I hope the comments here don't end up quibbling about the practicality or economics of this toaster specifically, because the point here is the process. This project involves reverse engineering, designing from scratch, manufacturing, developing beginner-accessible documentation, and performing real-world user studies. We should be encouraging people to do more of this!
But I am actually interested in the economics! The author mentions sending his designs out to a factory - I would expect this is astonishingly expensive for a single prototype! Wouldn’t that be thousands of dollars? Is anyone familiar how to get good factory-made parts like this at DIY budgets?
Not that that takes away from the article at all. This project has many merits, and although cost may not be one of them, it’s still interesting!
This project seems to take its heating elements, clockwork timer and knob from a classic Dualit 2 Slice toaster - so those parts are all available off-the-shelf.
Other than that, this design needs some laser cut and bent metal, and some wooden feet. If you're able to bend the metal yourself and find some off-the-shelf feet, you could probably get the flat sheets of stainless steel laser cut and shipped for less than $100.
On the other hand, if one wanted a factory to do more demanding production processes, with more worker time or more machine setup - you're right that it would cost a good deal more.
There are also services that can do the sheet metal bending for you if you have the cad designed. Of course shipping can get pricey, but I think it’s not prohibitively expensive.
I build things like this in similarly low quantity - you are probably looking at a grand or two toaster kit there, 95% of which is the custom parts - if it was done locally. The time for someone else to do it is what your paying for. It can be done exceptionally cheap in dollars if YOU do it, but you'll still pay with your time, and you'll still need machine access.
Cheap and easy "factory" quality is probably PCBWAY or similar in China - they do more than PCBs these days. Call it "prototype" budget - several hundred dollars of parts instead of thousands.
My experience is that PCBWay and similar usually offer better quality than doing it yourself. They get their costs down by automating everything they can. They're usually competitive at initial samples than many of the big houses too for essentially the same reason.
The other big insight here is that often making 50 doesn't cost much more than making 1, as much of the cost will be in programming and setup charges, not actually running the part. Sheet steel is pretty cheap, too.
No, it wouldn't cost thousands. There are plenty of shops that specialize in prototypes and small pilot runs and there's nothing complicated about the design or material of this product.
Perfect in what sense? Kickstarter is useful if you're thinking of doing something capital-intensive and need money and customers beforehand. This comes with downsides: deadlines, shipping, cranky customers, etc.
This is a hobby project and there's nothing to suggest that the author wants to get in the business of selling toasters for a living... or that it would be wise for them to do so.
It looks like off the shelf electronics with custom sheet metal parts.
Are far as low volume prototyping goes, sheet metal is as cost efficient as it gets for large metal parts. If you're sourcing from China, I'd estimate 500 bucks per prototype (with two sets in case one breaks).
My parents literally have a toaster from the 70s that they still use. I have a toaster I bought 20 years ago. Toasters (usually) don't have e-waste. They are incredibly simple machines that are easy to buy without so much as a single diode. That's because they are really simply just a box with heating elements.
If you want to battle e-waste like the article suggests, maybe pick a product that doesn't already have a 50-year service life without the need for repairs.
Modern toasters are generally way less reliable than older toasters. I think it is very difficult to buy a new toaster today that you can be confident will have a 50-year lifespan.
Not everyone has a big American kitchen where you can try new appliances and not worry about space. I've been thinking about getting an air fryer but it's not an easy decision because I'd have to remove something else that I use; and I know others in the same position.
It wouldn't replace the toaster, because that fits on the windowsill and an air fryer would not.
I bought one in 2017, lasted 2 years before 1 of the heating elements died. We struggled along with 2/4 slices until we replaced it during covid with a 2 slice toaster. I dont really trust its going to last 50 years or whatever.
I find this thread fascinating because even people's "long-term durable" idea of a toaster is way below my experiences and expectations. I would expect even cheap ones to last atleast 20 years. And whats with people replacing their toast cords? What are you doing with the cord that it doesn't last decades?
I wonder if this is a case where spending more money results in a worse product because the cheapest versions are essentially a solved design without any gimmicks or unproven design changes made to try justify a higher price/markup.
One obvious thing is that some people are probably toasting a slice a week and others half a dozen a day. The parts don’t time out, they wear out, so that really matters.
Another is that being cheap, there’s probably quite variable quality.
So it’s not that surprising that experiences vary.
You bring up a good point in that at one point it is also about ensuring the quality of materials and construction processes so that everything lasts by default. On top of that, repairability is another factor. I have a fancy kettle that I am sure will not last five years, and I regret buying it.
Not relevant. In addition to the article linked above, her profile photo and video interviews with her about the toaster all indicate that she's an actual female woman, and there's no reason to assume otherwise.
