I converted my microwave into a LASER oven!

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Good ole Styropyro. Never a dull moment.

👍︎︎ 13 👤︎︎ u/Frylosphy 📅︎︎ Sep 27 2021 🗫︎ replies

Link that starts at the time OP mentioned: https://youtu.be/fM9hYzJnao0?t=4m44s


I'm a bot. Bleep bloop.
version 1.0.1

👍︎︎ 10 👤︎︎ u/YouTubeTimestampBot 📅︎︎ Sep 27 2021 🗫︎ replies

I know why. Like!

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/JaywrightCat 📅︎︎ Sep 27 2021 🗫︎ replies

Very smart

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/ath0rus 📅︎︎ Sep 27 2021 🗫︎ replies
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hey everybody! today I want to give some love  to everybody's favorite household appliance   the microwave oven. now for most people, these  are simply a way to just heat up food in a hurry   and for that they're pretty decent. but for people  like me, microwaves are so much more than that   microwaves are useful for a lot of  cooler things than just cooking food   in fact, my parents microwave was probably my first  platform for experimenting with electromagnetism   unfortunately that oven uh mysteriously  died not long after they got it   the nice thing is that microwaves don't even  have to be working to be useful to me. lethality   aside, the transformer and capacitor inside are  great for high voltage projects like tesla coils   the glass tray and turntable motor can be used to  make a simple laser show, and even the oven casing   itself is useful as a disposable blast chamber. now  i've done a ton of projects using microwave parts   in this channel, but today i actually want to focus  on the oven itself. and since this is my channel   i think there's some room to make some  upgrades on this wonderful appliance as well   so yeah i hope you enjoy this video. oh yeah,  before i go on i should warn you that all the   crazy stuff you're about to see was done  completely for educational purposes. i mean   if you were to try any of this stuff at home, you'd  probably die, so yeah please don't try this at home   alright so what kind of stuff can you even do with  a microwave? well the obvious use is cooking stuff   but this isn't super exciting by itself and it's  often slower than i'd like. and besides, you can do   this with an ordinary oven as well. but this isn't  some ordinary oven, this is a science oven. this bad   boy cooks food with a huge electromagnetic field . i can use this field to check on the condition   of my low pressure gas tubes. has this plasma  globe taken on air since the last time i hit it   with a tesla coil? a quick run in the microwave  shows that it's still intact. but not for long   how about these cheap neon indicators  i bought on ebay? are they any good?   i'll take that as a yes. microwaves are great for  chemistry as well. in fact regular old microwave   ovens have been used in chemical synthesis  for years in academic labs. now when it comes   to actually cooking food, there's still a lot  left to be desired. i mean it's been over 70   years since the first microwave ovens, yet the  new ones aren't any more powerful. what gives?   it turns out the people who make these things have  been feeding us lives for years! so hear me out   what happens when you use the 50% setting for slow  cooking? any self-respecting person would expect   the oven to simply run at half power, but check out  that power draw. what actually happens is that the   oven runs at full power for an amount of time, then  turns off for a while before repeating the cycle   sure it averages out given enough time, but it's  still dirty. now admittedly that one's not that big   of a deal, but it does lead us to the light that's  downright disgusting. what happens when you use the   hundred percent setting? most people don't question  this setting because it's all they've ever known   but let's take a look at what that looks  like in slow-mo. see how they flash like that?   yeah that's right, even at the 100% setting, the  bulbs are only on half the time, and this is   because the oven is only producing microwaves half  the time. what a scam! anybody who watches my videos   knows that half power just isn't gonna cut it for  me. i think it's time for some upgrades. alright   so i've taken this thing apart to expose the  circuitry inside. now i gotta say it, poking around   in a microwave is not for the inexperienced.  