Microwave Oven Control board controlled outlet

Thread Starter

Tonyr1084

Joined Sep 24, 2015
7,905
This may belong elsewhere. Moderators - please feel free to move to appropriate category.

Having scrapped a number of Microwave Ovens, I decided to utilize one of these control boards to power an electrical outlet. The timer can be set to run for 99 minutes and 99 seconds for a total of 1 h; 40 m: 39 s. There are two sets of outlets. The first is always hot and has two USB charging ports for convenience of not having to use an outlet for a wall wart. The second outlet is controlled by the MOT power relay. The relay itself is controlled by the control board. It can be set to run for any period of time from 1 second all the way up to the afore mentioned time. There's a little red light that indicates when the switched outlet is active.

I plug my soldering iron into it. When I want to solder I set the timer for the period of time I expect to be soldering. If time expires I can just reset it for longer times. The #1 reason for this project is that I often forget to turn my iron off and it just sits there and bakes. No need for that. The HOT outlet is for two conveniences - the USB and for extra outlets if/when needed.

Inside the project box the mains are connected according to NEC code and to the Line and Neutral inputs to the control board. The local time is displayed unless a specific time for cooking (or to run a countdown timer) is set. It's possible to set the switched outlet to run for (lets say) an hour and I can set the countdown timer for (lets say) 10 minutes. When 10 minutes expire I get an audible warning. When the hour expires I get the same warning AND the switched outlet shuts down.

There are other options I could have used. Another set of outlets to be controlled by the fan and the light buttons, but I haven't foreseen a need for that. Not yet anyway. But it could be added in later. This particular control board also has a "TURNTABLE ON/OFF" button. With a little investigation I could discover what circuit that turns on and off. But there's no need at present for that feature. Though a fan outlet would be nice. But again, not necessary.

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Last edited:

dendad

Joined Feb 20, 2016
4,481
I made one of these some years ago as I had a dead microwave oven, picked up off the side of the road.
It is a good use of an otherwise piece of electronics scrap.
 

AnalogKid

Joined Aug 1, 2013
11,056
I'm heading down this road. I've got an old MW controller ready to go, waiting for an application to use it. Now, I might just package it up as a stand-alone timer with a couple of outlets.

ak
 

Thread Starter

Tonyr1084

Joined Sep 24, 2015
7,905
Now that I've gotten THIS far it looks like I may have blown out the fan control circuit on the MWO Controller board.
 
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