HACKER Q&A
📣 dusted

Do you know of a good open-source microwave oven firmware?


Short story long: My microwave has a terrible control panel and now the very custom and highly integrated rotary encoder broke and I can't set time and wattage anymore.

Pretty much all microwave ovens work the same way, you need a relay to turn on the magnetron, and one for the light bulb, a few buttons to set time and wattage, and a few pins for the segment display.

I am surprised that I couldn't easily find a generic microwave firmware for arduino boards..

Do I have to write this myself ?

  👤 davismwfl Accepted Answer ✓
I doubt there is, they are too inexpensive to replace. Cheap ones go for < $100 bucks so people just dispose of broken ones and buy a new one (electronics people will harvest parts from the broken one first). Even a nice Microwave is $150-300 most places, anything more and you are paying for some gimmick usually. My point on that is putting effort into writing software and connecting everything is just not worth the time & effort, unless you just want to play around of course.