A New Microwave Oven?

[Muse]

I've had many MWs. I'm quite happy with my Sharp R-21LCFS 1000w Commercial Microwave w/ Dial Control. It's "medium duty." By miles, my favorite among the microwaves I've ever used, anywhere. I presume it's what you'd find in a lunch room of a corporation environment, maybe in many food service circumstances. I love it in my kitchen. Dial 10 seconds, 20, 30, ... up to a minute, next increment is 115 minutes, goes up to 6 minutes max. I rarely dial past 2 minutes. Many times I just spin it way up there and have a look when I feel like it.

Nudge the dial up while it's cooking and the time remaining increases by the amount of the nudge. If you turn the dial after it completes the cycle it starts a new cycle as long as a minute hasn't passed since it last stopped. Otherwise, you need to open the door and close it and turn the dial again. Open the door before the cycle completes and it stops (of course) and it forgets the last cycle, you start a new cycle with knob turn. I think that's just fine. Lights up on inside while on, no light when it's not on, even with door open, which is a bit of an annoyance but no biggie in my lighted kitchen. And for me, that's actually a preferred feature because I often leave the door open so it will dry out after heating what's usually moist. If a light shined while the door was open it would just waste electricity.

I love that it has no turn table. I can plop down a cup of coffee and don't have to look to see where the handle winds up. It's right there where I left it. Nothing moves, no moving parts period, except for that nice big round dial with a great feel on the outside. Cleaning it is simple.

Having no turntable doesn't present a problem, near as I can tell. All the TT MW's I've had heated unevenly. I don't sense that this MW is worse in that regard. The center's never as warm as the edges, I figure any MW is going to be the same in that regard. I just stir and run some more if I want heat evenness.

I've had it 8 years, never a problem. Exceptionally nice to look at as MW's go, inside and out.

https://www.amazon.com/Medium-Duty-Commercial-Microwave-Stainless-1000-Watts/dp/B074RCGYLB?th=1

Cost me $225, would be maybe $100 more today, but better deal is probably out there.

Just looked, this is the customer review I submitted some years ago at Amazon:

I've owned many microwave ovens over the years, consumer grade ones. My favorite of these (also a Sharp) died a few months ago. I tried to fix it without success -- it just blows fuses now. I turned to my other microwaves, of which I have several. I don't particularly care for any them. For several, the doors don't work well (hard to open/close or noisy to operate) or the controls are unnecessarily complicated.

I did a lot of online research before I arrived at the Sharp R-21LCF and Sharp R-21LCFS. I quickly realized that either of these is the microwave oven for me. It really is perfect and every other model I've ever used can't begin to compare. It's just a breeze to use, you don't have to think and remember a bunch of stuff you'd rather not have to deal with in a kitchen while you are occupied with other things.

I LOVE the fact that it doesn't have a turntable. Those always come loose and you have to get them back on track, always a hassle. This seems to heat pretty evenly without an annoying turntable to deal with. Not having the turntable effectively gives you a lot more usable space for the oven size. Space is at a premium in my kitchen and most kitchens. And check this -- When you put your handled cup in it, the handle is always in the perfect position to remove the cup after the heating cycle. That never happens when there's a turntable!

I LOVE the dial. The dial control is a great concept. It's super simple and I can set it quickly to the time I figure is appropriate to what I'm heating. I have enough experience with microwave ovens that I can estimate with reasonable accuracy before setting. I can set and forget with this oven. With every other microwave oven I've had this has been a problem unless I wanted to make 3 to 5 button presses (e.g. Time, 7, 5, Start or Time, 2, 4, 5, Start). The maximum time of 6 minutes is not a problem. Anything you are heating or cooking should be adjusted by then, so you just open, turn over or stir the contents and then set another time if necessary. I like the dial, I can see it fine in spite of my color blindness.

I LIKE the fact that the light stays off when the door is open. I like to keep the door open to dry the oven but I hate it when the light stays on, it just uses energy (18 watts in my previous oven). In the past I've always disabled the oven light for that reason. Not necessary with this oven.

Defrosting won't be a problem for me. The manual explains how to go about doing it. Even without those instructions I'd have no difficulty doing it just using my experience and intuition. My consumer grade microwave ovens power lower simply by turning the magnetron on and off for varying intervals. I rarely used lower power levels with them and won't miss having them with this oven.

On receiving and unboxing, first thing I checked was the standby power usage because I'd seen a review at Amazon for the Sharp R-21LCF model posted in 2013 that was very positive but scolded Sharp because that oven used 9 watts in standby. That didn't sit well with me. I figured that this Sharp R-21LCFS model (which I think was released much later) might have dealt with that shortcoming. My Kill-a-Watt meter is showing 3 watts usage in standby, which is very acceptable to me. I'd been thinking that at 9 watts I might have a switch in place to turn it off entirely. I won't bother at 3 watts.

My Kill-a-Watt is showing power usage at about 1530 watts. Now, I'm assuming that the 1000 watts rating for it is the actual microwave energy being absorbed by the oven's contents, not the power usage. The label you see when you open the door says 1.4A, 1000 watts output power.

I've had several microwave ovens over the years. They have always died sooner or later. I anticipate this one lasting way way longer because it was designed to have a much more intense duty cycle.

Other ovens' controls are by and large way too complicated, making you think too much. This oven is dead simple, no thinking necessary! I don't need another clock or timer. This has no basically annoying LCD information flashing at me, it just does the job, does it now and does it well. There's nothing to complain about. If I could give it 7 stars, I would. I absolutely love it!

 

[mindless1]

^ The first Litton my parents had, didn't have a turn table but what it had instead was a plastic cover on the top of the inside, behind which a motor turned a big fan blade looking assembly. It's purpose was not to move air, just to reflect microwaves in varying directions.

Ironically I wanted to lap a CPU heat spreader the other day and grabbed the GLASS front panel that I salvaged from the door of that microwave. It's at least 3/16" thick and weighs about 4X as much as the entire door on my current 1200W Sharp.

I like turntables. It does help cook more evenly. On my Sharp if I want it to run longer I can just press the "minute" button. If it's not running yet, it runs a minute, but if it's already running, adds a minute more time onto whatever program it's already running.