Hi Folks!
Have some projects that I would like to make for the space such as an induction forge for metal forming and casting, spot welder, plasma torch and who knows what else? If you have any old microwaves you no longer want I will come and pick them up from you and make sure they are up cycled and recycled properly.
I picked up three from the Salvation Army… But the third one might have burned bridges. It involved a nice employee going behind his managers back. Call ahead talk to the manager explain its for the orphanage as they have a wack of broken ones that they won’t sell.
Now I am looking at the magnetron I pulled from the unit and wondering if it could be hacked into being an inline hot water heater…
It would be cool to build a system that could be made from a single microwave with minimal parts required from other sources. The system should be able to use stored DC power from batteries (hopefully photovoltaic derived) rectified back into AC and used in situ in such places as on an RV or in that remote cabin somewhere…never a cold shower, and no wasted energy heating a larger reservoir for nothing.
Short answer is yes, best answer is no. For heating water using electricity, nothing is more efficient than a resistive heating element. While you could use a magnetron, power would be wasted in it, and its power supply. Then there’s the high voltage risk from the magnetron transformer. If anything goes wrong, yikes, you’ve got 4000 volt shower water! To build a hot shower unit powered by batteries, consider hacking 12V immersion heaters, or if you can afford the extra cost, use Peltier junctions in a heat exchanger. This would pump the heat from your shower drain water into the incoming fresh water, recycling energy, and boosting efficiency. A low voltage (to avoid AC conversion loss) immersion heater would then top up water heat to the desired level.
Thanks for that Derrick, I was envisioning a beam focussed on a small diameter pipe (1/2 inch) thinking the concentration of microwaves into a small volume of water might be effective. I doubt that the transformer would be able to short out into the water source. Some good points you make though, I suppose I’ll just toss the magnetrons I am collecting into the recycling bin…but after I have ensured it won’t work…
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