[sbala]

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

An inspection would put your mind at rest, but if your area has salty/hard water, the sound is probably just from the scaled heating coil warming up causing the accumulated salt to crackle. My parents' home gets really hard water and the geyser in the main bathroom is serviced before/after every winter to avoid scaling-induced issues.

Immersion coil heaters usually make that crackling/hissing noise once they get scaled.

I am using this heater for past 6 years. I can understand what you have said here. Based on my experience, it's completely normal. Just make sure to call customer care and get the heater cleaned once in 6 months to get the salt deposits out.

[RiGOD]

Planning to replace our 5 year old Videocon Semi Auto washing machine (WM) with a Fully Auto Top Load.

- When it comes to WM's which are the most reliable brands? Videocon kept on giving us headaches every now and then.

- Maximum budget is Rs.15,000. Any specific model that I must look into?

[arunkumarsarat]

I now have Samsung top load fully auto 6.5 kg and am satisfied with it.


My earlier one was Whirlpool and was constantly having problems. Threw it away after just 2 years.

[Sebring]

The WM that gave us the most headaches was Godrej Top Loader. This was way back in 2005. Frequent breakdowns resulted in us as well as the repairman getting frustrated. It was truly a nightmare. Had sold it for whatever price we could get. The next buy was a Samsung Top Loader, doing well till now.

Front loaders were not suitable given the frequent power cuts, and the need to add clothes once the cycle had started.

[RiGOD]

Originally Posted by arunkumarsarat

I now have Samsung top load fully auto 6.5 kg and am satisfied with it.

Originally Posted by Sebring

The next buy was a Samsung Top Loader, doing well till now.

Thanks for the response

Which specific model do you have? Any idea if its still available?

[arunkumarsarat]

Originally Posted by RiGOD

Thanks for the response

Which specific model do you have? Any idea if its still available?

I would recommend you to go for the WA62 series taking into consideration your budget and the features you would like to have.

[carboy]

I have a LG 6.5 kg top loader running for 10 years now. No AMC ever taken. Total money spent on maintenance over 10 years - less than Rs. 1000.

[sgiitk]

Originally Posted by Sebring

Front loaders were not suitable given the frequent power cuts, and the need to add clothes once the cycle had started.

My LGs and also even the Zanussi (all Front loaders) coped with power cuts with no hassles. It was only the first lot of digital machines which had problems. Now they seem to remember where they were.

[mvadg]

Need help on microwave leakage.


Just thought I'd post this after spending quite a bit of time troubleshooting our Electrolux Microwave: Problem - Works, but no heat.

1. Googled through lots of microwave repair web pages and wasted a lot of time checking the door switches - I realized there was a short cut - unhook the input to the high voltage transformer and check if it gets 230V supply when the door is closed.

2. After this checked each one of these high voltage diode, capacitor and magnetron.

3. Turned out to be the High Voltage Fuse.
Wish I'd checked that first!

After wiring up the fuse with fuse wire (doubt if I'll get that glass fuse as a spare that is inside the holder) Everything working fine now

Another tip - take photos before you start unplugging the components - helps a lot when you put them back.

--------
OK, this is the part where I need help: (INAEE) I put my phone inside the microwave (Relax, I did not cook it ) closed the door (not powered up) and did a ping to it. (My WiFi is on 2.4 GHz) - The ping is supposed to fail (inside the Faraday Cage), but it did not. The cover is back on properly, so is the microwave leaking radiation? How do I fix this?

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by mvadg

... I put my phone inside the microwave (Relax, I did not cook it ) closed the door (not powered up) and did a ping to it. (My WiFi is on 2.4 GHz) - The ping is supposed to fail (inside the Faraday Cage), but it did not. The cover is back on properly, so is the microwave leaking radiation? How do I fix this?

Relax, nothing is wrong.

Did you check at what frequency is the microwave working at? And what frequency is the perforated grating on the glass door supposed to block? Saying "inside a Faraday cage" is a simplistic assumption. And testing it / looking for leakage with a 2.4GHz wifi device is even more ridiculous.