when electronics hobbyists get killed by their   projects, it's almost always because they're  messing around with microwave parts like these   anyway here's the reason why the oven's only  on half the time. so this magnetron here, which   is actually the source of microwaves in the  oven, is powered by feeding the output of this   high voltage transformer into this half wave voltage doubler circuit. now the very nature   of the circuit means that the magnetron is  only going to be powered on half of the AC  cycle. now if the transformers in these things  weren't ran so ridiculously close to saturation   you could just throw in another capacitor and  diode to make the full wave doubler and call it a day   but you can't. so that means i have to  sacrifice another microwave for the transformer but before i do that, let's start with a quick  control run because this is a science video after   all, sort of. i'm going to start by ripping this  plastic covering off of the door. the metal grid   will still stop microwaves from escaping, but now  i'll be able to see inside with my thermal camera.   i actually learned this thermal camera  trick from the youtuber cyparagon   well he's not really a youtuber. i've just known  him from various nerdy online groups over the   years, but he does have some cool vids on youtube  regardless. so a cup of water heats by about 28   degrees celsius in a minute, which also suggests  about 40% efficiency. now obviously this isn't   quite fast enough for my liking. i went ahead and  unlocked full power mode here. i've added another   transformer, as well as some more diodes and  capacitors to make the full wave doubler circuit   but wait! won't a microwave using double the  power trip the breaker? well it's nothing a   little bit of copper wire duct tape can't fix. just  kidding. we have appliance outlets for a reason   i was too lazy to use the original controls on  the microwave so now i'm using this huge variac   to power it. now the nice thing is this actually  allows me to control the power, as opposed to   just plugging that abomination directly into  mains. a quick power up with neon bulbs shows   that the oven is indeed working. slow-mo video  confirms that the oven is actually producing   microwaves on the full cycle. sure there's some  ripple, but at least it's on the entire time now   a benefit of the new setup is that it bypasses  all the safety mechanisms, which means the oven   door doesn't even have to be closed for it to  operate. this is super convenient for the time   to need to irradiate large objects with kilowatts  of microwaves. i was curious how a camera would   react inside my faraday cage with the open oven,  so i stuck one of my old cameras in there with it amazingly it actually survived this. now i should  note that doing an experiment like this without   extensive shielding will lead to the fcc and  local hams hunting you down, so uh, don't do that   let's go ahead and redo that water heating  experiment with a full power microwave. the   original microwave drew a little under 1200 watts  so i'm going to dial the power to about 2400   watts this time. over the course of a minute, the  power draw actually increased to about 2800 watts   probably due to the toasty magnetron filament  spitting off more electrons as it heated   the full power microwave heated the water  way faster this time. 63 degrees celsius   in one minute. some rough calculations show  that the efficiency was unchanged as well   giving about 40 percent efficiency. how about  something a little more practical? check it out   an apple is heated to deliciousness in half the  time it normally takes. talk about convenience. now   i know what you're thinking, what happens when i  give this setup even more power? let's find out by   cooking this banana at four kilowatts. okay let's  slowly crank up the power there. yeah seems good oh come on it clearly arced over in there, but i'm not even  totally certain why. the extra power certainly   plays a role, but i think the geometry  of the banana may be a culprit as well   i'm thinking it acts as a lens and or  antenna that focuses microwaves to the tip   which causes dielectric breakdown  from the huge electric field   maybe laying the banana on its side will prevent  this from happening? well here goes nothing hmm that doesn't sound very good   maybe i can just give it more power and  it'll heat the banana along with the plasma   nope the magnetron is definitely dead  now. wait why is it on fire? oh come on pocket sand. unfortunately this puny little  magnetron just couldn't hack the extra power   now it's not like i can just throw in a bigger  magnetron either well not without shelling out   thousands of dollars. so why not use a bunch of  smaller magnetrons? well the issue with that is   then you introduce a bunch of phase matching and  even impedance matching issues. hmm wait what am i   thinking? why are we using this dinosaur technology  when we could be using freaking lasers to cook   food? well there's a few reasons really. it takes  a relatively huge amount of energy to cook food   due to water's high heat capacity, so a laser that  could cook in a reasonable amount of time would   have to be ridiculously powerful and dangerous.  