I mean it's bad enough that most people in this thread saw a cool engineering project and made a default assumption of male. To have it gently pointed out that the designer is a woman and then still hold the assumption she's male is even more gratingly sexist.
Probably not intended as such but "actual female woman" is also a bit disrespectful, since it implies that trans women aren't "actual female women", why not use cis? It gets your point across and doesn't imply anything else.
Because some people don't use that term to describe themselves either, even if that is what they biologically are. CIS is a pretty good term, because it's very technically correct. Sadly many have been on the receiving end of debates where it is used a a slur, and considers it hurtful.
Personally I most see it used in anger, so I wouldn't use it, unless doing a biology report.
It also has the weird problem that you mostly see it in a "do you identify as cis", which I at least don't... I am cis, but that's not question. This leads to some really weird situation where you have teams of larger middle age straight, and cis, men, but you have one or two that answer that they don't identify as such.
This is very much off topic, but I'd personally I'd prefer that we just stop labeling people. Just use their name, it's fine, you don't need to know or even understand the gender of the person who makes a repairable flatpack toaster. It's an cool project regardless of who made it.
I do think it matters that people default to male. I wouldn’t want people to keep calling me “she” because I happen to be in a woman-dominated field. I understand why one would find this grating.
My toaster broke a week ago. I tried repairing it and found out exactly what the post says: almost impossible without breaking it (or seriously bending parts just to take them apart). After realizing that I wouldn't be able to, I decided to buy a used one, but couldn't find any on offer around my area that looked in good enough shape. Ended up paying 25€ for a new one, which will arrive by post any time soon. I find the whole experience extremely unsatisfying and would love more of this (repairable and self-assembly-able electric appliances).
On the subject of toasters, if you want one that lasts then grab an old toastmaster or Sunbeam (the kind with the chrome sides) and spend a weekend doing a deep clean. They are held together with screws, not bent over tabs. You might be up against decades of baked on grease, so you'll have to break out the sodium hydroxide. You should probably replace the asbestos cord with a rubber one too. The toaster will then last the remainder of your life.
The main downside is that the slots are usually to narrow for bagels.
There aren't any infinite number of old toasters out there, but there's enough out there for everyone who wants to do the above.
Have you ever had one fail? Mine is the $10 plastic special from 20 years ago still toasting it's heart out.
The simpler a toaster is, the more likely it is to have eternal life. If you can buy a modern toaster that's just the knob and levers (no digital controls or whatever) then there's really no reason it won't last decades.
Tempting fate here but I don’t see any reason why my cheapo spring loaded toaster won’t give me another 10 years of life. There’s nothing to go wrong if used correctly.
Back when I was a kid in the 80s toasters would break because we shoved in hacked up pieces of bread or bagels where the food touched the elements and caught fire. And knives were poked inside to extract burnt remains from the heating elements.
I was shocked to see there are toasters with motorized lifting mechanisms. Is there any practical reason why this is better than a spring?
> there any practical reason why this is better than a spring?
Depends what you mean by “practical”. Motorised avoid the jump scare and don’t risk launching light pieces out of the toaster.
I’d also assume (but don’t know as I’ve never been much of a toaster person) they can have a longer movement range and limit crumbing through lower acceleration stress.
Actually toasters need to be able to switch off a huge current, which causes arcing. This arcing may slowly burn the PCB and desolder the metal contact mounted on the PCB. At least that's what happened with my last toaster after >5 years. Repaired it once, then after a year it broke again, but this time the PCB through hole was severely burned and it wasn't trivially fixable anymore.
Motorized mechanisms... hmm. Well, sometimes toasters pop up toasts too hard making them land on the floor.
I bought one from 1965 last year. Got it cheap on eBay. Seller said it didn't work. Seller just didn't know how to turn the knob on the side. I have to buy bread that isn't as wide as I was getting but it's totally worth it. Perfect toast every time.
got a 1930s toastmaster single slice for $30 on eBay. new carbon switch contacts, new nichrome wire, new cord. functions great and really looks nice. there are a lot of broken toasters in the world.
Even other more complex appliances get tossed too easily. My spouse’s desire to get rid of our 15yo microwave was replaced a while ago by the satisfaction of being able to keep it going. I’ve fixed it twice with a few bucks of parts (waveguide cover, door switch).
What I don't like about Thomas Thwaites's Toaster project is that I feel the end product intentionally looks bad. I feel the artist could have chosen different paths and could have created a practical toaster just with a little bit of care. The artist just choose to not do that because if the toaster would look practical and usable that would undermine their message about globalism, and the supposed impossibility of the task. Because in a project like this "man sets out to build a toaster, and actually succeeds" does not sounds good. And that just feels like learned helplessness.
