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Step 6Restore Power and Pat Yourself On the Back
Once you plug the unit back in, it should come right on and immediately nag you to set the clock. Now that you have saved yourself $180, take your spouse out to dinner...or maybe just heat up some soup.
ONE FINAL NOTE: I have attached a pic of the bulb, GE uses for the unit. It is a different brand than the one I used. Hopefully, the new bulb will last more than a year.
ONE FINAL NOTE: I have attached a pic of the bulb, GE uses for the unit. It is a different brand than the one I used. Hopefully, the new bulb will last more than a year.
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The hardest part was that horizontal metal "floor" below which the lamp reflector housing lives. In fact I removed a few more screws because I thought you had to completely take that part off to access the lamp - silly me! I had to go back to one of putnamcs' photos to see you have to lift the metal floor and fiddle a bit with the housing.......that's GE engineers for you!
The whole project from start to finish took about 30 mins and I did test the lamp before I put everything back together again and hey presto, it worked! I also took your advise and purchased the 25W bulb (from Lowe's; about $5 including tax) and even cleaned the whole microwave, inside and out, as well as the stove....now it looks like new and the best part, I can see what I'm microwaving.
For those that are not that technical minded, a word of caution. When a bulb burns out, you need to be absolutely sure you know which one it is because there are a total of THREE, yes, 3 different lights/bulbs associated with this microwave model and only ONE is mentioned in the GE owners manual!!! Now there's encouragment for you. First, there's the interior light we are talking about in this thread and that is a halogen, single 20 or 25W one. That light is for whenever the door is open or you are using the oven. The second one is the long, tubular browning lamp in the roof of the microwave (not sure how that is accessible, nor would I want to try) and the easiest is the one over the range light which is on the underneath of the unit and lights up the stove below. That one takes two halogen bulbs and is the easiet of all three to change. Just so you all know where the locations are and the functions of each.
There's no doubt, the easy, step-by-step instructions, together with photos (even if some were hard to figure sometimes) were a great help in this venture. Judging by the others folks' success, you, Sir, have provided a great service to the average homeowner. Thank you.
P.S. Can you believe it, 5 mins after completing the task, my over the stove light burned out! What are the chances of that happening???!!!......back to Lowe's in the morning...
I'll be writing you!
This saved me. The owners manual said nothing and the appliance store gave me a blank stare. If I hadn't found your very easy to follow instructions, I would be out $200 bucks!
I have the Sears Kenmore version and have the whole thing apart and couldn't remember where the darn light came from! I called Sears and they wanted to come out to replace it,$225. I called their parts dept. and they had the bulb but would not provide any info to replace it...."it's because of the microwave radiation that we can't supply and directions on how to replace it."
I'm headed over to Home Depot to get the replacement bulb, which it turns out is the same as the over-the-stove bulb.
Thank you so much!