Modern toasters are bullshit. This is what you want. https://www.theverge.com/22801890/sunbeam-radiant-control-toaster-t20-t35-vista
Modern? I’m pretty sure this one is older than me and I turned 41 the day before yesterday 😄
That being said, the sunbeam looks brilliant and if I could afford one I’d much prefer that to the one I have!
Just make friends with someone who has one!
(Then steal it)
Well, if it is just the knob you can try gluing it back, cut up toothpicks might help. If you are confident with electrics you can replace the potentiometer.
Toasters just really go by time or temperature, except the Sunbeam which actually goes by if the toast is ‘toast’.
I never let anything die, I just keep fixing it. Hardly an auspicious start though.
After some swearing and trial and error, it turned out that putting it back on was actually quite easy without having to use any glue or anything, making it fulfill the “mildly” part of the community name lol.
Thanks for all the helpful advice nonetheless though, I really appreciate it 🙂
Swearing and impact technology are greatly underrated techniques for appliance repair.
Nice! I like “impact technology” almost as much as “concussive calibration” 😂
We also used percussive maintenance
Not true, I had a Philips toastsensor that apparently sensed the toast.
It was good only to burn said toast. That toaster is now in the garbage and has been replaced by a regular one. Good riddance!
Didn’t Technology Connections make a few videos about it?
Edit: ah they’re linked
I have a kitchenaid toaster that matches my KitchenAid…I hate it , it manages to burn one edge on either side of every slice of every bread. It beeps before it makes a loud pop to so the beep is annoying and superfluous. It’s first setting is warm bread and second is just passed acceptable, 3 is burnt. I’ve never used the remaining 4 -6 settings. If you put bread in at 2 and then another batch when it is done it will burn the second lot.
Utter piece of shit for the price we paid. You’d get, and in fact I have, a better toaster for a tenth the price doing your grocery shopping.
These days, any purchase you make is a gamble without research. And even with research, it’s hard to tell the difference between a reviewed version and the one you’re looking at sometimes.
Holy fuck, why didn’t this catch on?
The article mentions that they costed about 22 USD when introduced and it’s around 260 in today’s dollars. Pretty darn expensive
That’s actually better than I expected, but yeah, I’m guessing that was the issue.
Now, a pressure sensor and microcontroller would be pennies at scale, and most toasters already use solenoids. I’m less sure about the temperature sensor because of how much heat it would have to tolerate, but I doubt it would be more than a few dollars, and manufacturing a slightly different board would be a one-time cost.
This would make a pretty good startup. The YouTube videos have done some of the marketing already, even.
I think some of the fondness for devices like these also comes from the subjective beauty/elegance of mechanical stuff over the modern microcontroller approach with electronics. But yeah, it still would be very interesting to see stuff like this available again at a cheaper price
I get that too, but this is a concept that’s actually relevant (in toast-making terms) outside of any academic or aesthetic considerations. It’s just better.
Indeed, no disagreement there! By the way, Technology Connections (the YouTube channel referred in the article) has a video on how an old microwave is miles ahead its modern counterparts. You might like that, too
My guess is that the profit margin wasn’t big enough 😮💨
Hmm, I guess it might have been pretty complex for 40’s manufacturers. Hopefully someone gives it another try.
Or something with a knob for heath control, to counter the aging bimetal.
To be fair it looks fucking tired.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s older than me and I turned 41 the day before yesterday 😅
The philips circle logo on there is the black version that they stopped using in 1968. If I had something that worked for that long I think I’d have a funeral for it.
Oh wow, really? You sure they didn’t retire it in the US then and in Europe later?
Either way, I’m too poor and environmentally conscious to throw out anything that still works 🤷
…which this does again. Found out after some swearing, trial and error that re-attaching the knob was actually quite easy!
Found out after some swearing, trial and error that re-attaching the knob was actually quite easy!
Now that’s Mildly Infuriating! ;-)
OP’s previous toaster :
If only!
My previous toaster was none. This is the first and only toaster I’ve ever owned myself.
Toasting to the new year?
Trying to, at least 🤷
The sense of scale in this picture is weird, the table kind of looks like carpet and the toaster looks like a larger appliance
That’s because I took the photo from a weird angle and cropped it tightly, both to avoid showing how cluttered the rest of my kitchen counter is too clearly 😅
As for the surface looking like carpet, that’s just the pattern of the coating 🤷
That toaster gives me the vibes of my '80s Apple //c
Wouldn’t COMPLETELY rule out that the design of 80s Macs were based on that of Philips toasters tbh 😂
Now how are you gonna adjust the volume on your toast?
I’m a red-blooded Scandinavian man! I like my cars sensible, quiet and preferably electric and I want my toast loud and diesel-fueled!
Time for a 3D printer …
^this. Even a $200 cheap ass printer can handle printing a knob like this and it’ll even keep your toast warm forever if you want 👍
It’ll also provide endless hours of fucking around learning a new hobby and limitless conversation options to get people to leave you alone at parties!
Shh! Do you WANT Big Ag to assassinate you? 😬😄
My friends buy 3d printers for thousands of dollars and then they make stuff like a headphone stand that would cost them 10 dollars to buy… :p
You can buy a good printer for $100 (Ender 3) you know. Print 10 things and it pays for itself…
Looks more like a CD burner…
More like a CD Melter if you try that, I bet…
I just want to get a toaster that runs netbsd
It could have been worse, at least you didn’t manage to set your’s on fire like I did lol
Yeah, after a bit of swearing trial and error, I managed to reattach it and it works again.
Though I can’t say I haven’t tried, I’m almost positive that I can’t undo fire 😄
I hope you’re alright unlike your toaster, btw
Out with the old, in with the new…
Nah, I managed to fix it. This baby has apparently been going strong since at least 1968 and it’s still got a little left!
Still… Could be worse…
To quote the esteemed philosopher Frank Zappa from his seminal work Titties & Beer: that’s very, very true!
Auspicious is a nice word.
Thanks, I agree 😁
that is exactly auspicious because it is definitely a sign… the sign says: you will buy a new toaster this year…
Nah, after some swearing, trial and error, I found out that it was actually am easy fix, so it’s up and running again!
Besides, do I look like I have “toaster from this millenium” money? 😛
New year, new toaster
