I’m posting this as a result of Kinsey’s response to me at my post about oven doors.
“Why don’t they” make microwaves with doors/hinges that are switchable to open either on the right or on the left?
Say, it’s more convenient to put your microwave on a RIGHT-corner counter area rather than left-corner counter area. Or, say, you’re a leftie? (btw, I’m a rightie)
So, maybe they should make the “door-open” button and keypad somewhere in the center (above/below?) & offer switchable doors? I haven’t ironed it out in my mind, but it’s something to chew over.
If I were a manufacturer of a device that produced microwave radiation, I doubt that I would provide any user-servicable parts on it. Much less something as intrinsic to safety as the door.
Wow, a thread with my name in the title…I feel honored.
I agree, it should be switchable, like a fridge. Maybe it could be done when you buy it; I can see safety (from the evil microwaves) as a factor. Or maybe just offering different models that open left or right.
Sorry, it should be “answer HER.”
Just to set the record straight.
Do you guys have eyes and half a dozen brain cells?
A microwave has something like THREE safety switches to ensure the magnetron will not work unless the door is safely closed. I guess you could desing a microwave that had revirsible doors but it would be much more complicated, expensive and probably harder to get approved. And the door would have to be changed by a certified technician which means it would cost you…
That’s “reversible”. One of these days I am going to start a thread asking how the half dozen brain cells make typos because it often seems I mistake vowels for one another rather than they closest key… also K and G…
Sailor,
We didn’t say we had all the bugs worked out yet.
I’m not an engineer, so I really don’t know how it would work. I KNOW there are numerous safety features to keep us from nuking ourselves.
It seems like they could just reverse the whole shebang and make it open on the left.
Maybe when you zip on down to Best Buy or Sears or wherever, you could request a “lefty” or a “righty” and a technician would adjust it for you before you even leave the store. I know Sears does that with fridges when you order it, so it comes to you opening the way you want.
Whatever…
Sailor, is that how your mother responded to you when you were a kid learning to talk? If so, I bet you’re a Grade-A st-t-tut-terer now, even if you may have infinity brain cells.
tcburnett, why did I open a new thread for this?
Because this thread is about microwaves and the other thread was about conventional ovens which happened to veer off on a tangent re: microwaves. Make sense?
P.S. tc, what is this, the USSR, or is manhattan hooked on censorship to the nth degree? What if occasionally a post is duplicated, if it serves a useful purpose, isn’t spammy, and is well thought-out? Don’t forget, there’s a constant turnover of fresh-heads on SDMB!
I’m every so often made to feel like I don’t belong here, as if only posts by geniouses or the 25 & younger group are encouraged here. And it’s not like I post all that often, rather in spurts, since I’m occupied elsewhere alot.
Kinsey, here, I copy/pasted the reply which tc responded to suggestion for switchable microwave doors, that was inserted in the [conventional] oven thread:
[blockquote]
They can’t do it that way. Residual microwaves are positively charged which means they rotate in a clockwise direction. Microwave ovens are designed so that any loose waves bounce into and are caught in the little holes in the open door and can’t harm anyone. If the door opened the other way you could open an oven hours after use and the residual microwaves could shoot out and cook whoever is in the kitchen.[/blockquote]
I wanted to change [blockquote] to HTML. But SDMB’s edit doesn’t work for me! I tried clicking edit, & it asked for my username & password, which I did, but it kept asking & asking.
I keep getting confused, because this script only recognizes the square brackets for italic & bold, but angle brackets for other stuff. And I post on several forums all with different methodologies. I just wish all forum scripts would get their acts standardized so I shouldn’t have to switch to alternate forum-mindsets all the time.
Doing anything with microwave doors is a pain. Assuming the oven were designed to accomodate reversal of the door, you would still have to either have extra interlock switches (a set for each side) and swap connections over or move the switches when you reverse the door. If these switches aren’t adjusted correctly the MW will either just not work or blow fuses every time you close the door. So the tech would not only have to reverse the door, he’d have to adjust the switches–possibly blowing fuses in the process. Then he has to get a leakage meter (a moderately expensive little techie-toy that most stores don’t have), run the MW, and check to make sure he’s not getting any radiation outside the cavity. Total time for process…probably about 40 minutes. You might trim it to 30 with practice.
So you have extra expense for parts, extra time for techs (more extra $$), and extra expense for test equipment. I suspect it just seems more efficient (read “cheaper”) for the industry to continue making good old dextro-MW ovens, and leave placement problems to the consumer. They could, of course, make a standard “left-handed” model–but do you think they’d really sell enough to justify it?
