OT: Toasters

[John]

Try making toast in the toaster - then covering the toast with cheese and then give it about 30 seconds in the microwave. Saves using the grill.

[Si]

Sodatream fizzy drinks makers have a distinctive sound. I had cause to telephone their support line once and a lot of thought had clearly been put into the script to avoid offence to the caller as far as possible. :)

[T i m]

I think we used to use the microwave more and such things but (for whatever reason, novelty wearing off probably) it tends to be used for just re-heating and jacket potatoes these days?

All the best ..

T i m

[T i m]

Now we are thinking .. ;-)

I thought the start was so promising as well .. ;-)

Hmm, if I have to ...

All the best ..

T i m

[tinnews]

Pretty close to identical when toasting multiple slices off the same loaf.

I'm not expecting the toaster to cook a random collection of slices of bread to the same brownness but I do expect to be able to make a series of slices from the same loaf without too much hassle.

I seem to remember a toaster we had many moons ago had (or at least claimed it had) a photo cell to see how brown the toast had got.

[T i m]

Clever and maybe that technology should have been the norm all along?

Like I was saying about having an answering machine that doesn't date and time stamp messages, display how many messages are stored or only actually records the message properly now and again?

Blige.

And my point ... this sort of thinking and design *can* (apparently) be integrated into a toaster to make it more predictable, well it could 50 years ago anyway?

All the best ..

T i m

[tinnews]

Surely it must be possible to compensate for this effect, something slightly cleverer than a crude timer maybe?

[tinnews]

None of those matter if you're looking at the colour, that's the point of an optical sensor. It just takes longer if the bread is new (and thus damper).

You turn it up a bit for a browner result, I'm quite happy to have to change the setting for different coloured bread. It's just that it doesn't seem to me to be all *that* difficult to design a toaster where the 'how much' setting specifies how brown the result it.

[T i m]

So, are you suggesting that there is *no way* (at any cost and just to be sure here) that a toaster couldn't accurately detect the toasting process and stop accordingly Derek?

All the best ..

T i m

[T i m]

(I should have read your reply before replying earlier Clive )

Yeah, wot he said!

All the best ..

T i m

[Andy Wade]

Morphy-Richards, I think you'll find, unless RH licensed the idea from M-R who patented it in 1948 or thenabouts.

Ah, so I'm not the _only_ person left using one...

[Andrew Gabriel]

Yes, you're right. Found one on the web which is identical except my parents' one is all chrome where this one is cream:

> The timing elements of this mechanism was supposed to give

I've had to fix it a few times. The element broke (looked like someone stuck a fork in it). I crimped it by folding a tiny steel washer in half, and this repair lasted about

10 years. I did it again about a year ago using the crimp part cut off the end of a small high temperature eyelet. (There's a hot spot right near one end which looks like it will be difficult to fix if it actually burns out.) About 25 years ago, one of the main switch contacts burned out, which given the large size of them was rather surprising. I fitted a microswitch instead.

It still cleans up very nicely.

[Edward W. Thompson]

More money than sense comes to mind. £100 for a toaster? That is simply absurd.

[chris French]

In message , T i m writes

Our toaster has always lived under the cupboards, normal type kitchen, never had any problem.

More than once had flames coming from the grill though.....

[Steve Firth]

It's worth paying the premium, although my own preference for toasters is Lincat. These are the ones that are really used in catering, and that most Dualit owners seem to think are Dualits even though the only similarity is that they both have a stainless steel exterior.

TBH I haven't seen Dualits used in catering anywhere that I can recall.

[T i m]

That was the only bit that concerned me (once we had proved that std use had no negative effect on the cupboards) but I wonder even if a slice of bread (or 4) was to catch fire and be left to burn out that there would be enough heat in the flame at that height to actually set fire to the cupboards?

Not something I want to test of course ...

All the best ..

T i m

[T i m]

I wonder how many of these 'opportunities' go past undone and even untried these days Andrew. Something so simple and cheap as a washer/crimp and for that tiny material outlay allowed the toaster to continue for another 10 years? Ok, I can see how many would even have that small washer any many wouldn't have the interest, time, skill, imagination to even see why it wasn't working in the first place.

;-)

Well, there's always that stage too far.

When our daughter was helping me put the (repaired) tumble dryer back together the other day we were musing over the idea of setting up a business where we would pay (a small amount) to collect peoples faulty appliances from their homes, take them back to a central warehouse where they could be grouped alongside similar models and working units made from the other donor parts. Probably something done in countries that can't afford to just dump stuff because of a simple fault like we do. (Like the work I've seen them doing on cars in India and Africa etc).

"25 years ago" .. ! I wonder how many people these days would still have a toaster that they can remember repairing over such a period? ;-)

As does much of this stuff, assuming the owner would allow them self the demeaning process of not simply throwing it away (I'm still not sure where 'away' is) and *just* buying a new one.

How many of us here have 'salvaged' (say) a £200 Dyson for the 3 mins it takes to cut out the broken section of mains cable etc ...

All the best ..

T i m

p.s. I'm really not looking forward to seeing a cage full of (irreparable)[1] TFT / Plasma screens at the dump in a few years time.

[1] Irreparable because you can't get the parts, there are no TV repairers about any more and no one will be 'bothered' to try. A mate had a 19" TFT VDU die the other day and was about to chuck it in the bin. I took it to bits and as a educated long-shot found a replacement inverter on eBay. Cost him £23 (inc delivery from Germany) and he now has a working screen again. ;-)

[T i m]

I was thinking that Edward.

So for £29 you can buy a Microwave .. (magnetron, case / door, internal light, turntable motor and turntable, digital timer. It will work, 5 mins is 5 mins etc.)

£99 buys you a tumble dryer (timer, motor, drum, large steel cabinet, buttons / switches ..)

etc etc.

I suppose if the Dualits are hand made by people on a decent wage, contain more expensive, non-electronic (and cheap to mass produce) parts (clockwork timers) and are 'designed' to have parts replaced (which might affect the manufacturing process) then I suppose some of the cost is justified ...?

But then I guess the above apples to the (European) £99 Tumble dryer ..?

Or maybe it's simply the market the Dualit would typically be sold into (catering) .. like why everything sold to hospitals or to assist the disabled seems to be 5x the non medical version cost (in spite of them being the same thing in many cases)?

Ho hum ...

All the best ..

T i m

[T i m]

>TBH I haven't seen Dualits used in catering anywhere that I can recall. Hmm, we popped into a cafe yesterday and I noticed a Dualit 6 slicer (recognizable by the end plate and lifter knob etc) but I think I have seen Lincat used in city deli's etc.

the prices seem similar to the Dualit (Lincat LT4X) and similar throughput.

All the best ..

T i m

[Huge]

The belt-fed ones I've seen all over the place. The Vario's not so much - a couple of the little Italian places in the City use them to make toasties.

BTW, the bloody knob came off my Dualit percolator this morning; it must have known we were talking about them. I shall see what their sparing is like when I ring tomorrow.