He's an artist, not an engineer. I'm willing to believe that the toaster genuinely is his best effort. I know that I could do far better, but I have a lifetime of experience in herding atoms. I suspect that my attempt at oil painting would be equally risible.
But also, there is no clear boundary between being an artist and being an engineer. There are artist who show great mastery of engineering in their art work. Either because they studied engineering, or because they picked up enough relevant skills practically to achieve what they want to achieve.
I have a particular taste and not everyone will agree what is and isn’t art. But i consider for example David C. Roy‘s wooden kinetic sculptures both art and engineering. Similarly Jacob Tonski’s Balance from Within (a victorian sofa balancing on a single leg) incorporates both art and excelent engineering. Or Thea Ulrich’s aerial moon sculpture. Where the physical manufacturing of the sculpture is the engineering component, while the aerial dance performed on it is the art component. In each of these they could have said “hey I’m just an artist, you can’t possibly expect my thing to work” or “hey i’m an engineer, you can’t possibly expect my thing to have artistic value”. But they were not satisfied with either of those, and pushed themselves, their art and their craft until they got something wonderfull.
Where there is a will there is a way. And where the will is to make the object look shitty, you will get that result. Which is fine. But i have heard people draw the conclusion from his work that somehow this is the best anyone can do. And that is not fine with me.
Having mended a few toasters in my time I salute this effort. Cheap toasters are very difficult to take apart and mend. The toasting mechanism on this one looks great.
Cheap toasters only last a few years before dying. Usually because someone jams it up then clumsily unjams it while damaging the element.
After going through a few toasters in quick succession I finally bought an expensive Dualit one. It's still going 25 years later. I changed the timer mechanism once which was a joy, and you can easily buy spare parts.
The Dualit cost over 10 times more than the cheap toasters though. I don't regret that purchase though and it has actually saved me money over the years and made much less landfill.
Funnily enough the toaster in this article looks quite like the Dualit. I don't suppose that is a coincidence!
Having recently done a timer replacement on a Dualit, I think that might literally be a Dualit timer module. Looks identical in the packing box photo. It wouldn’t surprise me if the heating elements were the same as well (haven’t checked) though those are probably more commonly available as generic items.
- Toast is toasted on one end, un-toasted at the other.
- Control is just a timer, so the second time you use it twice in succession it will be hot at the start and will need a shorter time, which you have to figure out.
Check out the Sunbeam Radiant Control Toaster (1949-1980), which is still considered the peak of toaster design.[2] It's repairable, too. Now replicating that would be a good project.
How do you give out a mains powered toaster with assembly instructions just like that?
My experience with diy electronics is that most kit designers are super wary of even giving instruction on mains anything...so as not to be held liable.
The British used to sell appliances without the plug attached - it was just bare wires. Buying the plug separately and knowing how to attach it was just a basic skill you were expected to know.
Not sure what changed, as I understand it they don't really do that anymore.
> The British used to sell appliances without the plug attached - it was just bare wires. Buying the plug separately and knowing how to attach it was just a basic skill you were expected to know.
I'm having flashbacks to moving back to the US from the UK-o-sphere, and re-splicing plugs for appliances that supported both voltages.
My understanding is that selling appliances without plugs was done to make work for the electronic shops. People attaching their own plugs would seem to defeat the purpose.
Britain had two common standards for electrical outlets (BS 1363 and the older BS 546) plus a few less-common proprietary types. BS 1363 became the preferred standard for new installations in 1947, but the other types remained fairly common for decades. Appliances were not required to be supplied with a fitted plug until 1994, by which time BS 1363 had become dominant (if not quite ubiquitous).
Thank you for this context. I couldn't guess why would anyone sell a device that's supposed to be plugged without a plug. But if there were different standards it makes some sense.
Flashbacks to my ex's dad drilling the "missing" holes in his Ikea computer desk (pieces in the wrong place) makes me wonder if consumers are ready for DIY electronics. Love the concept and industrial look of it though.
Nonsense. We just need...about 10-15 USB-C laptop charging blocks rated at 100W each. I'm sure can find a 1:10 USB charge splitter (heck, maybe we just need to get creative with a few 1:4s) on Temu.
Or, in the pre-USB-PD days, you do this[0]. Only 30 USB ports required. I swear I remember this being a toaster instead of a hot plate, but I guess you would need around 300 USB ports for a toaster.
If you want repairability then you can buy a Dualit. They are unreasonably expensive but very easy to fix. Mine is 25 years old. I replaced one of the elements a few years ago. It's held together with screws and bolts - totally user-repairable.
Fun project, nice write-up, but not solving a problem that needs to be solved.
