strange remark about your collection?

A triac would be better as it would contuct on both half-cycles. But be careful. You don;t want to switch over fractions of the AC cycle (like a lamp dimmer). You want the magnetron to be fully on for a bit, then fully off for a (different) bit. The magnetron is essentially a facy directly heated diode valve. For mechancial reaosns, the anode is earthed, the filament runs at a high -ve voltage. The transformer powers the filmanent and provides the HV. You need to have the filament fully powred for the magnetron to do anything much, hence the reason not to try swithcign the AC over part of the cycle. In any case the mechancial thing was easier to fix :-) Am I the only pwerson to rememebr 'simmerstats'? They are still used AFAIK (or at least the ceramic hob (cooktop) we got about 4 years ago uses them). A simmerstat is a hot wire and bimetalic stip used as a pulse width modulator, used to switch a conventional heating element on and off and deliver the right average heat to the thing you are cooking. It's not a thermostat, it doesn't check the temperature of the load. It just turns the element on for a few seconds, then off for a diffenrnt length of time, and so on. COme to think of it, years ago I saw a small smmmerstat built into an over-sized UK mains plug, to be used with tabletop plate warmers, etc. -tony