Can the microwave affect the fridge?

[Brian Stirling]

Maybe the microwave energy is charging up the motor condenser.

OK, at this point I've come to the conclusion that you're trolling. Either that or...


Brian

 

[Binky]

No.

 

[PhIlLy ChEeSe]

How bout the draw if the microwave was on the same 120 line as the fridge, maybe even defective and drawing to many volts?

 

[LPCTech]

No I keep the microwave right next to the fridge and nothing happens, instead the fridge should work faster, since the microwave would warm the air outside, and the warmer the air outside the fridge the colder inside the fridge. When I go on a trip to india the fridge there have no separation from freezer or fridge, since the fridge is so cold from the hot air outside, the fridge turns to a freezer. Fridges run the same way air conditioners run, hot air goes out, cold air in. Hotter the air out side, the hotter the hot loop is, the colder the cold loop is.

Haha no.

A refrigerator uses a condenser to cool coils and then blows this cool air into the insulated box. Or at least thats how they used to work. The hotter it is outside the fridge the HARDER it is for that refrigerator to keep things cold. Because it has to start with the air in the room and cool it down.

Microwaves do not warm air, they warm water, they excite water molecules, that is how it heats the food.

Fridges in india are probably set extra cold, because of how hot it is...

And no, air conditioners work in the exact opposite from the way you describe they take hot air in and put cold air out. That is the whole idea. :awe:

 

[WHAMPOM]

My mother says that when the door of her microwave is facing the side of her refrigerator the refrigerator won't maintain the proper temperature but when the nuke box is rotated ninety degrees the effect goes away. Does this sound plausible to you?

More likely your mom's accumulation of mini strokes.

 

[IronWing]

Is the microwave plugged into the same outlet when rotated in dfferent directions? The only thing I can think of is that in one position, the current draw of the microwave is lowering the voltage supplied to the fridge. Otherwise, <shrug>.

 

[who?]

Same outlet both ways.

 

[DrPizza]

See: http://arxiv.org/abs/1504.02165 The source of some perytons detected at the Parkes observatory turned out to be from a microwave oven that was opened prior to the timer turning it off.

Perhaps you mom opens the microwave door before it stops? There's a split second where microwaves are emitted as the door switch is closing.

Now, I haven't got a clue how the microwaves could possibly interfere with the electronics of the refrigerator. But, this might explain the directionality. So, as an experiment, have your mom hit the stop button if ever opening the door (to stir food) before the timer has ended.

If that fixes the problem, then the next step (for us who are interested) is to determine how the microwaves interfere with the fridge electronics. That's a more interesting question. My current understanding is that people with pacemakers have nothing to fear from microwave ovens. But, years ago, there were signs in places that had microwave ovens. What I could find ranged from "no effect" to "no effect because..." The because: because modern pacemakers have better shielding, and because microwaves are built to stricter standards, and leakage is generally under 5 microwatts per square centimeter, as measured a few centimeters from the microwave (and dropping off, I presume, with the square of distance, assuming the energy is emitted isotropically.) So, if pacemakers have "better shielding," then it stands to reason that something can interfere with them. I don't know what, and I don't know how.

 

[eliminatehumans]

there is no such thing as cold just the absence of heat.

the evaporator removes heat, not deliver cold, to be dispersed by the condensor.


mom makes too many trips to the fridge.

 

[artvscommerce]

Yes. Fridge Microcontroller board potentially interfered with. E.g. It is crashing or incorrectly thinks there is a fault. Due to interference from the Microwave, which also might be too leaky (potentially dangerous).

Dangers of leaky Microwaves

I would not consider that source to be credible. The fact that they are selling "hologram" stickers to protect you against EMF raises a HUGE red flag IMO.

http://www.safespaceprotection.com/safespace-emf-solutions.aspx

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

I would not consider that source to be credible. The fact that they are selling "hologram" stickers to protect you against EMF raises a HUGE red flag IMO.

http://www.safespaceprotection.com/safespace-emf-solutions.aspx

I agree. Those stickers look like a product suited to suckers. I had not noticed that products page, when I posted the link. It seemed to be an easy link, to the potential dangers, of Microwave ovens.

 

[Selenium_Glow]

I'll drop my 2 cents here.

1. WiFi and Microwave, both operate at 2.4 GHz wireless frequency. This is an unlicensed frequency in most/all countries.
2. Difference is in the amount of power put into generating the frequency. A WiFi router/modem would not use more than 10W... the Microwave would use around 1000W to 1500W
3. A microwave is well shielded. The magnetron (that generates the microwaves using electricity) in the microwave generates waves from one corner. the rest of the microwave absorbs and internally reflect the remainder back into the chamber. (This is also the reason why all microwaves have a rotating platform... otherwise the high energy peaks of the waves would hit fixed spots and not give uniform heating).