luckily, ridiculously powerful lasers are what   i do best. in fact i already have on hand some of  the scariest semiconductor modules on the planet   these are integrated laser diode arrays. they  may not look like much, but each one is capable   of tens of thousands of times as much power as a  laser pointer. it's honestly hard to convey just   how dangerous each one of these can be, and the  hilarious thing is that i'm going to need to run   a bunch of them side by side at full power to pull  off cooking with them. judging by the scratched out   part numbers and lack of documentation, i'm going  to guess that i'm probably not supposed to have   these. so how am i going to turn these things into  a laser oven? well honestly i'm not even sure yet   so i'm just going to start smashing  things together until something works   all right so this is what the completed laser oven  looks like. so i have my array of laser arrays here   on top and that's powered via this power supply  that's fed through some drivers on the back   now I also added this water cooling loop here  just because there's so much power going through   this thing that i simply couldn't get away  with just some passive cooling there. the new   laser equipped oven draws about two kilowatts at  full power, and about 700 watts of that makes it   out as laser light. in fact, that makes it the most  powerful cw laser build i've shown on this channel   now in order to visualize this ridiculous power,  i've stuck a mirror in there so you can see what   the beam looks like. i've actually had to turn  down the power here because otherwise the beam   just washes out my camera's sensor. just to give  you an idea on how ridiculous this oven is, the   highest danger rating a laser product can get is class IV, and that happens at half a watt of output   power. since the output on this thing is 700 watts,  that means that it eclipses that rating by over   a thousand times. that means you probably won't  be seeing these in stores anytime soon. alright   so the beam's flashy and all but how good is it  at cooking food? let's start with a piece of toast that smells so good! as you can tell   this laser oven is really more of a laser  grill since the cooking is one-sided   but that's not really that big of a deal  since i can just flip it over halfway through   well that looks interesting. i wonder what  that tastes like? well here goes nothing that's really good! wow it's like a carbon foam  flavor. it's really unique. i mean you can't make   toast like this in a regular microwave. popping  popcorn with a laser is one of my most requested   experiments to try on this channel. let's  see how well the laser oven can pull it off   hmm that isn't doing a very good job. the beam  must be too concentrated, since the surfaces of   the kernels are vaporizing off faster than the  inside can be heated to the point of popping   let's see if i can fix that with a  diffuser plate to spread out the beam okay there it goes. some turntable  action couldn't hurt as well   oh yeah look at that it's doing an awesome job now.  that's way more interesting than the traditional   way of cooking popcorn. is laser popcorn as good  as the microwave stuff? one way to find out wow   that was wow that is incredible. it has like a  smoky flavor to it. yeah definitely beats microwave   definitely beats microwave. again with those  like hints of the carbon foam flavor you know   one of my favorite flavors. it's funny because  if i would have stuck with my phd program i would   have been working on inertial confinement fusion  lasers by now, and yet here i am, cooking popcorn   with a laser oven. i guess i can do that as a  youtuber as well since i actually have this   set of optical amplifiers from a government  attempt at building a laser fusor. that's   for a different video though. i've had campfire  s'mores and i've had microwave s'mores but i've   never had laser smores. perhaps the secret to the  perfect s'mores by cooking it with laser beams ?  oh yeah check that out, it's making the chocolate  nice and melty there. it looks like it's adding   a bit of crisp to it as well. yummy. all right  let's add some marshmallows there huh it's kind   of hard to tell whether they're melting or if the  white color is just reflecting off all the light   okay yeah it's definitely melting there wow.  yeah i think that's ready to eat. man i hope   these things taste as good as they smell because  wow, that is quite a fragrance. all right here we go wow yet again i am very impressed.  