Boil Steam broke my microwave

Hello,

As the title says, I forgot to turn on the vent fan above my oven and now my microwave [sort of] doesn't work. The microwave itself works fine, but the bottom row of commands does not work on the key pad (I'm assuming the water vapor ruined the contacts). It's a basic GE microwave that was installed by the builder of my home. I was wondering if anyone has had this issue and if they were able to resolve it by buying a replacement keypad (w/o the control board). HERE is a picture of the part I would be replacing, please let me know if it worked for you! I'm debating on whether or not to replace the entire unit, or just that part. Thanks.

I've never had that particular issue, but having worked on lots of electronics over the years I would agree with your diagnosis... replace your push button contacts and you should be good to go.

I don't have any direct help for you, I used to do 7 gallon boils all the time on a stove with a microwave above it, I never used the fan and had no problems.

But one time my roommate went a little nuts cleaning our stove/oven, he was soaking a sponge in hot soapy water and used it to scrub the hell out of the thing. A bunch of water ended up getting in the control/display, the next day when I went to use the oven I would just get a beeping and an error message. I tried turning off the breaker and turning it back on, same thing. But after a couple days it randomly started working again, I figured it dried itself out.

How long has it been? Don't give up hope that the problem might mysteriously go away... to speed it up you can maybe take the cover off and try hitting it lightly with a hair dryer?

It's been almost 3 weeks. I tried like heck to dry the thing out, used a blow drier, detached it from the main unit and let it sit in the sun for a few days, and nothing worked.

This may sounds like alcohol abuse, but you could try pouring some cheap, bottom-row everclear on the control panel while you have it off. heck, you could even give it a little soak in it. The ethanol will help pull the water out of the cracks and make it a lot easier to dry. Not sure if this would be any cheaper than just getting a new panel, though.

I used to repair these for GE. How old is the microwave? GE parts are excessively expensive. You can get a new MW for about $200 in some places.

I did the same thing a few years back while boiling water. The microwave made a loud pop and I ended up replacing for 200 -250.

For stovetop brewing, I tape a flexible cutting board to the bottom of the microwave to keep steam away. I don't trust the weak vent fan.

Hope you can fix yours

My oldest son was renting a house that had a GE microwave above the stove. He also had a cleaning service, and every time they cleaned the kitchen they killed keypad functions 'til the owner had to replace the 'wave.

After that, son left a note taped right over the keypad not to touch the 'wave. Cleaners carefully removed the note and killed the keypad...

Cheers!

Same thing just happened to me! Main control board had multiple burn marks on it. I started trying to figure out which components on the board were broken, but it seems like there are multiple and I don't have much experience with circuits. So just ordered a new board from GE - $136. I will try to repair the broken one while I at least have another good one installed. The exhaust vent on my microwave goes to the outside, but it still couldn't keep up with the boil steam. I will take one of the recommendations here and make sure I block off under the microwave board where condensation can get in to hopefully prevent this from happening again in the future.

If your range hood has a filter you might try brewing without it to see if the throughput increases significantly keeping things drier...

Cheers!

Probably your exhaust fan just doesn't have the CFM that it needs to handle all that steam.

The builder grade range hoods and microwaves with built in exhaust fans likely are just the bare minimum CFM for the average use. Boiling wort on the stove probably wasn't part of the average use scenarios.

I'm finally moving my boils to the outside. The 3500 watt induction burner gives me the vigorous boil I want, but too much condensation for the CFM of the builder grade range hood in my kitchen.

Yup I was planning on removing the mesh screen on the intake to increase flow a bit. Hopefully that plus blocking off the opening directly below the board will keep the steam out. Plan on checking the board during a boil to see if water is getting in. If that doesn't work well then I will plan on moving outside too, but it sure is nice to be able to brew inside during bad weather!