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We recently got rid of a four year old microwave where the magnetron turned on spontaneously and silently when the door was closed, runaway heating the box. Con

We recently got rid of a four year old microwave where the magnetron turned on spontaneously and silently when the door was closed, runaway heating the box. Control panel, lights, turntable, fan, everything is idle. Manufacturer didn't consider this an interesting defect and refused to swap out-of-warranty. The lack of give-a-shit in appliances is becoming apparent.

quesera 2y ago
That sounds dangerous, and deserving of a name & shame. Or a YouTube video with a pack of microwave popcorn that spontaneously pops and burns and smokes.
ak217 2y ago
What was the model? I recently encountered something similar with a GE over-the-counter microwave. One day it stayed on after opening the door. I replaced the control module and the board in it looks exactly like the one in the OP photo (Midea with all of the same components), which leads me to think the fault is the same as the one described in the post.
- arghandugh 2y ago
  Yep, the GE over-the-range model PNM9196SF3SS. GE is just a Haier badge since 2016. I'm not surprised by a Chinese company not giving a shit, but for a microwave magnetron to fire on its own feels like a sign of deep engineering rot. The only fix was to unplug it then swap the logic board. Once it happened again with the new board we threw it out.
  - xattt 2y ago
    I had non-stop issues with GE OTR microwaves for 2 years. I started with a PVM2188SLJC that I ended up getting replaced three times by GE over a year for separate issues (buzzing turntable, cracked casing). I ended spamming the executive team and got an upgraded model with convect for free. Fast forward two years later, and the fuse tripped inside the microwave after I forget a bottle sterilizer overnight, on Christmas Day. I said fuck this, and went and got a Panasonic NN-SG158. The twist was that it looked like it was a different version of the first GE microwave we had from the same OEM, but a little reworked.
  - ak217 2y ago
    Mine was a PEM31DF2WW. The control panel layout looks slightly different but the segment display looks identical to yours. The board that I replaced is a Midea MD1001LSE EMLAA5G-S3-K VER17. Not an exact match to the OP but in the same family.
- netdevnet 2y ago
  > One day it stayed on after opening the door. So you basically got exposed to microwave radiation. That's dangerous. Have you checked in with a doctor?
  - rustcleaner 2y ago
    It's a microwave, non-ionizing. They're pretty much easy-bake ovens which shine a monochromatic light at a color water is very black/absorptive at (a color far redder than infrared). They cook outside-in so he'd be baking his skin well before internal injury.
    - HPsquared 2y ago
      It would be like thermal burns but deeper. The heating is more diffuse and deeper than traditional cooking methods so I'd imagine if you did get a burn, it would go deeper into the tissue than you might expect.
      - frabert 2y ago
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hBRxwQXmCQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hBRxwQXmCQ This guy recklessly tested various way of getting irradiated by a microwave to see what the effects are.
        chongli 2y ago
        An extremely irresponsible video. He talked a lot about scary apocrypha to do with eyeballs exploding but never once mentioned the possibility of vision damage or blindness without the drama. I think he knew that microwaves are extremely dangerous to your eyes and avoided doing the most potentially damaging things without talking about it. To whit: If you bypass the door interlocks and operate the magnetron with the door open and then stick your head into the cavity, you risk have your eyes pass through one of the microwave peaks in the standing wave pattern set up by the cavity. Extremely intense, localized heating within your eyeballs is never a good idea, and you risk burning your retinas or damaging your corneas or lenses. The eyeball is large made of water and protrudes somewhat from the eye socket. Peering forward into the interior of the microcave cavity has the potential to expose your eye to the full brunt of the standing wave peak without much other body mass in the way to absorb the energy, creating the potential for that intense localized heating.
lozenge 2y ago
The CPSC would be interested.
- neilv 2y ago
  Maybe not. I recently did the lengthy CPSC form, to report a defective new name-brand microwave oven unit, which was manufactured with a 1/8" mis-seating of parts, where I measured with a professional meter to be leaking much more than anywhere else. A week later, I heard back: > [...] The product or particular concern that you describe does not fall within CPSC’s jurisdiction. You may wish to contact the agencies listed below, which we believe can best handle your concern. > U.S. Food and Drug Administration Center for Devices and Radiological Health Document Control Center – WO66-G609 10903 New Hampshire Avenue Silver Spring, MD 20993-0002 > https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/getting-radiation-emitting-product-market-frequently-asked-questions/submitting-reports-and-requirements-maintaining-records-radiation#submit https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/getting-radi... [...] (BTW, I suspect the process apparently not forwarding a report between two agencies will result in some problems falling through the cracks. And it did, in this case, since I stopped holding the defective unit (I'd asked in my report that they let me know if they wanted to examine it), returned it to the store, and never looked into starting over the reporting process with a different agency.)
  - xattt 2y ago
    When regulatory bodies fail, it’s time to kick it into the court of public opinion, i.e. the media.
Prickle 2y ago
A defect like that would make it illegal to sell in my country. One big splash on a major network and they will probably go scrambling. Have you contacted anyone other than the manufacturer?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- arghandugh 2y ago
  No. I bitched about it on an old social media platform called Twitter but it never got any traction.
treve 2y ago
If your country has decent consumer rights there's probably another way to follow-up!
Rinzler89 2y ago
>The lack of give-a-shit in appliances is becoming apparent. Because most budget name brand kitchen appliances are just rebadged Haier/Midea OEM designs. I know HN has a hate boner for Samsung and LG appliances but for me they seem to be the most trustworthy budget appliances since at least they have their own designs instead of rebadging Chinese OEM ones like the rest. Sure, if you have money you can go with a reputable brand like Bosch & Siemens, and if you have even more money you can go with Miele, but for one, not everyone has money, and two, I've even noticed even Bosch appliances made in Germany still have some issues due to poor design.
- rdtsc 2y ago
  I have a lower end Samsung that “started” after I opened the door. I hope it was just the fan and lights like the article mentioned. But it scared the heck out of me.
  - foobarian 2y ago
    My Samsung microwave works fine but the LED display doesn't glow any more. It's infuriating.
- jaeckel 2y ago
  > Sure, if you have money you can go with a reputable brand like Bosch & Siemens Just FTR they're exactly the same -- "BSH Hausgeräte GmbH" -- with just a different label on it. ... And I didn't have a single good experience in the last years, IMO they're designed for planned obsolescence. E.g. my premium Bosch Hand mixer broke after 2.5 years. Afterwards I bought a >35 years old used RG28e for half the price and it's still going stronger than the Bosch ever was, 5 years later. > if you have even more money you can go with Miele If you buy cheap (or uninformed) you most likely buy at least twice.
  - MichaelZuo 2y ago
    Bosch and Siemens aren’t as trustworthy anymore since they no longer offer ‘bumper-to-bumper’ extended warranties longer than 5 years on appliances. It’s like buying a car, the moment an automaker starts adding long lists of exclusions to their extended warranties, you just know their quality is going down.
HPsquared 2y ago
Sounds like relay contacts stuck closed.
BizarroLand 2y ago
Sounds like some of the limit switches went bad. They're cheap and easy to replace if it's an expensive microwave worth the $30 or so and the time to install them.

