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Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?

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Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?

#361

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

masto wrote: post #324
jws wrote: post #60

I married into toaster moguls. When they sold out in '97, domestic toasters had been infeasible for years already. And this was for a company where all the knowledge, equipment, and facilities had beed paid for many decades before. (They invented the electric pop-up toaster for certain definitions of electric pop-up toaster.) Toasters are refined brilliance, if done right. The concept of "done" is computed using an a…

They don't all have nothing that isn't required. My toaster runs Android, has a touch screen, WiFi and an app, and a camera for the AI to identify what you put in it and so you can watch a live stream of your toast or play back recordings from the cloud. It was a pre-order in 2015 that didn't ship for two years. Unfortunately they sold out to Weber a couple of years ago and the product has been discontinued, much to…

>My toaster runs Android, has a touch screen, WiFi and an app, and a camera for the AI to identify what you put in it and so you can watch a live stream of your toast or play back recordings from the cloud.

You—you're kidding, right? Right?

Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?

#363

Post by sotix »

sgarland wrote: post #325
tim333 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gosh I didn't know there were toaster chips but it seems so. One here 8 pin package with pin 3 being the bagel pin. https://www.diodes.com/assets/Datasheets/PT8A2514A.pdf

I have wondered for the longest time what the BAGEL button actually did, because on my cheap toaster, it seems to do very little. Unfortunately I still have more questions after reading the schematic. SW4 (BAGEL) allows current flow through R9/LED3 (BAGEL) which raises Vbe on Q2, forward biasing it, allowing current flow through Q2, dropping Vcs. Meanwhile, power has been flowing through the main switch, with RL3/RL4…

I have a different experience than the other commentator with my toaster’s bagel button. Both sides still get heated. My bagel button makes the toasting cycle last longer than normal, which is perfect for defrosting a frozen bagel and then toasting to the setting the wheel is set to.

Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?

#364

Post by arghwhat »

sgarland wrote: post #357
arghwhat wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The example toaster has 2 toast slots 3 heating elements (EDIT: Technically 4, as the last element is split into two: RL3 and RL4). Relay 2, activated when the "bagel" light is lit through the gate of Q2, disconnects neutral from heating element 2 (the one in between slot 1 and 2) and 1 (the one on the outside of slot 2). This means that there is only power to the outside heating element of slot 1, allowing you to to…

Then what is RL4? If it were just a resistor for a voltage divider, I’d think it might be labeled differently than the other three.

RL3 and RL4 are both heating elements in slot 1 - likely just one heating element with a tap somewhere - that indeed acts like a voltage divider.

The power to the circuit flows from in between those heating elements, through a single rectifier (D1), through a 1W resister (R1), before being clamped to 5.1V by a zener (VZ1). The use of the heating element as a voltage divider is just to get closer to the target voltage (However, the schematic is missing a connection to VCC from the 5V rail it created - it only connects to the high side of the mains relay/toast magnet as well as the bagel button. It was supposed to connect to VCC, which in that schematic is only connected as to the clock circuit.

(I was not using the RL numbers when I numbered the heating elements in my previous comment originally - my bad. I updated the comment.)

Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?

#365

Post by HomeDeLaPot »

madeofpalk wrote: post #329
masto wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't all have nothing that isn't required. My toaster runs Android, has a touch screen, WiFi and an app, and a camera for the AI to identify what you put in it and so you can watch a live stream of your toast or play back recordings from the cloud. It was a pre-order in 2015 that didn't ship for two years. Unfortunately they sold out to Weber a couple of years ago and the product has been discontinued, much to…

Surely in 2015 we all knew that a wifi toaster running android was going to be a disaster?

"Hackers compromised my toaster and burned down my house."

Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?

#366

Post by arghwhat »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #297
tim333 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gosh I didn't know there were toaster chips but it seems so. One here 8 pin package with pin 3 being the bagel pin. https://www.diodes.com/assets/Datasheets/PT8A2514A.pdf

Intel makes pretty good toaster chips too. https://www.overclock.net/threads/worried-about-13900k-tempe...

A few hundred degrees celsius off mate.

Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?

#367

Post by dheera »

jszymborski wrote: post #204
dylan604 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you are greatly over-estimating how many people would be willing to pay the cost of a North American made toaster. Who wants a $75+ toaster just because it was "Made In USA"? Is it going to make toast better than a $15 toaster "Hecho In Mexico" or whatever other country? Even making the infrastructure to make a toaster would not do much in the way of increasing the manufacturing abilities in the US. What co…

I would by a $75+ toaster that: - was made in a free Democratic country - is of quality I often pay a premium for such items.

> was made in a free Democratic country

Why is this important to you? If civilians are oppressed by a government, I'm all the MORE willing to support the civilians to do what they want to be doing, and if making the world's best toaster is what they want to be doing I will more than happily pay them for it and help them live the life they want in spite of whatever regime they are in.

It wasn't their fault they were born into a political mess and while I understand the desire to financially hurt oppressive regimes, I'm not in favor of doing so in ways that also punish civilians who are just trying to live a happy life.

Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?

#369

Post by JoeAltmaier »

wegfawefgawefg wrote: post #338
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm. Where I live, I built my house in the country. There were no rules, no inspections except well and septic by the county health department. Maybe other counties have the resources to create bureaucracies. But her in the Midwest there's not the budget for creating elaborate rules, much less paying inspectors.

The majority of the US population lives in places where thats not the case.

Right, right. But where you live is a choice.

Re: Ask HN: Should I try to manufacture toasters?

#370

Post by crazygringo »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #346
crazygringo wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what is a "good" toaster? My $25 toaster works fine. And it's got the modern stainless steel look that blends in nicely with other modern kitchen appliances. What benefits would a toaster from 1994 or earlier give me? My bread and bagels are currently successfully toasted.

>But what is a "good" toaster? One that toasts your bread slices evenly every time, without under toasting it or burning it, and without you needing to fiddle with the timer know all the time in order to mitigate those issues. If your 25$ toaster achieves that it's the lottery winning exception, not the rule. Most toaster are just terrible at toasting evenly even after you fiddle with the knob to find the right Goldi…

I dunno, I've just never had a problem.

I figure out the right number/setting for the bread I like and it toasts.

What is "even" toasting? Like I genuinely can't tell if my toaster is uneven or whether I should suddenly be unhappy with it. I mean I guess it's not the precise exact shade of tan in every spot, but I've never seen that in my life, even at fancy restaurant breakfasts.

If one part of my toast is a different shade of brown I don't have a problem. I mean, it toasts and it doesn't burn. And I don't think I've won any kind of lottery.

I just feel like I'm missing something here. Cheap modern toasters seem... perfectly fine.

(Mine is a two-slice toaster from Hamilton Beach I bought for $25 which has 11K reviews on Amazon, 4.4 stars [1]. So most of the reviewers seem pretty happy too. It does seem like there are some 1-star reviewers who got duds where the inside and outside toast at different rates, or it doesn't toast half the slice. So maybe there's a quality control issue, but it seems like most people's units, including mine, don't have those problems.)

[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KZ729F6

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