Anyone ever take the Maser out of their microwave oven?

It's not a laser.  You might have meant "MASER" (which is the microwave equivilent of laser), but it isn't that either.

It's just a pretty powerful microwave emitter.  (But I wouldn't want it pointed at me either!)

Thanks, West!

I have one sitting on my bench. I haven't played with it yet. Not sure what I want to do with it (as devious images dance threw my head).

Great thread,

   can't wait to see what options come up with

I'm sure youtube holds the solution to this somewhere. Thought along these lines before - on more devious days

Just be careful anyone with these crazy ideas! Thousands of Volts can kill. And the microwaves can damage you of course (especially your eyes apparently)

Sorry, this is just pulled from Wikipedia (I'm lazy tonight):

"Among more speculative hazards, at least one in particular is well known and documented. As the lens of the eye has no cooling blood flow, it is particularly prone to overheating when exposed to microwave radiation. This heating can in turn lead to a higher incidence of cataracts in later life.^[18] A microwave oven with a warped door or poor microwave sealing can be hazardous.

There is also a considerable electrical hazard around magnetrons, as they require a high voltage power supply."

Wow, I'm not usually so sensible. And anyway, these dangers should be assumed when doing this sort of thing...

The danger doesnt stop there, Berylium is often used in the magnatrons insulator, very nasty if you get that in your lungs.

2 Nice big magnets in there (if you need powerful magnets you would be better stripping a hard drive though).

There are stories on the net about 12 or so of these magnets can be used to make a pretty powerful home generator/wind turbine. I believe there is 2 in every microwave.

Oh and the magnatron can be used as a battery (but low voltage <0.5V).

The weapon you talk about has the name HERF (look it up in Wiki).

To say nothing of the stories I've heard about military people tossing an apple in front of the doppler output, and watching it explode.  Or worse stories of warming themselves by standing in front of the low-power doppler output. (Yes, they actually did things like this! and probably ended-up with advanced cancer, or sterile for the rest of their life.)  Sorry to say, I've felt the effects of just being in front of such.. Riding in a hot-air balloon, passing over a dish farm for a popular cable sports networks.. When we passed over one of the dishes, we felt REAL warm! (in February.)

I admit to scrapping a few Microwave ovens for the magnets. I was never aware of the Beryllium though. I used to keep a couple of the magnets handy to hold signs to metal vehicles, but stopped the practice when shortly after the signs were removed, a round circle of dust kept forming where the magnets were  (Yes, actually magnetized the surface. the dust, was micro iron filings.)..

I didn't see any Magnets in the Microwave I took apart. Are they inside the Maser?

   No, and I don't plan to either. Industry & Medicine (radiology) have a term called 'skyshine,' meaning high band em radiation bounces in, around, and off objects as much as it goes through them. If some... idiot (for lack of using explatives) attached a microwave maser to a car, he would get fried as much or more than everyone else nearby, not to mention what his cell-mates would later do. Depending on state law, if ANY of the potentially exposed victims were EVER diagnosed with cancer, he/she could be tried for Murder(s.)

I prefer not even to use Wi-Fi (2+ Ghz) due to the potential accumulative effects of long term exposure, after having studied both Medicine & Physics.

Since everyone is touting all the hazards I will assume by now everyone understands that, yes it is a bad idea, of course no one should do it ect. However your question wasn't should you, it was has anyone. So risking being called out I will admit that yes I actually have experimented a little with one but the results were a bit disappointing, especially because I was terrified that I was going to go blind in the process.

The only cool things I was able to do was to smoke some paper towel and cardboard and make a fluorescent light glow. I wanted to see if the waves could be guided but shooting the waves down a metal pipe proved useless, the energy just dissipated. I measured the strength of the waves by placing a fluorescent light tube in front of the maser. Apparently you can focus the beams if you can use fancy math stuff and create a horn of the proper dimensions but no easy button was found.

I just couldn't come up with some productive or destructive applications for the maser. sure if you hit someone's eyes it may prove dangerous otherwise you will just probably slightly warm the temperature of the object. I quickly realized microwave oven maser waves are not focused at all, the reason is that the waves need to bounce around the microwave from all directions to more evenly heat the food. So for instance a florescent tube an inch from the maser will light but if you pull it say six inches away it will almost be dark.

More observations: Even if you had a super high power maser and were able to properly create a horn to focus the beam it is a poor choice for doing anything. Metal will reflect the waves like a mirror so in the example of someone shooting the maser at a car, the more likely result is that the waves could hit the car door and be reflected back to the user instead of hitting the intended target. Maser waves pretty much just excite and heat water molecules so pointing them at electronics doesn't really do much, some heat can be created. Living things like plants and animals can be harmed though. Maybe the real application is to make an extremely dangerous and slightly ineffective hedge trimmer.