The Raytheon is Rarin' to Go

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cadman

cadman

Well-known member
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Joined
Sep 7, 2004
Messages
1,535
Location
Cedar Falls, IA
The internet is a wonderful thing. Where else can you cross-shop a pair of xenon rectifiers to find the best price, and have them shot across the country in 2-days?

And thanks to that, the Radarange is now fully operational with no apparent damage to the magnetrons (or transformers) from the 866A tube fiasco.

Owning this is a bit like having a Ferrari. Fun to fire up and listen to it run, but it's just so fast there's no where to run it. I might have to start a restaurant to make good use of it. Aside from heating a water load, the inaugural dish was a cheese quesadilla- my standard RR test. Not fully done, the cheese falls out, overdone, the flour gets too crispy, and a cinch for determining 'evenness'. Let me tell you, 30 seconds may have been pushing it! Slightly crispy, smooth cooking throughout. A cup of water? Rolling boil in 40 seconds. This RR really is begging for a serious "meal".

I took some time last night to polish up the stainess and clean the nooks and crannies of the controls and I don't think this machine saw a lot of use. No scratches or paint wear, either. The only thing it was crying out for was a cavity light, and some spare RR parts came to the rescue. To shield the interior top I may have a piece of plexiglass cut to install in place of the phenolic material that was in there, this way you can see the magnetron bull-noses and the serious 'stirrer'.

And there you have it, a 52 year old Radarange back in business. -C

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Wow Cory!!  Congratulations on getting the MarkV restored and running again!  It really is a unique item and I concur, this oven didn't get a lot of use judging from its overall condition.  I remember how sparkling clean the fan for the cooling coil was.   What an amazing microwave - I'll now have to come visit to see just how fast it really is...  

 

 
 
It was really cool to follow your posts of this RR. I knew the second I saw that thing it must mean serious business unlike microwaves these days, that take 5 or so minutes to boil water and don't seem to heat very evenly at all.
 
Awesome restoration Cory! So cool to not only see a rare vintage machine like that in such good condition, but to have it work too!!

So any chance you might try a controlled test to estimate the RF cook power? It would be cool to know what it really does. Measure the temp delta of a known quantity of water over time and lets see. You can find a formula that gives the effective wattage in this thread:

www.automaticwasher.org

So, just how powerful is that Microwave??

I have several different microwave ovens I use on a regular basis, both vintage and modern. I have noticed marked performance differences between them. So I wanted to attempt to measure the actual output power of each oven. Its actually a simple procedure to just measure the heating of a known...
www.automaticwasher.org www.automaticwasher.org
 
Phil L. - thanks for the formula Power(watts) = Vol of H2O(ml) x Temp Rise(C) x 4.187 / Time(sec) . I had enough chemistry and other to be shamed into only vaguely remembering this.

But the big question is(drum roll , grinning) : "is there an APP for it?"

lol. I think the old HP or TI calculator might have room for a formula..not sure…but I'll test my mwaves now.

Thanks again and if the mood strikes you Cory - let us know your results, too.
 
That's one...

Scary Micro.

That thing is huge. There is no doubt how well it works. It was built back when America took pride in engineering and building.

And Cory has restored it. Brilliant Young Man.

Good luck and enjoy that Wave. And seriously, don't open a restaurant. Just have many friends over !!!
 
Very nice machine-a HISTORICAL find for electronics and early microwave ovens.Remember the 3B28 tubes-used to have several many years back I bought from a surplus store-they were JAN marked.Lost in a flood-wished I had them today.Liked the glow they made while running!Same with mercury vapor tubes.When I ran broadcast transmitters with mercury vapor rectifiers-would watch them during my shift!!AM tranmsitters they would flicker to the modulation-in analog TV transmitters-the rectifiers would glow brightly when a dark picture scene was broadcast.Then came glowless solid state rectifiers-did away with the hassles adn power consumption of the mercs-but the mercury tubes put on a show!and you got feedback from them while watching them-Bright glow-heavy load or short circuit-very light on no glow-open circuit.Remember "seasoning" these for spare duties-as long as they were kept UPRIGHT after seasoning they should be fine.If you shook them or laid them on their sides-they had to be seasoned all over again.when I did this no dreaded arc backs.3 of our transmitters here used to use mercury vapor rectifiers-was converted to SS in the early 70's when some of the mercury tubes were NLA.Imagine a 15Kv supply @ 60+A using mercury tubes!Can look up the type#s if someone were interested in those monsters-they were in a large metal cylinder with a glass base-stood upright in the rectifier cabinet.Now silicone stacks are in there.Come to think of it-used some 3B28 tubes in some Altec Lansing A287 250W amps that come from a drive in theater.845 tubes were in the outputs.Loved running these amps-you could run motors and other stuff from them.their output transformers had 4,8,16ohm and 70.7V and 120V sec windings on their outputs .I sold the amps to an Altec collector-got more for them than what I paid.
 
Thanks a lot guys, I really appreciate the comments!

Phil, as soon as I pick up a more accurate thermometer I'll run a few tests. I also have a couple new caps coming which should allow me to more accurately set the magnetron current.

Last night I reheated some Chinese and Cara prepped potatoes with the beast. Talk about power to spare ; )
 
Jetcone -cool restaurant, not there anymore is it? I missed visiting this when I lived in S. California in the 70's. I wonder if it has Cory's radarange in there. LOL.

Cory - do the neighborhood lights dim when you run it? (shades of Clark and Christmas Vacation house lights)
 

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