Your oven works at 900 Mhz. Compare the wavelength at this frequency with wavelength at 2.4GHz. It will be then obvious to you that the shielding / blocking, which works at 900MHz, doesn't do so at 2.4GHz. Also, even if the shielding were to work, it will only attenuate the RF signal to a lower dBm level (only 6-sided shielding with sheet metal without perforations will completely block all RF from going out). This attenuated signal might still be enough for the wifi section of the phone to respond to ping. Perhaps you should try Speedtest to see how much attenuation is there.

And isn't "Faraday cage" associated only with static electricity, and not microwaves?

[black12rr]

My washing machine is below the overhead water tank. This is the only place it can be. Cannot relocate the WM to lower ground. Due to this there is not sufficient water pressure going to washing machine .

To solve this problem, I need a water pressure pump that connects inline between water input and washing machine .

Any one using or know inline water pressure pump for washing machines ?

[mvadg]

Originally Posted by DerAlte

Relax, nothing is wrong.
...
Did you check at what frequency is the microwave working at? And what frequency is the perforated grating on the glass door supposed to block? Saying "inside a Faraday cage" is a simplistic assumption. And testing it / looking for leakage with a 2.4GHz wifi device is even more ridiculous.

Your oven works at 900 Mhz. Compare the wavelength at this frequency with wavelength at 2.4GHz.

Thanks DerAlte.
I looked up "900Mhz microwave oven" - apparently they are not used now. [You learn something new everyday!]. And you are right about the Faraday cage too.

I checked the specs for the magnetron - (Amazon.com)

• Out Oven power(po): 950W
• Frequency(fo):2460MHz
• Peak anode Voltage(ebm):4.2KV
• Filament voltage(Ef):3.3V
• Average6 anode current(lb):300mA

I tried WiFi Analyzer after the ping test and two channels disappeared once the oven door was closed. Hope this means radiation at 2.46 GHz is attenuated. Will need to look up the exact frequencies for each WiFi channel and test again.



The magnetron is this one:

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by DerAlte

Your oven works at 900 Mhz. Compare the wavelength at this frequency with wavelength at 2.4GHz. It will be then obvious to you that the shielding / blocking, which works at 900MHz, doesn't do so at 2.4GHz.

I recollect that Microwave ovens did interfere with WiFi in past. Google points to two "sort of reliable" sources that mention Microwave oven radiate in 2.4 GHz band (maybe in addition to 900 MHz).


http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/product...d807395a9.html

In reality, the many other types of devices emitting in the unlicensed band dwarf the number of 802.11 devices. These devices include microwave ovens, cordless phones, Bluetooth devices, wireless video cameras, outdoor microwave links, wireless game controllers, Zigbee devices, fluorescent lights, WiMAX, and so on. Even bad electrical connections can cause broad RF spectrum emissions. These non-802.11 types of interference typically don't work cooperatively with 802.11 devices, and can cause significant loss of throughput. In addition, they can cause secondary effects such as rate back-off, in which retransmissions caused by interference trick the 802.11 devices into thinking that they should use lower data rates than appropriate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electr...Microwave_oven

Microwave ovens operate by emitting a very high power signal in the 2.4 GHz band. Older devices have poor shielding[citation needed], and often emit a very "dirty" signal over the entire 2.4 GHz band.

I would do a scan to see if it is the case with recent ovens (I.e. does WiFi analyzer detect a microwave oven being on).

[mvadg]

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

...
I would do a scan to see if it is the case with recent ovens (I.e. does WiFi analyzer detect a microwave oven being on).

Thanks NetfreakBombay.
Not sure how WiFi Analyzer works (And I dont know much about electronics).
From what I'm guessing, it is scanning all the channels and is simply stating what the WiFi chip on the phone is reporting. Don't know if it the chip is looking at all the frequencies (in an analog sort of way). May be someone who is familiar with the workings of the WiFi chip vs an analog RF detection device can throw some light(pun intended).

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

I recollect that Microwave ovens did interfere with WiFi in past. ...

Sir, he didn't switch the microwave on - he just closed the door with his cellphone inside, and pinged it!

Both the ovens I have are 900MHz (yes, I am an old man). I haven't detected interference with wifi when the microwave was working and I was sitting near it. But, I wouldn't disbelieve the possibility or existence of interference - it is totally dependent on the grating on the glass and other leakage paths.