Microwaves, The good the bad and the crazy.

Hey,

Today I notices some people are posting about opening up electronics,
I want to throw up a huge red flag warning sign, about taking apart Microwaves,
So yes they have amazing abilities and things you can do with them from the transformer, to the magnetron,

But did you know the magnetron in the microwave may contain Beryllium oxide, which can be lethal if inhaled.

This is why microwaves are hard to recycle, and in very rare occasions some thorium may be used, but a fraction of a percent.

Sure you can make Lichtenberg figures with microwaves, you can melt objects, light up light bulbs at a distance, you can make lightning,

but Safety comes first,

This is good information Alex.
I am mostly concerned about the radiation, and that it might not make my food optimally healthy.  
I didn't know anything about this.  I hope you just prevented an injury or worse.
John S
PDX OR

We do indeed take stuff apart ... for appliances (and TV's), this seems the best way to recycle things to component streams and reduce the load on the dump.

And, yes, we start by researching what others do when taking things apart. If someone says the caps in a device need discharging before touching, that's another step for our procedure for that class of device.

Haven't yet done a microwave ourselves, as we got lucky and found someone who wanted our last failing unit (an appliance shop wanted it, probably for spare parts).

I agree, the rule is ... research the rules, before attempting anything ... specialty repair/recycle forums, instructables.com, inspectapedia, etc. ... the info already out there is amazing.

Never enough reminders about safety ...

Just watch this video on what NOT to do with making Frankenstein microwave monster machines from parts.  

Matt Todd wrote:Just watch this video on what NOT to do with making Frankenstein microwave monster machines from parts.  

Compared to a lot of people on youtube undertaking experiments with Microwaves particularly the Russian channels, this guy is pretty tame!

But yes!