I recently replaced the timer dial in a Dualit. Super easy since wires have crimped connectors. The replacement part could have been cheaper (~15% of new toaster)
Is there good data on goods that are the largest contributors to e-waste?
A toaster is a great test case for learning about repairable design, but I can only imagine most people will only buy on average 1 or 2 toasters in their life.
Framework seems like they're tackling laptops, which to my gut feel like they're largely responsible for consumer waste.
Not sure where you people are getting these multi decade toasters, I need to replace mine every 5-10 years. Obviously not the worst case of e-waste either way but 1 or 2 seems like a severe underestimate but that could just be my own experience.
Usually a heating element dies or similar. If it were easier to replace the heating elements I'd think it'd help reduce waste, but as you and others have noted, that wasn't the point of the article.
We have a toaster with a built in FM radio. That thing is pushing 15 years now. Obviously adding an FM radio to a toaster is idiotic and we don't use that feature, but the toaster part just works. It was a Christmas present from my wife's employer, so I can't imagine it being all that expensive.
But I see your point, we've had multiple other toasters, some toasted themselves to death by melting their own plastic casing.
The saddest failure was a Krupp coffee maker, that thing was amazing, made the best coffee. Sadly I melted the power cord on a stove top. This was before I had a proper set of tools, so I gave up trying to remove the "security" screws, that would have let me open it and replace the cord.
The first was a two-slice Kenmore (RIP Sears) which still works. It cost $20 and was purchased close to 25 years ago. I only used this a couple times a week and now the usage is very sporadic, but it always works when I need it to.
The second was a Cuisinart toaster oven, which is not exactly a toaster but has ended up being our primary toaster. I have no idea how old it is since we bought it at a garage sale for $5 about 5 years ago. This is used almost daily, sometimes multiple times a day, and for a lot more than just toast.
I can see buying one more toaster, meaning a toaster oven, in my life, but it will probably be to get new functionality (e.g., air fryer, larger capacity, etc) instead of replacing something broken.
I, too, would bet that your Cuisinart is likely to outlast you and me. That's what I have, and it's been in daily use for close to a decade now. Other than the silkscreened buttons losing their labels (easy fix: cut out some clear labels made with the P-Touch) it's as good as when it was new. We like it so much that we still kept it when we got a drawer-based air fryer 2 years ago which is my favorite kitchen purchase of all time.
Tech thats not getting properly recycled is LCD Monitors, was CRT's but they became profitable to mine for copper and gold.
People are too sensitive to scratches on their screen and just throw it out. Once a monitor hits an eWaste bin that only gets worse.
But the much larger problem with eWaste is packaging. Theres more packaging, with different grades of plastic, than there is shit inside of it that can be repaired or recycled.
Phones are collected and recycled. Batteries are collected, sorted and recycled. Ancient Desktop computers are often marked as scrap, "recycled" to a developing country where they are suddenly reborn as... desktop computers and live a third or fourth life. Otherwise desktops are fairly recoverable, they go straight to "ex government" style stores, ebay, what have you.
Laptops are pretty bad too, because of the integrated screen.
Hard drives, some people like to destroy instead of wipe for security reasons. But the metals are fairly recoverable.
Networking gear tends to live on in someones home or study lab, or it goes to developing nations.
I actually find that appliances were quite unlikely to even hit an ewaste bin, likely going to landfill instead.
I'd say mobile phones are worse, many more produced so even considering phone size. And harder to take apart even though laptops are getting worse. But this is all anecdotal, don't have any hard info.
For contributors to e-waste in terms of quantity of items, I'd assume somewhere in the top 10 you'd for sure find vape pens, cell phones, tablets, and all manner of computers.
By weight there is probably a lot of large appliances, since their PCBs and chips are so unreliable, usually only lasting a couple of years, and people feel like suckers spending the ~$500-700 of labor and parts (mostly labor) that every repair costs on these, both because they feel like 'this one must be an especially bad design, so maybe I should buy a new one / a different brand' and because it seems insane to spend like 70-100% of the purchase price on a repair. So the whole thing is chucked in the landfill. Of course, the replacement will be a P.O.S. too, but what choice do we have?
1-2? I'm on 6 or 7, and I'm hoping to get another few decades in. I've spent as little as $10, and as much as $50. When the last one died, I gave serious consideration to the Dualit, but the slots aren't long enough for my usual bread. So I went with Wirecutter's $30 recommendation and fully expect it to die within the decade as well.
Admittedly, I eat toast for breakfast at least 340 days a year, but I do sort of wish someone would sell a toaster that lasts so I could quit putting crappy ones in the landfill.
Probably a lot in generic household appliances - washing machines, microwaves etc. They've all get electronics in these days.
In my limited experience, things that get hot and or wet as part of their function tends to break more often than those that don't. So basically anything in your kitchen or laundry.