quesera 2y ago

That sounds dangerous, and deserving of a name & shame. Or a YouTube video with a pack of microwave popcorn that spontaneously pops and burns and smokes.

ak217 2y ago

What was the model? I recently encountered something similar with a GE over-the-counter microwave. One day it stayed on after opening the door. I replaced the control module and the board in it looks exactly like the one in the OP photo (Midea with all of the same components), which leads me to think the fault is the same as the one described in the post.

arghandugh 2y ago
Yep, the GE over-the-range model PNM9196SF3SS. GE is just a Haier badge since 2016. I'm not surprised by a Chinese company not giving a shit, but for a microwave magnetron to fire on its own feels like a sign of deep engineering rot. The only fix was to unplug it then swap the logic board. Once it happened again with the new board we threw it out.
- xattt 2y ago
  I had non-stop issues with GE OTR microwaves for 2 years. I started with a PVM2188SLJC that I ended up getting replaced three times by GE over a year for separate issues (buzzing turntable, cracked casing). I ended spamming the executive team and got an upgraded model with convect for free. Fast forward two years later, and the fuse tripped inside the microwave after I forget a bottle sterilizer overnight, on Christmas Day. I said fuck this, and went and got a Panasonic NN-SG158. The twist was that it looked like it was a different version of the first GE microwave we had from the same OEM, but a little reworked.
- ak217 2y ago
  Mine was a PEM31DF2WW. The control panel layout looks slightly different but the segment display looks identical to yours. The board that I replaced is a Midea MD1001LSE EMLAA5G-S3-K VER17. Not an exact match to the OP but in the same family.
netdevnet 2y ago
> One day it stayed on after opening the door. So you basically got exposed to microwave radiation. That's dangerous. Have you checked in with a doctor?
- rustcleaner 2y ago
  It's a microwave, non-ionizing. They're pretty much easy-bake ovens which shine a monochromatic light at a color water is very black/absorptive at (a color far redder than infrared). They cook outside-in so he'd be baking his skin well before internal injury.
  - HPsquared 2y ago
    It would be like thermal burns but deeper. The heating is more diffuse and deeper than traditional cooking methods so I'd imagine if you did get a burn, it would go deeper into the tissue than you might expect.
    - frabert 2y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hBRxwQXmCQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hBRxwQXmCQ This guy recklessly tested various way of getting irradiated by a microwave to see what the effects are.
      - chongli 2y ago
        An extremely irresponsible video. He talked a lot about scary apocrypha to do with eyeballs exploding but never once mentioned the possibility of vision damage or blindness without the drama. I think he knew that microwaves are extremely dangerous to your eyes and avoided doing the most potentially damaging things without talking about it. To whit: If you bypass the door interlocks and operate the magnetron with the door open and then stick your head into the cavity, you risk have your eyes pass through one of the microwave peaks in the standing wave pattern set up by the cavity. Extremely intense, localized heating within your eyeballs is never a good idea, and you risk burning your retinas or damaging your corneas or lenses. The eyeball is large made of water and protrudes somewhat from the eye socket. Peering forward into the interior of the microcave cavity has the potential to expose your eye to the full brunt of the standing wave peak without much other body mass in the way to absorb the energy, creating the potential for that intense localized heating.

