Microwave Turntable Guide--make a replacement

Someone donated an old microwave to our church office. The plastic frame of the turntable guide became distorted after many years. The white rollers continually came off of the ends of their axles. That caused the turntable to stop and to tilt.

We did not want to spend around $20 for a new turntable guide (even if we could find one the size we would need), plus still more dollars for shipping and handling.

Step 1 Measure Your Microwave's Bottom

You will need to know the outer diameter of the circle scribed by the rollers as the turntable revolves. In this Instructable I usually refer to the plastic rollers as white. Here one is shown in cross section as pale yellow for the sake of distinguishing the roller from other items in the graphic. The bottom of the microwave has rises and falls stamped into the metal, as you see here. When you decide on inner and outer diameters for the ring that will hold the plastic rollers, you will need to evaluate how much space you have so the ring does not bind unduly between the microwave bottom and the glass turntable. A cross section of the fiberboard ring is shown here in a copper color. The turntable drive is at the center of the fiberboard ring and the turntable. It is not always easy to get a clear view for measuring when peering into the microwave.

Comments

[killerjackalope]

I still haven't got round to replacing out microwaves turntable, I just balance plates on the gear, which is good for anything other than zapping a dinner that involves many things... I'd test that theory in an old microwave before using it, something doesn't seem to add up there, not sure why but it just seems a bit odd, a couple of motor brushes grounded to the frame touching the metal piece would keep contact well enough and wouldn't be high maintenance at such low RPMs.

[Lftndbt]

Hmmm, seems to be a common problem... I also enjoy trying to balance my meals before nuking 'em. I was thinking along the lines of just epoxying the glass plate to the gear mech. But I have held back on that idea as I am thinking there is most probably a reason you shouldn't put epoxy in a microwave... Well it's may be fine, but still.

[Phil B]

Personally, I do not think the center spindle that spins the glass has enough support to keep the glass level and keep it from dragging at the edges without rollers out around the edges, even if you could get a good glue joint to the spindle. What I did is really pretty easy and works very well, and it is quite simple to make. The fly in the ointment would be that you no longer have the little white rollers that came with your original turntable guide. Maybe you could find an old turntable guide with rollers in a junked microwave.

[Phil B]

I would probably have been tempted to balance things on the drive gear or just put a rectangular piece of plywood in the bottom and let it be. But, there are several women in the office. Women seem to want certain things to work as original, regardless. I will probably never get around to testing my theory about stopping the lightning storms with a metal object inside a microwave by grounding it to the frame. Maybe a reader of this Instructable will test it and report back for all of us.

[killerjackalope]

If there's a microwave being replaced any time soon I'm happy to try it out, I want my mother to give up on her stainless one, it looks good and is missing the plate but the second wall of steel would make me more comfortable with experimentations, also it's 900W so it'd have good components. We did have two industrial microwaves come with a house that used to be a B&B, sadly they were skipped, you could put anything in them and they'd continue on working, I once managed to get the superheated water experiment to work with one, it's mad...