Since we bought the combi microwave around ten years ago, the rotary up/down knob to set the run time and select the mode has been unreliable. I should have taken it back, but didn't because it was their last one. Sometimes it counted down when you turned it up and sometimes up when you turned down - though not often.
It recently got worse, so this morning I set about it, expecting a dry joint. No dry joints, it was the encoder. I was expecting it to be an electronic encoder, but instead it proved to be a mechanical switch encoder. Searching on Youtube, I found a couple of fixes for what looked like the identical encoder from the outside, which used sprung finger contacts to do the switching, cleaning it up with contact spray, so I opened my switch up to do the same.
My encoder was totally different internally - no fingers, no obvious switches. The rotor part just had what appeared to be around 100 segments, making contact it appeared with a metal disk in the base of the unit.
I couldn't the switch cleaner so I used brake cleaner and reassembled quickly, to restore the kitchen back to operation. What ever sort of switch it uses, it now works fine.
It recently got worse, so this morning I set about it, expecting a dry joint. No dry joints, it was the encoder. I was expecting it to be an electronic encoder, but instead it proved to be a mechanical switch encoder. Searching on Youtube, I found a couple of fixes for what looked like the identical encoder from the outside, which used sprung finger contacts to do the switching, cleaning it up with contact spray, so I opened my switch up to do the same.
My encoder was totally different internally - no fingers, no obvious switches. The rotor part just had what appeared to be around 100 segments, making contact it appeared with a metal disk in the base of the unit.
I couldn't the switch cleaner so I used brake cleaner and reassembled quickly, to restore the kitchen back to operation. What ever sort of switch it uses, it now works fine.