lozenge 2y ago

The CPSC would be interested.

neilv 2y ago
Maybe not. I recently did the lengthy CPSC form, to report a defective new name-brand microwave oven unit, which was manufactured with a 1/8" mis-seating of parts, where I measured with a professional meter to be leaking much more than anywhere else. A week later, I heard back: > [...] The product or particular concern that you describe does not fall within CPSC’s jurisdiction. You may wish to contact the agencies listed below, which we believe can best handle your concern. > U.S. Food and Drug Administration Center for Devices and Radiological Health Document Control Center – WO66-G609 10903 New Hampshire Avenue Silver Spring, MD 20993-0002 > https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/getting-radiation-emitting-product-market-frequently-asked-questions/submitting-reports-and-requirements-maintaining-records-radiation#submit https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/getting-radi... [...] (BTW, I suspect the process apparently not forwarding a report between two agencies will result in some problems falling through the cracks. And it did, in this case, since I stopped holding the defective unit (I'd asked in my report that they let me know if they wanted to examine it), returned it to the store, and never looked into starting over the reporting process with a different agency.)
- xattt 2y ago
  When regulatory bodies fail, it’s time to kick it into the court of public opinion, i.e. the media.

Prickle 2y ago

A defect like that would make it illegal to sell in my country. One big splash on a major network and they will probably go scrambling. Have you contacted anyone other than the manufacturer?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
arghandugh 2y ago
No. I bitched about it on an old social media platform called Twitter but it never got any traction.

treve 2y ago

If your country has decent consumer rights there's probably another way to follow-up!

Rinzler89 2y ago

>The lack of give-a-shit in appliances is becoming apparent. Because most budget name brand kitchen appliances are just rebadged Haier/Midea OEM designs. I know HN has a hate boner for Samsung and LG appliances but for me they seem to be the most trustworthy budget appliances since at least they have their own designs instead of rebadging Chinese OEM ones like the rest. Sure, if you have money you can go with a reputable brand like Bosch & Siemens, and if you have even more money you can go with Miele, but for one, not everyone has money, and two, I've even noticed even Bosch appliances made in Germany still have some issues due to poor design.

rdtsc 2y ago
I have a lower end Samsung that “started” after I opened the door. I hope it was just the fan and lights like the article mentioned. But it scared the heck out of me.
- foobarian 2y ago
  My Samsung microwave works fine but the LED display doesn't glow any more. It's infuriating.
jaeckel 2y ago
> Sure, if you have money you can go with a reputable brand like Bosch & Siemens Just FTR they're exactly the same -- "BSH Hausgeräte GmbH" -- with just a different label on it. ... And I didn't have a single good experience in the last years, IMO they're designed for planned obsolescence. E.g. my premium Bosch Hand mixer broke after 2.5 years. Afterwards I bought a >35 years old used RG28e for half the price and it's still going stronger than the Bosch ever was, 5 years later. > if you have even more money you can go with Miele If you buy cheap (or uninformed) you most likely buy at least twice.
- MichaelZuo 2y ago
  Bosch and Siemens aren’t as trustworthy anymore since they no longer offer ‘bumper-to-bumper’ extended warranties longer than 5 years on appliances. It’s like buying a car, the moment an automaker starts adding long lists of exclusions to their extended warranties, you just know their quality is going down.

HPsquared 2y ago

Sounds like relay contacts stuck closed.

BizarroLand 2y ago

Sounds like some of the limit switches went bad. They're cheap and easy to replace if it's an expensive microwave worth the $30 or so and the time to install them.