in my latest quest to fix stuff rather than buying new, ive decided to have a bash at our microwave. googled the fault and cant find any other case of this happening, and must admit, im totally flummoxed as to how it can actually do this!

put the porridge in and set it on 2 mins, the timer dial has now actually started turning the wrong way, so increasing the time rather than decreasing. its going clockwise! thought i was cracking up at first. had a play with different times, does the same on 4 mins. put it on 8 minutes tho and it rotates the right way again!

its only a cheapo russell hobbs, nothing digital about it, purely a mechanical dial, this is what puzzles me. its mechanical so id have thought it impossible to firstly turn the wrong way once set, and secondly, turn different ways depending on how far i turn it to start with.

thought id investigate in the time honoured fashion of taking it to bits but the covers screwed on with some of those ‘anti-tamper’ torx screws with the raised centres, so id need to head over to screwfix or something for a dedicated tool. is it worth it? or is the microwave possessed and i need a priest instead?

cheers

Have you scanned for Tachyon particles? I suspect a space time anomaly. Exciting!

Has my wife been to your house and used it?

Not wanting to sound all preachy, but I would advise against trying to repair a microwave. The capacitor inside a microwave can give a very nasty shock and has been known to be fatal in a number of cases. Authorise repairers will also run a microwave leakage test after repairs.
Regards Andrew

Are you near a 5G antena? The 5G rays give the microwave covid which cuases it to increase in temp and make the timer expand which makes it take longer to run down.

Just operate the microwave via a mirror.

Are you looking through the selfie camera on your phone to operate?

It’s a mechanical timer, I assume?

The timer motor is probably has a 2 pole permanent magnet synchronous rotor (a bit like a stepper motor) – these start either way at random, but there’s usually a little strip of metal that jams against something on the rotor if it runs “backwards” (it just happily runs in the other direction if it hits it).

It might be possible to identify this mechanism (usually inside the motor housing IME) and tweak it, or maybe obtain a replacement motor.

Be v. careful inside the microwave – high voltage capacitors that may hold charge for some time.

You need a sonic screwdriver.

Take it outside and beat it with a bat whilst having a priest shout random Latin phrases at it.

Or could be a faulty Flux capacitor.

Are you noticing that you’re going into the kitchen only to find a cooked bowl of porridge that you were thinking about making?

Have your seen TENET? You can now make time-inverted stuff with your microwave. Try with an empty beer bottle and you could be on to a winner!

Take it outside on a long extension lead. Fill it with fairy lights and fireworks turn it on and film it for our entertainment.

There is a magnetron inside your microwave. If ever a something had a name that said don’t mess with me then it has to be that.

is it worth it?

Worth having a security bit set? Absolutely.

Poking round inside a microwave oven, sooner you than me. If it has a mechanical timer it was probably about £20 when it was new.

ahh, looks like for once the general opinion is to bin it rather than fix, shame. i’ll have to concede this one to my wife then, she’ll be happy with that.

thanks all 🙂

Fix it, but do it carefully!

(Or donate the microwave to internet entertainment using the fairy lights, etc. – at least cut a grape in half and put the 2 halves touching side by side in the m/wave and turn it on)

Do you believe in demons? There’s probably one in your timer.

(Or donate the microwave to internet entertainment using the fairy lights, etc. – at least cut a grape in half and put the 2 halves touching side by side in the m/wave and turn it on)

Cool!

Benjamin microwave button
Counts time in reverse
Or there’s a glitch in the matrix

Microwave some eggs. See if you can take them out and put them down before they explode.
Wear a welders appron, good leather gardening gloves and a full face mask.
High temperature egg on the face is life changing I would imagine.

I have fixed microwaves on two occasions. First the turntable motor went. I found a part number on the motor, turned out to be a generic Chinese part in thousands of models, was about £5 I think. When taking the cover off it was easy to avoid the high voltage parts.

Second time was a damaged diffuser which caused flames. It turned out to be a piece of cardboard and foil held in with a screw. 2 second job, part was about £2.

When it’s going in reverse does stuff come out frozen?

I would just buy a new one, given how old it is the Magnetron will be way under power now anyway.

*I used to be a service engineer on microwaves.