I think it is best to check if your fridge and microwave are working properly by not keeping them around each other for a day or two. If everything works fine, then there could be some reason the fridge behaves like the way you say it does. Could be irregular power from the power plug, the microwave radiation leaking could be hindering the temperature sensor... etc etc...

 

[Cogman]

I'm just going to go ahead and say, absolutely not. Even if the microwave was operating with the door completely open pointing directly at the refrigerator.

First off, fridges are metal plastic sealed boxes. If microwave radiation was hitting the fridge you would notice that that fridge feels warm or that there is a microwave shaped melted spot of melted plastic on the fridge. (contrary to popular belief microwaves don't just heat up water, they heat up anything that is a dipole. Water, fat, and many plastics are in that category.) Next microwave radiation cannot penetrate metal. It just can't. The condenser coils and condenser are generally made out of metal, no chance for interacting there.

Finally the switch for fridges tends to be on the inside the fridge, which is already a microwave dead zone due to the fact that it is encased by a big metal box. Further, those things are really REALLY simple, usually either a metal coil or a capacitor. There is very little to go wrong there. You might have a smart fridge, but the "smart" features will be disconnected from the temperature control.

So with that out of the way, really pretty much no chance at microwave radiation affecting the fridge.

Now, what COULD be happening is a lot more boring. Microwaves suck a large amount of power. If the microwave is on the same circuit as the fridge and house power supply is questionable (I had this growing up). Then you could be experiencing mini-brown outs every time you turn on the microwave. This is easiest to see with incandescent light blubs. If the lights dim when you turn on the microwave, it means the voltage for everything else is dropping every time you put load on the system. A lower voltage can screw with the electronics of a lot of devices, especially if the AC->DC converter is cheap/faulty. But that wouldn't really have anything to do with the microwave facing towards or away from the fridge.

Another explanation is similar. The cord to the microwave might be frayed. If you point the microwave towards the fridge the cord may be shorting out, increasing power draw and browning out the fridge. If that is the case you NEED to get that thing replaced, frayed cords are a major fire hazard.

 

[Cogman]

If that fixes the problem, then the next step (for us who are interested) is to determine how the microwaves interfere with the fridge electronics. That's a more interesting question. My current understanding is that people with pacemakers have nothing to fear from microwave ovens. But, years ago, there were signs in places that had microwave ovens. What I could find ranged from "no effect" to "no effect because..." The because: because modern pacemakers have better shielding, and because microwaves are built to stricter standards, and leakage is generally under 5 microwatts per square centimeter, as measured a few centimeters from the microwave (and dropping off, I presume, with the square of distance, assuming the energy is emitted isotropically.) So, if pacemakers have "better shielding," then it stands to reason that something can interfere with them. I don't know what, and I don't know how.

The "how" is simple. Any metal effectively works as an antenna. Antennas convert electromagnetic radiation into simple voltage spikes. Those voltage spikes are what eventually fry the device. You can overcome this problem in a couple of ways, Putting the entire pacemaker in a ferromagnetic container effectively making a Faraday cage would prevent pretty much all interference from an outside source.

Do that and then put a regulator in front of the incoming wires from the pacemaker battery and you are golden. You could wrap them in a metal sheath like coax cables do, but that is bulky and somewhat undesirable. It is much more likely that they simply put a passive voltage filter in front with a regulator to ensure voltage spikes don't fry things.

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

I'm just going to go ahead and say, absolutely not. Even if the microwave was operating with the door completely open pointing directly at the refrigerator.

First off, fridges are metal plastic sealed boxes. If microwave radiation was hitting the fridge . . . cut

Not in the OPs case (pun intentional!).

It's a Sub-Zero fridge with glass or plexiglass doors and sides, not steel.

 

[LTC8K6]

But the Microwave oven is only transmitting a few times a day, a few minutes at a time.

It wouldn't interfere with the refrigerator enough to make any difference, even if we concede that it actually does interfere with the refrigerator.

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

But the Microwave oven is only transmitting a few times a day, a few minutes at a time.

It wouldn't interfere with the refrigerator enough to make any difference, even if we concede that it actually does interfere with the refrigerator.

It depends on how sensitive the microcontrollers interface to the thermistor(s), is, and how the software reacts to any interference.

Googling the specific fridge model (model number NOT fully included in thread), the control PCB is relatively unreliable and problematic.

