Fix a Shorting Microwave – Zap!
Did your microwave just throw sparks and make a nasty scary noise? Ours did. Click on the picture below to see it in action.
We can fix this, at least in many cases it works. It worked for us, and as I have found many others. It’s worth trying before heading to the store. So let’s take a look inside.
Your looking for something like this. They call it a “wave guide”, it’s really just a piece of mica, but it’s important. It’s also important that it’s clean. As you can see mine was not. So let’s take it off and clean it!
After cleaning and putting back in, it’s working fine, but there are a few things I have learned. I will save you the time and spell them out here.
One is that it tends to spark or arc more when the microwave is empty, not sure why but I just leave a glass of water inside it.
Next is that you can just buy a sheet of mica off ebay and cut it to size and your good to go. That’s what I eventually did, it was just a few dollars. I figured better to replace before it started doing it again.
Lastly, the question of do you even need it. While they say you can use your microwave without it, the steam and food particles collect on the internal components, guessing the tube, and damages it. So, that’s a yes and no in my book.