Well, since the removable door would present a problem with safety, how about having two doors that open in the middle?
It could be manufactured so that the doors open independent of each other, and the microwave would only operate with both doors closed, as current microwaves operate.
Plus, the issue of not enough counter space would be solved, if not solved, then at least a compromise would be reached.
Jally, I did not mean to sound snappy and I am sorry if I did.
I do not mind answering questions for people who are genuinely looking for an answer but often I notice two things. One is that I come across questions where the poster has obviously not done the least he can do to search for an answer. Some inane thought pops into his mind and he posts it here so others will do the work for him. These people are just plain lazy and I am not willing to spend my energy helping out lazy people.
Then, often, after people have gone out of their way to find them an answer, these people never come back to their threads to find out the answers or thank those that gave them. So not only are they lazy but they have the attention span of a gnat.
I realize sometimes wwe have younger posters with whom we need to be more patient and understanding and I have suggested a few times it might be a good idea to have a separate forum for them so that they would be given more patience and understanding and flaming would be totally banned.
But here, unless you start your post by saying something like “I am 13 years old and I am looking for information on…” I have no way of knowing it and the assumption on this board is that we are all adults and we are judged solely for the content of our posts. But it cuts both ways.
Balance, thanks so much for the feedback! (except you overestimate my scientific comprehension Also, I was thinking, after reading Vandal’s comment, how about a new twist:
Is it feasible for a microwave door to open in the direction that a toaster-oven door opens? (except, that pressing the button would serve to unlock the door, and the user would then manually flip down the door?
But the problem still remains, as to where to put the keypad… Perhaps centered above or below door?
OFF-TOPIC TO SAILOR:
OK, your response is acknowledged but still, I wasn’t aware that SDMB is only meant for posters who did their homework.
Since there seems to be a basic misunderstanding, I’ll contact you privately. It also might help avoid misunderstandings if SDMB offered private messages such as EZboards’ or, even better, the instant PM icons on this board: http://www.bulbagarden.com/forum/NonCGI/Forum18/HTML/003407.html
No misunderstanding jally. It comes down to this: If I see a question by someone who has obviously made an effort to find the answer and I can help out, I will. If I see a question by someone who has obviously not made any effort then (although I will still probably help) I reserve the right to make clever ass remarks (so long as the mods don’t have a problem with that).
I believe the motto of this board is “fighting ignorance” and not “encouraging laziness”. If you make a fair effort to find out the answer first you will get a much better reception. If you post questions that can be answered with “do a Net search” people here tend to be just a tad less helpful.
Having said that, we would all make allowances for the younger crowd, as would be expected.
In this case, I posted this thread as a result of a tangent which developed on the other thread [re: conventional oven doors] though I do confess that I may sometimes post here as an EZ way out. I don’t remember anymore. Does that mean that non-researched questions are not acceptable here?
This is the 2nd time you’re mentioning the age-factor; in answer to that, it’s obvious you didn’t see my above message about contacting you privately. (unless your posted email address was discontinued & you didn’t get my email?
Jally, let’s not make a federal case out of this. If you didn’t like what I said, just pretend I never said it. I do not check my hotmail box very often but, in any case, I do not want to make a big deal out of this. In fact, I don’t even want to make a small deal out of this. So let’s drop it and you can continue discussing microwave doors if you like.
Which reminds me:
Q. How does a very small man say goodbye?
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A. With a microwave! Of course!
Wow, this thread got off-topic.
Sorry for not getting back here, but I had a killer 2-day migraine and didn’t even get on the computer.
Huh? My microwave door doesn’t have little holes. It’s smooth. What about when it stops and you open the door and stick your hand in to get out whatever you are cooking? Seems like any “residual” microwaves would get you then. Right?
Kinsey:
I’m not quite sure what TC is talking about concerning “residual microwaves”–sounds like a crock to me, but maybe he has info I lack. I can tell you that the holes he’s referring to are in a metal screen inside the door–if you’ll look through the transparent area, you’ll see sort of a black mesh in it. The holes are sized to match the wavelength of the radiation, so that it blocks (reflects) microwaves but not visible light (i.e., you can see through it without getting cooked). Any radiation left when the machine shuts down is very quickly absorbed by whatever is in the cavity. I’ve never seen any response on a leakage meter when I opened the door–even when the door was a solid sheet of metal on a commercial MW.
jally:
If there’s anything you’d like clarified, feel free to ask–I do tech-babble a bit sometimes.
to tc