I love this because it is making a practical, everyday item more accessible.
I know the toaster is not explicitly open source but I've been lamenting the fact that such an incredible amount of energy is spent making things more accessible but most of those things are not what 'normal people' actually need.
For example I think there is a greater need for more open source couches, bikes, houses, clothing, etc than the need for, say, software that helps us coordinate containerized web infrastructure (from a social good perspective)
Agreed on the social good of open source everyday items. I'd love to go to a build-it-yourself store/workshop where they have tools, materials, experts, and open source designs available.
The social good of open source software is at an inflection point. Stallman has always been right, but for decades it's been an 'yeah, but so what' situation. In today's consumer tech, surveillance is pervasive and manipulation getting more effective. Of course, that's only a problem if we lived in a fascist state where the government could force companies to work against our interests. Or lived in a network state run by a software company.
The only prudent options are moving to open source SW infrastructure running on personally controlled HW, or moving to an off-grid cabin in the woods. I'm incredibly grateful to the folks that create software like immich and jellyfin that allow me to degoogle w/o losing capabilities that I've come to rely on.
I don’t mean this in an overly judgmental way, but how much utility is there to open source physical objects for most people if they don’t also include some sort of cost benefit? What’s the utility of an open source t-shirt you can make for $30 when a 5 pack of shirts from Walmart is $10? I like the idea in concept, but how does a normal person implement open source physical good production?
Companies pick it up and start selling the open source product. Since it's open anyone can fix it, modify it, upgrade it etc. Prices go down, both for devices and parts. Even if no new parts are available you still have giant used market.
When I was a kid we had an two-slice electric "Side door Toaster" when we stayed in our caravan on holiday.
It had two spring-loaded fold-up doors on each side which you put the toast on. Then they folder vertically to put the toast near the elements. Half way through you pulled down the doors, flipped the slices over and toasted the other half.
I have the same $30 no-name toaster that my now-ex purchased shortly after we were married in 2010. I open it up every few years to deep clean the crumbs, and I've changed the cord twice. Thing is an absolute tank.
I try to be a BIFL type of person and am willing to pay a premium for items that will last. Occasionally I hit up against something like this toaster, though, which runs completely counter to my expectations of what makes an indestructible kitchen appliance.
Replacing: usually not hard. Open the thing, unscrew the things holding the ends of the wire on, remove old cord, put new cord's wires in, screw down, close thing back up.
(Often "open the thing" and "close the thing" are the hardest - modern devices with plastic clipped on plastic and needing delicate shimming to pry stuff open)
Depending on the level of fix you're going for and where the break is, it can be anywhere from very simple and a few minutes, to much more involved.
If the break is actually at the plug end, you can often pop off the plug housing, trim the wire back, and do basically the same as above.
If the break is in the middle of the cord and you're not squeamish about the final fix having electrical tape on bare wire, then cut, strip, twist, tape, and ... don't fuck it up?
I would also personally not do this with an American ungrounded toaster, even though I have an EE degree and have done a lot of wire stripping, re-assembling wires, electrical tape, soldering, etc stuff.
With experience, there is nothing hard about changing a cord.
Without experience, it is harder. Removing the strain release requires mechanical sympathy; desoldering/soldering requires soldering skill; etc.
If it was your job, you’d pick it up in a day or few. If it is not your job, the learning curve is spread across the time between jobs and there’s relearning if the jobs are infrequent.
The thing is with something like this, if you're clever with the design you could make a device that packs flat, but isn't entirely flat.
So imagine you make the depth of the toaster greater than the height (easy with those feet). You put a quarter inch radius on the top plate, make the front and back plate a half an inch shorter so they nest inside the top plate in the box. And in fact if you put locking tabs on the two plates to keep the front from oil canning, those would also fit in if you flip the plates the right way 'round in the box.
You can tell from the bolts in the picture that there are already right angle bends in the sheet metal. So they're already using the third dimension just not with as much flair.
I had similar thoughts. It’s already quite handsome for a project of this nature but there’s still a lot of low hanging fruit for aesthetic improvement without negatively impacting other aspects.
I didn't even think about that. But when I started reading your response I had a sudden flash of cutting my forehead with a falling can of beans and suddenly wishing that cans weren't so sharp.
Sharp edges on appliances aren't that good either.
I tried to find pictures of boxes with rounded corners and they're all rounded on the vertical corners, like a box of mints. Or the polar opposite of a bread box with a lid with a >4" radius of curvature on the lid.
But look at the lid on a metal tin. The lip around the edge is often not a perfectly sharp bend. There's a small radius to it. So imagine the 'lid' was a single piece and the other sides were flat pieces that bolt together. If you size the pieces right they should fit into the 'lid'.
