The Microwave Oven

My microwave oven quit working about a month or two ago. I’ve been using skillets and pots on my stovetop for cooking and for re-heating. Finally, yesterday, I got off my butt and decided to see if I could repair the oven. I’ve repaired other appliances around the house, including a big-screen TV, a computer monitor, and a juicer. Why not a microwave oven?

The oven is a “Sharp Carousel II”. It’s an old oven (early ‘90s) but still looks good and has more features than I need. The outer cabinet is held in place by 8 sheet metal screws: 2 on each side and 4 in back. I remove the screws and lift the sheet metal cabinet off the oven. There is a schematic on the inside of the cabinet and it shows three fuses. There is a magnetron temperature fuse, a cavity temperature fuse, and a main fuse. The main fuse is a 5 x 25 mm ceramic cartridge fuse of the type commonly found in home appliances. I can reach it, so I lever it out with a screwdriver blade and examine it. It is rated 15 amps, 250 volts. I test it with an ohmmeter and it’s open. I drive to the TV store on the corner and return with a replacement fuse. Cost: one dollar. I plug the replacement fuse into its fuse holder, reassemble the cabinet, and plug in the oven. It works once again. Yay.

Except there is a problem with the way I reassembled the oven. The outer cabinet has small flanges on the inside near the front and sides, and these flanges are supposed to hook inside the front of the oven. I didn’t get the flanges hooked in properly and so the top and sides of the oven cabinet are bowed out slightly. I have to remove the cabinet and reinstall it.

As I’m removing the screws I drop one and of course it disappears. It didn’t even bounce — it hit the hardwood floor and went right through. It must have; I can’t find it on the floor. I get a flashlight and look diligently around the oven and the wooden cabinet the oven sits on but I cannot find the dang screw. Oh well, I still have 7 screws; they’ll hold the oven cabinet in place.

At this point I get a phone call. I’m on the phone for a half hour, and when I get off the phone I return to the oven job. It shouldn’t take long to finish the job. Except, now I can’t find the screwdriver I was just using. I look high and low and I can’t find it. How do things just disappear? Finally I give up and I get another screwdriver.

Then I realize I can’t find my flashlight. Are you kidding me? After another fruitless search I give up looking for it and I get another flashlight. I have three other flashlights. I discover the first two have no batteries and the third doesn’t work. Of course. Why should this job go smoothly?

Eventually I got everything sorted out. I found the missing screw under a piece of furniture. I found the missing screwdriver in the ample-sized pocket of my warm-up pants, where I dropped it when I went to answer the phone. I found the missing flashlight — well actually, I don’t remember where I found the flashlight; it just turned up when I wasn’t looking. And best of all, the microwave oven is still working. Got my fingers crossed.