Can the light bulb be replaced easily in a Panasonic NN-C897W (combination)?

Yes it can. There is a safety period to discharge the magnetron. I can't remember how long so unplug the oven overnight. That's plenty of time.

Undo the cover securing screws at the back (6 of them) and pull the cover straight backwards. You might have to use some muscle here. Don't tilt it up too much though or you might bend the tabs. Lift off cover. The lamp has a white base and has two terminals to which wires are connected (one white pair and one orange/pink pair). Undo the single screw that secures the lamp holder and remove from the hole.

The only difficult part is removing the wires from the terminals. Don't pull on the wires but hold the terminal connectors. If they are too hard to pull off you will need to slide the clear plastic insulators down the wire. Then push in the spring tag on the connector while pulling. Use a flat bladed screwdriver to push the tag in and pull simultaneously. It comes off really easily that way. Once you have the lamp disconnected reposition the clear plastic insulators.

Installing the new lamp is easy. The connectors slide on easily (no need to press in spring tags). position the lamp in the hole, and secure with the screw. It goes without saying that you should ensure you have the correct replacement lamp with the same wattage and voltage as the old one.

Replacing the cover might be fiddly but make sure the top tabs are lined up properly with the top of the oven. You can get away with tilting the cover a little to locate the side tabs but don't do it too much or you'll bend them. When replacing the cover screws remember that one of them also secures a vent cover too so make sure that's aligned.

And that's it. The only other difficulty I had was getting someone to sell me a lamp. They thuoght I would blow myself up and burn the house down!

Ronald
March 2009