The control knob looks like the one off a Dualit toaster (their Classic model is also extremely repairable), as do the heating elements: https://www.dualit.com/collections/toasters
(I bought a Dualit after using one at a B&B many years ago -- I absolutely love it, though it really is a little overkill for making a few slices of toast each day. But it's a pleasure to use.)
This is excellent work. I like everything about this project - user assembly and repair (repair is much easier not only if the item is designed to be repaired, but if the user assembles it in the first place); flat pack for efficient shipping/storage; the overall focus on reuse and waste reduction. Perhaps, with more projects like this for a wider range of items, it'll be possible to pull manufacturers to a more right-to-repair, cradle-to-grave kind of world.
The goal of reducing e-waste is commendable. I really like the idea that if people built their own toaster then they will know how it works and they will feel more comfortable repairing it if something goes wrong with it.
That being said I would have started a project like this with researching why toasters end up in the trash. Is it because they break? (and if so which part?) Or is it because people get bored with the old design and want something new which fits their kitchen decoration better?
My suspicion is that there are garbage toasters not built to last. And then there are good quality toasters where the toaster probably could serve for decades. Maybe even hundreds of years with part replacements. But changes of taste, and design is what limits the lifetime of the second kind of toasters in reality not breakage.
We had an old toaster which was swinging plates to hold toast against the elements as a central core. Want both sides toasted? flip the toast. It was a 1920s design. Very functional, few parts to break (springs, hinges mostly) and it burned toast very effectively. It also did not accrue crumbs the way modern sealed-box toasters do.
I think if I was making a toaster I'd be looking to this model rather than the slot model, simply because its simpler. Or, placing toast on a flat bed with a reflecting heat plate behind the element. That would work for far thicker toastable objects, and also refreshing pita &c.
PAT isn't exactly a particularly sophisticated benchmark.
But then again, toasters aren't exactly idiot proof (neither are most things in the kitchen) so I guess as long as that case has a low impedance path to the earth pin, and there aren't any exposed single insulated wires, I'd also be happy.
Then I saw the PAT, looked that up, and it is not near equivalent. Here is a 20 year old version of UL 1026 Electric Household Cooking and Food Serving Appliances for comparison.
>Two participants changed their views about toasters in general because how toasters work was not as complicated as they first thought
We really do need to acknowledge that spending time taking things apart is a critical life skill. If you don't do it, you're forever a slave to buying new things.
Agreed. I take apart stuff that is dead, partly to see how it comes apart and gain skills in finding hidden screws(under stickers et al) or non-destructively popping plastic clips (80% success rate...).
But also once it's apart to see how it functions, what good design choices were made vs what was a bad choice because it broke. How could it be improved? Are all the design choices for the consumer? etc etc
Aside: I have a lot of HDD platters sitting around.
I guess I'm the only one who thinks it's just not a very good design. Right off the bat there is no excuse for all those screws, and those trays block all the radiation from the elements from reaching the bread! It's a terrible design for accomplishing the task.
flatpack | ˈflatˌpak |
noun
1 Electronics a package for an integrated circuit consisting of a rectangular sealed unit with a number of horizontal metal pins protruding from its sides.
I would definitely buy one, assuming there was some guarantee on parts availability "for the lifespan of the company up to X decades" or some similarly long time.
I would doubly do so if the design were open-source.
I would triply do so if I could have all my new home appliances this way. I tossed my last fridge and my last washing machine over parts which would have been in the single-digit dollars to manufacture.
If the author is not commercializing this, the design and instructions should be open-sourced (and, ideally, advertised to a Chinese discount company).
Cool project, also curious about the economics. Have been thinking recently with the increasing quality and affordability of 3d printers and assistive benefits of LLM's it would be cool to basically have the equivalent of lego builds kits for all kinds of consumer goods.
I designed an automotive part that is fabricated out of sheet metal and this article resonates with me because while the completed product looks very simple, the process of getting to the completed product is very complex and has dozens of iterations of designs, failed prototypes, mistakes, etc.
That's what is so infuriating when my products get copied by sellers from China or similar - they are taking all of the hundreds of hours of work that I put into a design and skipping that, going straight to the easy part of producing the finalized part.
Making the thing is the easy part - making up the thing is the hard part!
I feel that the real thing that this guy is getting at, which I am also a fan of, is "How could we as a society, shift the culture away from disposability and consumption to sustainability and repair?"
As someone without all the answers, it seems like only a heavyhanded degree of regulation could have any chance (e.g. high taxes on whole categories of devices with low/no repairability). Though perhaps in a trade apocalypse situation that may happen sooner than we think (such as total breakdown of trade with China) perhaps repair will suddenly be relevant. This is why, as I understand it, basically every car owner in Cuba is also a mechanic.
