not a fan of microwaves at all in general, I'd rather reheat some things up in the old fasion way. But if I could keep at least one microwave out of all of the others that's ever been sold in the market, my grandfather has a Sharp Carousel that I'd love to inherit when he goes. Not only I think it's very cool but it also outlived the original microwave that was there before which I believe was an Amana because I remember the clock display being red.

 

[DADoES]

 
My GE OTR circa 2004 included a (chrome) rack for multiple dishes (one on the turntable, one not).  I never used it.

 

[Chetlaham]

Limited Splatter

Just not possible in the GE. In the Sharp the sauce stays in the bowl.

 

[Chetlaham]

Internals

Not my video, rather one I came across showing the insides of an identical model. I must say, I don't think I have ever seen a modern microwave this thic, full and meticulously thought out except perhaps for a few residential models from the 80s. The air intake duct and fan duct like incredibly over engineered, the bracing, fabrication, magnetron mounting, wave guide, ect is all over engineered. The transformer definitely appears larger. Nothing inside resembles a $300 microwave, far from it- more like an $800 commercial model. All microwaves should look like this.

Word of caution- never get so close to an operating magnetron, capacitor, secondary leads or step up transformer like this guy does in the vid. 4-6kv can arc some distance and unless the HV cable has a legit concentric neutral I'm going to assume that HV "insulation" (more like covering/weather proofing) is not up to dielectric snuff. (And even then unshielded medium voltage cable can still have an electric field around it capable of exerting a perky surprise)





By comparison, a glorified Breville:



To add, my Sharp also has a soft close latch. So the Breville really has nothing to brag about.

I'm truly in love.