E.g. The software may decide the temperature sensor is faulty and use a different control scheme. Because it sees too high a voltage on the A to D input(s), for too long. This fault detection could automatically retry, after a timeout of hours or longer, e.g. 24 hours.

The PDF about the same/similar line of fridges (service manual PDF(s), complete with circuit diagrams), seems to be saying that the compressor is controlled in fixed time cycles, by the microcontroller(s)/Thermistor(s).

But there could be another 1,000,000+ different possibilities.

If the temperature sensing interface is poorly designed, it could be rectifying the interference (diode(s) or transistor junctions), which could make any interference (especially rf etc), worse, as it would be turned into DC (i.e. acting like a radio receiver), rather than tend to be filtered out by the capacitors (if present).

Service PDF, NOT SURE IF RIGHT MODEL NUMBER

 

[Xnaut]

buy a new microwave? If you can afford a Sub-Zero, I'm sure a new microwave is no problem.

It's a Sub-Zero fridge with glass or plexiglass doors and sides, not steel.

mom makes too many trips to the fridge.

Ohhh, that cracked me up!

...but when the nuke box...

My bad... or you could just buy a new... nukebox!

Why would the front of the microwave ever be facing the refrigerator?

Aesthetics?

More likely your mom's accumulation of mini strokes.

Xaxaxaxaxaxaxaxaxaxaxaxaxa!

Microwave ovens have been known to cause interference with wifi.

That came out of nowhere...

Just kidding.

Ohhh mannn! +1

 

[eliminatehumans]

buy a new microwave? If you can afford a Sub-Zero, I'm sure a new microwave is no problem.




Ohhh, that cracked me up!



My bad... or you could just buy a new... nukebox!



Aesthetics?



Xaxaxaxaxaxaxaxaxaxaxaxaxa!



That came out of nowhere...



Ohhh mannn! +1

:thumbsup:

 

[Joepublic2]

My microwave kills all wifi in the room when it's running and I have a 5GHz only network since the 2.4GHz band here is super crowded by all kinds of crap and practically useless. If the EM is strong enough it can interfere with signals in different frequency ranges.

Some fridges have WiFi.

Although I have no idea why anyone would need that..

So when you use something up you can check it off a list that then gets added to your phone next time you go to the store?

Anyway, if the microwave was leaking enough energy to appreciably heat up the fridge it definitely would have caused some more noticeable side effects that somebody would have noticed by now; like heating up your skin fast enough to cause a heat sensation when you were standing in front of it while it was running and possibly even blinding you.

 

[MongGrel]

Well, if the microwave is too close to the fridge and the door is open, it might inhibit the fridge door from closing...

 

[William Gaatjes]

The "how" is simple. Any metal effectively works as an antenna. Antennas convert electromagnetic radiation into simple voltage spikes. Those voltage spikes are what eventually fry the device. You can overcome this problem in a couple of ways, Putting the entire pacemaker in a ferromagnetic container effectively making a Faraday cage would prevent pretty much all interference from an outside source.

Do that and then put a regulator in front of the incoming wires from the pacemaker battery and you are golden. You could wrap them in a metal sheath like coax cables do, but that is bulky and somewhat undesirable. It is much more likely that they simply put a passive voltage filter in front with a regulator to ensure voltage spikes don't fry things.

it is not just shielding or voltage spikes on power supply rails. When a circuit is present with a very high impedance and no emi filtering components, the analog amplifier circuits will amplify the incoming EM rf signals that are picked up by the copper traces (L/C) combination at the input of the amplifier. Old televisions and amplifiers had very high impedance inputs that where hardly filtered. What happened is when cell phone becomes active and starts transmitting, the amplifier circuits would produce a typical "brrp brrrp brrp" sound. When using proper emi beads and small capacitors at the inputs, effectively shorting high frequency signals by giving them a low impedance path. This problem is solved.

The same principle applies for digital circuits. Most digital inputs are very high impedance. If for example some digital input with a high impedance and has a pull up or pull down resistor with a very high ohmic resistance, it is good practice to place a capacitor in parallel of a few 10pF to 100pF. This capacitor will short any rf signal to make sure that the high impedance digital input does not switch state "randomly" when a strong RF field is in the vicinity.

 

[cholley]

My mother says that when the door of her microwave is facing the side of her refrigerator the refrigerator won't maintain the proper temperature but when the nuke box is rotated ninety degrees the effect goes away. Does this sound plausible to you?

mother are known to be unreliable

 

[piasabird]

I think both items can use a lot of wattage. There of course could be a short in the plug and when turned a certain way it causes a problem or it puts pressure on the outlet and the outlet is being stressed.

Maybe when your mother turns a certain way it just sounds different.