Of course, they had the benefit of having 1950s cars when trade barriers went up. We've got houses full of devices built and purchased with the understanding that you throw away anything with a plug or a battery within 5 years max!
This brings a smile to my face after just rough assembling laser cut sheet AL which forms the enclosure for a water circulating pump system I built. Same style of raw sheet metal and external screws. It just needs to work and look decent.
My parents are using an electric hand mixer that is 45+ years old. It's still fine.
Products of the past did last longer because they weren't as cost-optimised yet.
It seems similar to the story of the vastly over-build Volvo red block engines.
Yet, we don't live in a (global) society that cares about living consciously, to build things that last. If something lasts, we don't consume. And that's our true purpose. To consume the things that are produced.
Do we need 20+ brands of peanut butter? Why do brands even exist? Why can't we just but 'peanut butter'?
The word and our society is actually so strange, if you really think about this. By the way, did I mentioned yet, I really miss David Graeber?
MY first job (in the last 70s) was working in a TV rental store doing small item repair. In particular, repairing toasters was probably my #1 activity. Essentially the failure was nearly always the same -- one of the three toasting elements failed, and so I would replace all three elements, and the customer got a working toaster back.
It was never clear to me (at least I don't recall it being clear) why the heating elements failed. It could be from someone sticking a hard tool into the toaster when trying to remove a small item (and breaking the element). It might be that a piece of bread gets stuck to a portion of the element and catches fire at that point -- maybe that weakens the element at that point. This was, of course, long before toasters got electronics in them!
The heating elements in a toaster are essentially the same as the heating elements in a lightbulb. Eventually, enough heat cycling, the metal fatigues or melts at a certain point, the circuit opens, and your toaster stops lighting up the room. Of course, trauma is always an option too.
that's strictly not true, at least for many segments. my 1960s Kitchenaid mixer has been used since..the 60s, and if you buy a new Kitchenaid today, don't expect that plastic gear to last very long if you actually take it out and use it.
I found an 1969 ad for a kitchenaid mixer. It's cost $125 in 1969 dollars. That's over $1000 in todays dollars. You're comparing a mixer that costs half as much. And, believe me, fixing the skimp issues that kitchenaid introduced to give the execs a bigger bonus can be fixed for a lot less than $500.
Furthermore, you probably can buy a mixer for $1000 that has a similar chance of surviving 60 years for $1000.
I had a 60s kitchenaid and it was super loud, possibly over 90 db. Additionally, it had square corners where stuff got stuck, couldn't handle some solids well, and to wash it you often had to remove the blade and gasket.
One interesting thing was a gimmick about heating soup with the blender using solely friction.
I eventually bought a modern plastic refurb which has been a dream. I do think it is a shame that it won't last 50 years.
A Kitchenaid K5-A mixer cost $159 in 1960. That would be $1,700 today. I'll bet you can get someone to make you a replacement metal gear for something less than $1,000.
Come on, this is basically what a Dualit Classic is. I really don't see this is much more than an exercise. The problem is asking people to spend 5x to 10x the price of cheap mass produced unmaintainable tat.
The problem as I see it is that 99% of toaster owners don’t know where to find the parts in this toaster and/or how to replace them.
That’s where I’d love to see more experimentation.
There’s a maker space in my old town where you can just take stuff and they’ll nerd out over helping you fix it. I wish there was that, but in a store format.
I want to live in a world where it’s just common parlance to say, “my toaster broke so I have to stop at the FixIt on my way home.
Yes yes, fixing it is too expensive to support this business model. I want to dream, okay?! Maybe a toaster like this makes it much more reasonable for cheaper appliances to be fixed by the summer student from high school who will learn invaluable skills for $15/hr. I would have killed to make min wage taking apart and doing basic repairs on stuff.
I mentor high school students who can CAD and fabricate plastic and metal parts. Surely we could fabricate more young people like that too.
I've toyed around with a similar idea. A pizza shop style manufacturing/fixit hub that would pick up and deliver locally manufactured items like that.
I even think that repairing items at a loss could work out, because you'd get valuable customer data on what items they used enough to break, and what parts broke, giving you an insight to make your own product lines that didn't break in that way.
I hope the comments here don't end up quibbling about the practicality or economics of this toaster specifically, because the point here is the process. This project involves reverse engineering, designing from scratch, manufacturing, developing beginner-accessible documentation, and performing real-world user studies. We should be encouraging people to do more of this!
But I am actually interested in the economics! The author mentions sending his designs out to a factory - I would expect this is astonishingly expensive for a single prototype! Wouldn’t that be thousands of dollars? Is anyone familiar how to get good factory-made parts like this at DIY budgets?
