Why does the microwave sparkle inside — what to do, causes and repair of malfunctions

All elec­tri­cal appli­ances break down soon­er or lat­er, and the microwave oven is no excep­tion. One of the com­mon prob­lems with it is sparks inside the microwave. Like why does the microwave sparkle inside you will find out in this arti­cle. We will tell you about the caus­es of the prob­lem, as well as about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of repair.

Microwave device

To under­stand the prob­lem of what to do if the microwave sparks inside, you need to know its device and prin­ci­ple of oper­a­tion. The basis of the microwave oven is a device called a mag­netron. Depend­ing on the oper­at­ing mode, volt­age is applied to it. Under the action of volt­age on the mag­netron, short ener­gy puls­es are emit­ted. A cer­tain num­ber of waves pass through the wave­guide and exit through a hole made inside the microwave oven. For the nor­mal func­tion­ing of the microwave, the pres­ence of prod­ucts inside is required.

It is the prod­ucts that absorb the emit­ted microwaves, which can no longer be reflect­ed back into the emit­ter. Because of reflect­ed waves microwave crack­les and the most unpleas­ant spark occurs.

A lit­tle advice — if you heat up a small amount of food inside, then you need to put a glass of water with it, which will take on the excess radi­a­tion, this will extend the life cycle of your microwave oven.

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Possible Causes of the Problem

Spark­ing can occur due to some basic fac­tors, below we will talk about them:

• over­heat­ed mica plate for microwave;
• there was a vio­la­tion of the enam­el lay­er of the main cham­ber;
• there are for­eign objects made of met­al inside the main com­part­ment.

The very first rea­son is per­haps the most basic, in which case urgent replace­ment mica in the microwave. Burn­ing occurs due to the fact that dur­ing the heat­ing of food, fat falls on the mica plate, and caus­es tem­per­a­ture fluc­tu­a­tions in it. If no action is tak­en, then after the mica, the mag­netron, which is very expen­sive, can also become unus­able, and the repair will cost you a pret­ty pen­ny, and it will be eas­i­er for you to buy a new microwave oven than to repair the old one.

In the case of a replace­ment, the first thing you need to do is go to the store and buy the orig­i­nal part or one that is close to it in terms of char­ac­ter­is­tics and dimen­sions. Microwave mica is sold in many hard­ware or house­hold stores, in extreme cas­es, you can order it in the online store of the man­u­fac­tur­er of your unit, or on a third-par­ty resource. The main thing that mica for microwave the stove was the right size and was not small­er or larg­er.

Enam­el coat­ing — in order to restore the orig­i­nal lay­er, you must pur­chase a spe­cial prod­uct sold in spe­cial­ized stores. It is not rec­om­mend­ed to paint the inner walls of the cham­ber with oth­er means. It is best to con­tact the ser­vice cen­ter, where they will per­form all the nec­es­sary oper­a­tions to replace the inter­nal coat­ing.

As for spark­ing due to met­al objects, every­thing is sim­ple here, it is worth check­ing their pres­ence in the main cham­ber and remov­ing them accord­ing­ly.

Repair malfunctions associated with mica

In order to get rid of sparks and pre­vent fur­ther dam­age, it is nec­es­sary to per­form the fol­low­ing manip­u­la­tions:

• dis­man­tle the old unus­able plate, for this you need to dis­con­nect the latch­es or fas­ten­ers, it all depends on the man­u­fac­tur­er;
• put this plate on a new one, and use it to cut mica of the appro­pri­ate dimen­sions, if you have more;
• also dur­ing the replace­ment, you can check the pro­tec­tive cap on the mag­netron itself and, if nec­es­sary, replace it in order to avoid fur­ther prob­lems;
• install a new ele­ment in place of the old one, and fix it;
• after all of the above, check the microwave oven for its oper­a­tion. In no case do not check with an emp­ty cham­ber, this may end bad­ly.

Is it possible to operate a microwave without mica?

Microwave mica is a pro­tec­tive shield for the ele­ment behind it — the mag­netron, name­ly its anten­na. With care­ful use of the microwave oven, it can work for some time with­out this pro­tec­tive screen. To do this, cov­er all food with spe­cial lids.

A few tips and tricks

We told you why the microwave oven sparks inside, and describe what to do. From all of the above, we can con­clude that the main cause of a break­down in a microwave oven is faulty mica, and it needs to be changed, but it is best to leave this work to spe­cial­ists with expe­ri­ence and the nec­es­sary knowl­edge to repair these devices. But if you still decide to replace the mica plate your­self, you should remem­ber some of the nuances:

• before replac­ing the mica from the microwave, it is worth clear­ing the main cham­ber of food and every­thing else;
• It is worth remem­ber­ing that microwave mica is made of a rather frag­ile mate­r­i­al, and it must be han­dled very care­ful­ly. When you cut it, use as sharp objects as pos­si­ble to do every­thing quick­ly and not dam­age the mica itself;
• when you make holes, then punch them with a drill or punch;
• after you cut the microwave mica, be sure to sand the edges with sand­pa­per.

The new­ly installed plate will serve you for a long time, if you cov­er them with a lid while heat­ing food, this will pro­tect not only the mica, but also the inner walls them­selves, since it will be eas­i­er to wash the lid itself than the main cham­ber. Take care of your house­hold appli­ances.

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