Ok. So which part of the emitter is actually beryllium? I'm very concerned because I cracked open a couple of them just because I wanted to see how they were made. The coil inside I couldn't figure out what sort of metal it was and being told it was just the tip didn't compute for me as the tip looks like it's just copper.
I'm super glad I didn't get the idea to use a grinder to open one of those. But, when I was told it had beryllium in it I felt a chill of fear as I remember working at that processing place and all the clothes changing and enforced showing was a clue just how serious they were about the stuff.
So, maybe it's just more dangerous when it's being processed?
So, could elements be used for a heat sink in computers rather than those aluminum radiators on the CPU?
There are portions of the magnetron that look like ceramic insulators. That's the BeO. It's typically the portion that's under the emitter tip and it goes into the finned body of the unit. In this picture. the reddish-brown material that looks like burnt ceramic would be the BeO.
You could use BeO for heat sinks, but it's toxicity and expense makes that prohibitive. It's easier to use copper or aluminum, which have relatively few side effects.
Ok. I currently don't have any used microwaves to take apart but next time I do I'll look closely. Fortunately I did all this outdoors and only broke open a few emitters.
I carefully took the ends off a couple emitters to see inside as I was very curious as to the construction.
Many of the microwaves I see tossed to the curb in residential areas are not even in that bad of condition. Maybe a fuse out or something.
The smaller ones that don't have the plate with the cog on the bottom, those are the best plates to use for eating. The ones with the three lobed cog are no good since it high centers. It's a shame to toss them in the trash.
If you're not suffering from any respiratory problems, you probably didn't inhale any BeO dust (or enough to do any damage.)
Modern microwaves with electronic control boards use the absolute cheapest shit relays for power control that they can get their hand on. When I did appliance repair for a company that has a round logo, some of the newer boards (mid 90s) that Samsung provided were made with cheaper than chips relays. They were uncoated copper contacts and would just arc and burn closed or open, and you'd lose the device. No batch of these parts had the same name, everything from "Yung Reem" to "Bright Star" was stamped on them. We heard rumors that these things were made by whomever won the contract that month.
Funny story, my boss talked to the engineering staff at Appliance Park that approved these. They said "Well, we tested some relays and they worked fine!" Boss goes "Did you buy them from a commercial supply house?" Nope, they were samples from Samsung themselves, hand picked and massaged to work the best.
Yes, that's exactly the part I was breaking because I thought it was just an electrical insulator. Inside is the copper fins. The caps sealing off the main body are some sort of steel since a magnet is attracted to them but somehow they've welded those caps onto the copper. Some sort of maybe a friction weld maybe. It's a very smooth automatic looking weld but you can rip the steel caps off by tearing next to the weld. Inside the device is a coil of silvery looking metal if I remember right that leads to a copper tube that's pinched off sharp at the end under than tin cap on the end. I was told the tip of that copper tube is beryllium but you're saying the ceramic is beryllium oxide ceramic and used for heat dissipation? So, as long as you don't crush the BeO, grind it or get too friendly with you it's ok? What about those aluminum fins? They are also for heat distribution?
And what if I find a tossed out industrial microwave oven? Much larger emitters or nah?
Yeah, as long as you don't generate any particles with the insulators, they're basically just ceramics at that point. Not something you'd give the kids, but not terribly dangerous either. Just handle them like any other potentially dangerous waste. It's been a while since I've been in appliance repair, what I see suggests that manufacturers are now using Aluminum Oxides because they're cheaper and less toxic.
The aluminum body is for heat dissipation as well. You're producing a lot of waste energy in there. Commercial microwaves have bigger versions of the same thing, but when you get into RADAR system and other microwave emitters, the type of device gets more specialized and looks less like what you'd find in an oven.
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