Defeating security Torx

[Mike Clarke]

... and a photocell to monitor how brown it's got and control the laser scan pattern so that you get even brown all over.

[geoff]

How much ???

the 32 bit security set is around a quid from CPC

[geoff]

Birmingham?

Make your own tool ...

[Matty F]

Check the contacts that open and close when the handle is pushed down. They can become dirty or corroded.

[Windmill]

Don't know about recent UK toasters, but the older ones had a nifty thermo-mechanical bistable/toggle device.

A small heating coil in series with the main heating element heated a bimetallic strip until it toggled a switch which bypassed aforesaid small heating coil. The bimetallic strip then cooled down and when fully cold again it tripped the mechanism which held the toast in place and also turned on the electricity supply to the toaster element.

Result was that the next slice(s) of toast were toasted to about the same degree as the first because the bimetallic strip always started from a cold state.

I call this nifty because Canadian and American toasters of a similar vintage lacked the toggling arrangement for the bimetallic strip. They just heated and toasted until the bimetallic strip was hot enough to turn off the supply and pop the toast. Which left the bimetallic strip in a hot state, resulting in underdone toast if you tried to do another slice without waiting for several minutes to allow everything to cool back to room temperature.

N. American toasters never worked well anyway.

I'm wondering if the bean counters have forced the same mis design on today's UK toasters. (Or are they all computer-controlled? A photosensor could assess the degree of browning, which might be handy if it could toast both white and brown bread ti the same degree without changing any settings, but that seems unlikely to cause the unevenly toasted bread someone complained of).

[Huge]

My Dualit is over 10 years old.

[Bob Eager]

+1

[Sn!pe]

When the local posh cooking shop asked ~£150 for a Dualit two-slot toaster I thought I can buy a new toaster every year for that money. Our John Lewis one, bought for a fraction of the Dualit price, is still going strong after four years. It makes bloody good toast too.

[Man at B&Q]

+1

MBQ

[Man at B&Q]

No.

[<me9]

My Dualit percolator was two years old when I gave up on it last month. The Morphy Richards one that I had before lasted well over a quarter century.

I wonder how long my De Longhi coffee maker will last. Several Years at least I hope.

[Huge]

There's your error.

Not if you cost your time.

[Huge]

The handle has broken twice on our Dualit percolator. Both times, they sent us a new one FoC, the second time with a new lid, since the design had changed, presumably because of the handles breaking. We've had it at least 5 years and it gets used every day.

[Richard Robinson]

Is there any other sort ? Point infra-red at it till just before it starts to smoke ... is it /possible/ to f*ck toast up, apart from with the timing ?

I've bought 2 toasters in the last dozen years, for a total of £17 or £18 quid. I don't eat a huge amount of toast, right enough, and there is only 1 of me. But I can't see how it's possible that my Toast User Experience could have been enhanced by having spent ten times that.

[Halmyre]

No-one has yet suggested 'angle grinder'. What's going on here?

-- Halmyre

[<me9]

The knob is broken but still holds without the black disc and seal, but the overheat thermostat went OC as well.

The thing that put me off repairing it was that if I looked in after it had cooled, and still had coffee in it it looked as if something was effervescing slightly around the edge of the well at the base. I wasn't sure what was happening and didn't like the idea of drinking the stuff afterwards.

[Bob Eager]

Much cheaper in Costco. About £125 for a four slot Dualit last time I looked.

[Andy Dingley]

Although the timers on Dualits have a pretty poor reputation. Easy fix, there's plenty around. Funny that.

[Mike Tomlinson]

In article , [e-mail] writes

If it's the model "Cafe Treviso"/ BAR 14 /EC152 espresso maker, make sure you never let the water tank run dry. A houseguest did just that with mine and knackered it. I can't decide whether to order the parts to fix it or just spring for a new one, around the 50 quid mark delivered.

[Alan Braggins]

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