Review on 🔌 1000 Watts Sharp R-21LCFS Medium Duty Commercial Microwave by David Crawford

Overall I am happy with this microwave. This is a simple, no-frills design that I learned about when they bought it for a break room at work. It's roomy enough for standard needs. a cup of coffee, a pot of soup, popcorn, a plate, etc. The controls are just a single dial with backlit digits showing the minutes or seconds if it's less than 1 minute. The light "counts down" the cooking time so you know how much time is left. It's also a great way to figure out what time is best and pick that exact time later. Of course you can do this with a digital reader, but with this oven, a quick turn of the knob and you're done. Lasts less than a second. The dial offers very little resistance. It doesn't spin freely enough to keep moving when you let go, but it's very light, so setting the time is easy. It doesn't move during the countdown, so it's an electronic process, not a mechanical one (to my knowledge). It's 1000 W, so there's enough power for cooking. Unfortunately I had to remove some of the stars because the door handle broke 1 year 7 months after purchase. I like the design of the doorknob but there are weak points inside. The door is locked and the microwave will not turn on until the door is closed. This is a security feature. If you close the door and don't turn the microwave on for a while, it will time out and not turn on until you open and close the door again. Nice safety feature so you don't accidentally cook food twice when you're distracted. The handle is locked, and to open it you need to press the door handle. It's not exactly intuitive, so new users can just grab and pull until they know what to press to release the latch. We had guests and when they opened the microwave door the part inside broke so the door would not close again and therefore the microwave would not turn on. I took it apart to diagnose the problem (not recommended). It was a complicated operation just taking the door apart. **Skip to the end if you are not interested in the datasheet** See attached images. I found that the door latch mechanism uses a spring to keep tension on the part that moves in your hand and plastic door latches that the hinge swings into. This hinge is built into the parts as a small plastic protrusion about 4mm in diameter and about 6mm long that fits into a metal hole as the fulcrum for the mechanism. There are two such parts (upper and lower) and the thickening of the upper part is cut off. The part costs about $9 and is available online, but I didn't want to wait that long and the unit was still under warranty. Unfortunately, the nearest authorized service is about 20 miles away and they couldn't even look at the microwave for several days. My original request for customer service was to just mail me the part as I was confident that I could supply it myself. They completely ignored this request and sent their formulaic response 1) Guarantee applies 2) Call this number. I ended up attaching the piece myself, using a rotary tool to pierce where the protrusion was, cut a small machine screw to length with a hacksaw, and glue it in place. Works great although I slightly reduced the structural integrity of the plastic locking head by piercing it. Let's see how long that lasts or the other doesn't fail either. If you choose to perform this operation, remember that simply piercing the plastic part with a drill is not easy, as the drill will bounce on the smooth plastic. A rotary tool works much better, but be careful not to melt the plastic. Do it in short sessions. It is also necessary to cut off the machine screw. It needs to fit in a narrow area, so the length of the lip matters. Eventually I tried to just reattach the plastic tab with superglue, but it snapped again immediately as soon as I reapplied spring tension. **End of technical discussion** I recommend not holding the doorknob and teaching guests how to open the microwave.