can old oven magnetron be powered by stepper supply?

[ProfK]

Question in subject.
I can get 1-2kW stepper supplies for industrial magnetrons on ebay. With custom, do it yourself hook-up, can the $100 oven magnetron be run from one of these? The purpose is to operate variable power levels and not use duty cycle for temperature control. Is there some design feature that prevents this? I figure it is the cost of the switcher supply that makes it cost-prohibitive for home use.

Any professional tricks to operate at lower continuoius power on oven magnetron without buying switcher - like adding a variac or something?

 

[nbucska]

I don't understand the stepper supply.

Simplest control is pulse with modulation. The temperature
can't follow the pulses, so it integrates the PWM.

<nbucska@pcperipherals DOT com> subj: eng-tips
read FAQ240-1032

 

[BrianG]

Hi ProfK. You talk about "industrial" magnetrons and temeperature control: are you heating water or high water content materials? The "oven" magnetron is specifically designed to operate at around 2.45GHz because that is a peak resonant frequency of the water molecule.

You need to understand that "industrial" magnetrons (such as was we use in radar) are essentially pulse devices and normally have very low duty cycles, like 1000:1, and in simple terms are usually triggered to produce an intense short r.f. pulse by discharging a large high voltage capacitor bank. Running on "continuous low power from a variac" is not a good idea as it will be very difficult to keep control of the current within the device safe limits (it just looks like a big diode).