[Amps] Microwave Oven Autopsy

[Ian White GM3SEK]

Will Matney wrote:
>
>That's what I was remembering that they were actually regulating by 
>using a ferro-resonant transformer (using a shunt). Without the shunt 
>of course, you have a regular EI core, or close to it.

Another important difference is in the load it's designed for. In DC 
terms, a magnetron is a diode. It has no control grid, so it needs a 
current-limiting supply to prevent runaway damage.

This is completely the opposite of the constant-voltage supply that we 
ideally need for conventional tubes. Even if we knock out the shunts, 
we're still trying to use a transformer that was designed for a 
fundamentally different kind of power supply... as well as being 
designed for "maximum cheapness".


(Because of a line fault, my Internet connection will be intermittent 
for the next few days.)

-- 
73 from Ian GM3SEK