Anyone ever take the Maser out of their microwave oven?

1st of all, folks, let's be rational, we're talking a NON-Functional microwave oven. (read: Inert).. No power applied.. thus, the maser is not radiating ANY radiation.

To answer R_Phoenix, Yes, they usually are within the cage of the maser itself.  sometimes side by side (can't remember the maker,  but 1-inch diameter, 3.5-Inch long bar magnets.) and sometimes, top & bottom of the device.. (if you look inside the cage of the maser, you'll see two 'Doughnut' magnets on the top & bottom.)

(See insert photo for example.)

Dismantling the maser, without opening the  internal tube, You can retrieve the magnets.  As I've said, I've done it many times, scrapping dead and non-functioning microwave ovens, as well scavengening the control panels for electronic devices.

There was a video on YouTube, where someone tried to show how putting a pile of popcorn kernals between two cell phones, caused enough radiation to pop the popcorn..  However, the hoax was revealed, that the person had put a functioning maser under the table, under the pile of kernals.. (I can imagine the person is looking forward to some serious health problems as he continued using the hoax.)

Sigh.  It's still not a MASER.  That's part of the problem; if it were a MASER there would be a nice beam and you could take some comfort in not standing where the beam goes.  But it's just a somewhat directional Microwave emitter (a "Magnetron") that has about the same resemblence to a MASER that a floodlight has to a LASER.

Thank you, West. Now, it we retrieve the magnets from the maser, lol. just kidding... Some nice strong magnets would make it well worth a few minutes of disassembly.. Last night I took a look around to inventory what I could re-use out old devices. I noticed for example there was a lot of modems and routers I could potentially re-use for completely different purposes, by reprogramming the firmware for example. We should start a thread on recycling projects, and avoid the red flags with more purposeful ideas.

Thank you, West. Now, it we retrieve the magnets from the maser, lol. just kidding... Some nice strong magnets would make it well worth a few minutes of disassembly.. Last night I took a look around to inventory what I could re-use out old devices. I noticed for example there was a lot of modems and routers I could potentially re-use for completely different purposes, by reprogramming the firmware for example. We should start a thread on recycling projects, and avoid the red flags with more purposeful ideas.

Speaking if Re-useing, one of my simple projects

http://www.jassper.com/other/project.pdf

Nice project there , much more productive than trying to build a number plate melter fromn an old microwave.

Very impressive build.

Your electronic and metal building skills are way ahead of most I have seen.

I also like the idea of reusing parts.

I have started to make a small breadboard system using an old SCSI drive add on for PC's.  Unfortunately, I twisted my elbow, so it and all other projects are on hold until it heals.

Getting old is beginning to make me angry.  When you are young, you have no time to tinker, then you have the time, but you no longer have the physical attributes to tinker.

Oh well, like I said, you do very good work.

Thanks

DAB

Thanks!

I use it almost every day and have been too buisy to upgrade it. lol

Would love to build more and use up all those ATX 250 and 300 watt PSU's! (I got about 10 my self)

I've built a few converted supplies myselt. One 350W and a 200W..  the 350W had a 33-Ohm, 5W load resistor across the +5V on the main board inside, so it was raring to go once I wired-up the binding posts.. the 200W (an old Dell Dimension P-II), needed a 33-Ohm 5W sandbox wired inline (placed it on the opposite side of the supply from the fan, and turned the fan to draw air out of the case top.)..  I use them for powering external hard drives, Arduino projects, Gel-Cell charging.. (Used one, wired across +12V & -12V to charge-up my great nephew's Razor scooter when he broke the charger, til we got a new one in the mail.)   Majority of my electronic projects before 1999, (yes, I know I dated myself.) were from scrapped gear.. old radios, old cordless phones, old stereos, computers, various gadgets.   I had a faulty microphone on a Spy-Gear 'TRAKR', which barely picked-up anything, so I removed the small electret-element  mic from it, and put one from an old cheapy telephone.. the pick-up was dramatic (And LOUD!!!!!!!!! the feedback with the unit near the remote, was deafening!)  my 1st IC based electronics projects on a breadboard, were from old radios, printers, Microwave Oven displays (my first MAN-8 (??) 7-segment LED modules came from an old Amana)    Here, we have everyone scrapping electronics for the gold, but they never think of what to do with the excess material (until they need to pay to dispose of it, then... where did all that gold money go?) Ganted, a lot of the newer surface-mount stuff is impossible to up/re-cycle, but the older chips, if they still work, why not use them?

just a note, as I couldn't seem to get across to one 'holier-than-though' on Instructables.com, read and note the working voltage on the side of the BIG capacitors on the input side of those supplies, and treat them as if the bleeder resistors on them are totally shot. (in other words, 240V, means even a 120V possible kick to the keester. Always treat them as charged, and live! (this coming from someone trying to fix a malfunctioning digital camera, and placing one finger across the flash capacitor. felt like a bee stinging, then YEOW!!!!))

yeah i aint do that; i got other plans

Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2013 21:13:16 +0000

From: messages@element14.com

To: joshuakhicks@live.com

Subject: - Re: Anyone ever take the Maser out of their microwave oven?

    Re: Anyone ever take the Maser out of their microwave oven?

    created by gelfling6 in Open Source Hardware - View the full discussion

just a note, as I couldn't seem to get across to one 'holier-than-though' on Instructables.com, read and note the working voltage on the side of the BIG capacitors on the input side of those supplies, and treat them as if the bleeder resistors on them are totally shot. (in other words, 240V, means even a 120V possible kick to the keester. Always treat them as charged, and live! (this coming from someone trying to fix a malfunctioning digital camera, and placing one finger across the flash capacitor. felt like a bee stinging, then YEOW!!!!))

    Reply to this message by going to element14

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