and one of the big themes about   this laser oven i'm finding is that  nice that charred flavor you know man i love carbon. it's a shame that you  can't just like sell these things at the   store, because man you guys are missing out.  now that i'm making campfire foods i can't   make s'mores without also giving hot dogs  a try. one nice thing about the laser oven   is that leaving the door open won't jam  nearby electronics or make the fcc angry   however my eyes would be destroyed in a fraction  of a second if i took off my laser goggles   i probably should have spent more time designing  a beam diffusing system but uh whatever mmm that one's actually really  good again with that like uh   it's like a char boiled flavor but i don't even  need like a grill or whatever you use to do that   yeah there's this like really distinct aftertaste  i mean it lasts a really long time and i mean   really a lot of things from this laser  give an aftertaste that lasts a long time   how about a laser cooked egg? is it even cooking in  there? it's hard to tell since the wood's burning a   lot but it might just be reflecting off all that  light. i was kind of hoping for something like a   hard-boiled egg here but i don't know what's going  on. yeah i don't think i'm gonna be eating this one   maybe i can do better with a different  breakfast food? in all honesty   i'm usually too lazy to heat these things up,  and just eat them straight out of the wrapper   fun fact, when i was a starving college student  i found that pop-tarts were the highest amount   of energy i could buy for a dollar in my school's  vending machines. breakfast of champions right here it's a little um a little on the crispy side um yeah  it's all right not used to my uh chocolate   being so toasty i guess. how about some double  roasted cashews? i love the smell of roasted nuts   oh those give off a ton of smoke in there. it must  be the oil or something. well here goes nothing oh oh no oh oh that's terrible yeah that is  one thing the laser oven can't do. all right   i've had enough appetizers today i think it's  time for the main course. many people will argue   that nothing can beat the flavor of a microwave  steak, but i think this laser oven can pull it   off. wow i just can't get over that incredible  smoky fragrance. i better flip it over to make   sure it gets the other side. yeah that thing is  being lasered to perfection. oh i almost forgot   i can't have a steak dinner without some laser  caramelized onions. hmm looks like the onion   is a bit reflective to the blue laser light. i  guess i can just leave it in there for a while   okay yeah i think that's good enough for  now. wow check out that beautiful meal   now that is instagram worthy. let's  give that steak a try first all right might be a little on the uh might be  a little overdone uh it's kind of hard to tell   you know not used to cooking with lasers but man  it's it is a delicious flavor again with that uh   that like carbonization of  the uh of the food there   well that was delicious i mean what should i  try next. probably the caramelized onion there mmm nice and sweet. you know i didn't get any char  on that piece let's try uh let's try this piece um that that's amazing wow i  almost forgot about my texas toast that's so good. man i love the future. all right i am  stuffed now, so i figured this would be a good time   to go over some of the pros and cons of my laser  oven. so uh the pros right. i mean the biggest   one is it's a laser oven. i mean cooking food with  lasers is automatically cool. it also has a good   uh has a good way of like adding a smoky flavor to  things. sometimes that can be a problem i mean   a lot of has to come down with the oven likes  to cook uh like put most of the energy in like   the first few millimeters of the surface of the  food you're cooking so that can be problematic   so that's why it like charred absolutely  everything you put inside of it. i mean if   i were to use like red or ir lasers for this like  near ir then it would have probably done a better   job at cooking food more uniformly and having a  better diffuser plate in there would have probably   helped too but uh so i mean this was just like  there could be improvements on it obviously but   i i feel like you could do a laser oven that  would cook more uniformly and actually be   like you know comparable to a microwave so maybe  i'll make another oven with uh with red lasers   or maybe i'll just make a mega microwave with a  giant magnetron and do it that way. so yeah it was   an interesting experiment and this was probably  one of the most requested things to do in my   channel, at least cook food with lasers. so yeah i'm  glad i did it. oh yeah one more thing before i go   i decided to make a shorts channel  since all the cool people are doing it   if you like bite-sized science demos in  a vertical format then you'll probably   like the insanity that i'll be posting there.  i'll be sure to put a link in the description   well that's about all i have for you today so  until the next time stay safe and happy lazing
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Channel: styropyro
Views: 1,471,724
Rating: 4.9358683 out of 5
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Id: fM9hYzJnao0
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Length: 19min 40sec (1180 seconds)
Published: Fri Sep 24 2021
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