A Linux-powered microwave oven (2016)
I&#x27;m beginning to sound like a damp squib on this matter having repeated it on previous occasions but it&#x27;s not a good idea to encourage people to tinker with the internals of a microwave oven. One should keep the cover on at all times and NEVER override the power interlocks.<p>Yes, microwave ovens are ubiquitous and are in just about every home so they seem a harmless enough appliance - and they are if one uses them as intended.<p>Inside however lurks great  dangers. Transformers in, say, 1kW MW ovens are truly lethal devices. They supply well over 1kV at a current in excess of one amp! Given that one only needs about 70mA across one&#x27;s chest to call it curtains, simple math says that these transformers have much more than ten times that capacity.<p>With such a high voltage one doesn&#x27;t even have to contact a terminal to be electrocuted, a small arc onto one&#x27;s hand is all that it takes.<p>I hate giving lectures like this because I sound like a lecturing PIA schoolteacher but I speak from personal experience. I&#x27;ve had several nasty encounters with electrons where I&#x27;ve definitely come off second best.<p>Certainly the worst was when I accidentally came in contact with the secondary winding of a transformer that supplied 850V at 125mA at full load - that&#x27;s far short of what a MW oven&#x27;s transformer is capable of delivering.<p>It was a momentary contact and my muscles recoiled rather than gripped (as they so often do in these circumstances) - had they gripped then you wouldn&#x27;t be reading this now.<p>I was in the middle of the room and was thrown back against one wall and the transformer hit the opposite wall with sufficient force to put a dent in the brickwork. I couldn&#x27;t move  - essentially paralyzed - for about a half hour and no one was around to help me at the time. I was very lucky to survive.<p>Again, remember your microwave oven transformer is considerably bigger and more powerful than the one that zapped me.<p>As I&#x27;ve said on previous occasions, MW oven transformers would make good substitutes for those used in electric chairs, they&#x27;d be equally as effective.<p>Horrible, gory thought but true.