Emerson Model MW8625W Microwave Oven Timer Motor Repair May 2012, Last Updated January 2014

May 2012-This oven uses an electro-mechanical design for timer and power control. The timeswitch unit quit timing a couple of years ago. I fixed it this past week. The motor armature was separated into three parts, due to failure of the adhesive that held the parts together. I re-cemented the parts together using Radio-TV Service Cement which is a liquid toluene based cement. I do not know how long this repair will last. Updated July 2013- The service cement repair failed after a few weeks. I re-did the repair using 2-hour Epoxy, and the timer has been working fine ever since (over a year, as of July 2013, of almost daily use). To remove the control panel, do this; (Goes without saying) Unplug the oven before working on it. Remove the three Torx fasteners that hold the steel cover and lift it off of the oven. Unplug the two connectors attached to the Timer unit. Open the oven door. This is important for easy removal of the control unit.

Remove the one Phillips head fastener that attaches the Timer unit to oven cabinet. There is a plastic lever that sticks out of the control unit to engage the door latch mechanism. Carefully rotate control unit to clear door latch mechanism and then lift the control unit out of cabinet.
RED RED WHITE GREY GREY

FUSE, 15A (12A OK)

DOOR INTERLOCK 1

TIME LAMP CONTROL KNOBS POWER TIMESWITCH UNIT GREY TIMER MOTOR

TURNTABLE MOTOR

FAN

120VAC INPUT
MAGNETRON

RED MAGNETRON TRANSFORMER HV DIODE 0.7uF 2100VAC DOOR INTERLOCK 2

BLUE

DOOR INTERLOCK 3

WHITE

Schematic for Emerson MW8625W Microwave Oven Unsolder the two wires, hold the control unit motor-side down, and carefully lower the motor (Labeled Timeswitch Unit) vertically from the control unit. The output shaft should come right out with the motor. You should not need to take apart the white plastic gear-box unless the drive shaft falls inside it during disassembly or reassembly. Set the motor flat on its back on a tabletop, so that you can carefully bend back the four holding tabs and lift the cover plate. The cover plate is no longer fastened to the case, like it was before I worked on it. See photo below.

OUTPUT SHAFT

GEAR 6

PLACE TAB ON THIS CAM INTO THIS SLOT

3 4
5 1

2 1 2

4 5
ARMATURE

Disassembled Timeswitch Motor, Open Clamshell View Gear #2 consists of two separate parts, a gear and a cam. Reassemble the motor in gear number order shown above. The armature consists of a toroidal magnet, a nylon back bushing, and a nylon gear with two cam stops. The armature can start up in either direction. The purpose of the armature cam stops and the gear cam (part of gear #2) is to force the armature to turn in the correct direction if it should happen to start in the wrong direction. The years of repeated torque impulses of these armature start-up events probably caused the adhesive failure. January 6, 2014- A couple of weeks ago the timer started making noise and quit timing again. I thought the motor armature broke again, but today I disassembled the motor and the armature was fine. I reassembled the motor and it worked fine. I dont know what went wrong. When I reinstalled the motor to the timeswitch unit it all worked fine. Then, as a precaution, I installed a cardboard shim underneath the motor to press its cover plate on more firmly when the motor is fastened to the gearbox. I reassembled and retested the unit yet again, and it is all still working fine. The complete microwave oven is working fine now.

You can test the timeswitch/gearbox unit by itself. Use the photo below as a guide.

MAKE SURE THIS WIRE IS CONNECTED!

120 VAC
AC Line Connection to Timeswitch unit for Functional Test* *I took this photo while one motor wire was disconnected, but it must be re-soldered to the terminal indicated by the red arrow to test the assembled unit. When the timeswitch unit is installed in the oven, the unconnected terminal at bottom left goes via a red wire to the primary of the magnetrons power transformer. See also the schematic on a previous page. While it was off of the gearbox I measured the motors output hub speed as exactly 3 rpm. The motor looks exactly like the #15QBP4184 turntable motor used on many Sharp brand microwave ovens, but it has a design feature that forces the output shaft to always rotate counterclockwise, as viewed from the cover plate side of the motor. I dont know if the Sharp turntable motors do that. THE END

The Emerson motors label and part number, KX63501D, are for the entire motor plus gearbox assembly, as evidenced by the inclusion on the label of the ratings for the two SPST switches inside the gearbox. In ERParts.com catalog I found a turntable motor that is rated as 3 rpm, has same five- spindle pattern on cover plate, and appears to have same output shaft hub pattern as the Emerson motor, so it might work as a replacement (provided that it always rotates counterclockwise).

Potential Substitute Motor from ERParts.com catalog

It is available for $16.24 from http://www.patriotsupply.com/products/showitem.cfm/ERP_15QBP4184, or more from other sites.

15QBP4184 Photos from RepairClinic.com, but they say Not Available