Not that that takes away from the article at all. This project has many merits, and although cost may not be one of them, it’s still interesting!
It all depends on what you ask the factory to do.
This project seems to take its heating elements, clockwork timer and knob from a classic Dualit 2 Slice toaster - so those parts are all available off-the-shelf.
Other than that, this design needs some laser cut and bent metal, and some wooden feet. If you're able to bend the metal yourself and find some off-the-shelf feet, you could probably get the flat sheets of stainless steel laser cut and shipped for less than $100.
On the other hand, if one wanted a factory to do more demanding production processes, with more worker time or more machine setup - you're right that it would cost a good deal more.
There are also services that can do the sheet metal bending for you if you have the cad designed. Of course shipping can get pricey, but I think it’s not prohibitively expensive.
I build things like this in similarly low quantity - you are probably looking at a grand or two toaster kit there, 95% of which is the custom parts - if it was done locally. The time for someone else to do it is what your paying for. It can be done exceptionally cheap in dollars if YOU do it, but you'll still pay with your time, and you'll still need machine access.
Cheap and easy "factory" quality is probably PCBWAY or similar in China - they do more than PCBs these days. Call it "prototype" budget - several hundred dollars of parts instead of thousands.
My experience is that PCBWay and similar usually offer better quality than doing it yourself. They get their costs down by automating everything they can. They're usually competitive at initial samples than many of the big houses too for essentially the same reason.
The other big insight here is that often making 50 doesn't cost much more than making 1, as much of the cost will be in programming and setup charges, not actually running the part. Sheet steel is pretty cheap, too.
SendCutSend offer surprisingly inexpensive sheet metal parts in single quantities.
https://sendcutsend.com/
I have ordered stuff here: https://www.schaeffer-ag.de/en/
Whoa that looks really fun.
Great website, love the video demo of using the siet.
No, it wouldn't cost thousands. There are plenty of shops that specialize in prototypes and small pilot runs and there's nothing complicated about the design or material of this product.
> sending his designs out
sending her designs out
Isn’t this the perfect type of project/product for Kickstarter?
Perfect in what sense? Kickstarter is useful if you're thinking of doing something capital-intensive and need money and customers beforehand. This comes with downsides: deadlines, shipping, cranky customers, etc.
This is a hobby project and there's nothing to suggest that the author wants to get in the business of selling toasters for a living... or that it would be wise for them to do so.
It looks like off the shelf electronics with custom sheet metal parts.
Are far as low volume prototyping goes, sheet metal is as cost efficient as it gets for large metal parts. If you're sourcing from China, I'd estimate 500 bucks per prototype (with two sets in case one breaks).
The target, though, is particularly bad.
My parents literally have a toaster from the 70s that they still use. I have a toaster I bought 20 years ago. Toasters (usually) don't have e-waste. They are incredibly simple machines that are easy to buy without so much as a single diode. That's because they are really simply just a box with heating elements.
If you want to battle e-waste like the article suggests, maybe pick a product that doesn't already have a 50-year service life without the need for repairs.
If you want to battle e-waste, buy a used toaster.
Modern toasters are generally way less reliable than older toasters. I think it is very difficult to buy a new toaster today that you can be confident will have a 50-year lifespan.
Also true, but how many people are buying toasters in 2025? I would bet that air fryers and toaster ovens outsell toasters 10:1.
Still, I think this is a great portfolio piece. The designer should keep going, and amass a little collection of simple repairable appliances.
Not everyone has a big American kitchen where you can try new appliances and not worry about space. I've been thinking about getting an air fryer but it's not an easy decision because I'd have to remove something else that I use; and I know others in the same position.
It wouldn't replace the toaster, because that fits on the windowsill and an air fryer would not.
yeah, our toast is toasted in a frying pan.
Tiny kitchen here. I'd like to try an air-fryer, but for now my one table-top appliance is a instant pot. It is used daily.
I bought one in 2017, lasted 2 years before 1 of the heating elements died. We struggled along with 2/4 slices until we replaced it during covid with a 2 slice toaster. I dont really trust its going to last 50 years or whatever.
Ours died and I just bought a new 4 slice toaster to replace it.
I haven't seen a toaster oven big enough for my family, and we otherwise have an excellent oven with convection features.
How big is your family? A normal Breville toaster oven can hold 4 slices. And there are bigger ones.
Me! I bought one last year.
I just bought one today, heh.
While not discrediting your observation, what would be an example that could be investigated by a small team?
I was thinking about an electronic toothbrush, or a kettle?
I can walk and quibble about economics at the same time.
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I find this thread fascinating because even people's "long-term durable" idea of a toaster is way below my experiences and expectations. I would expect even cheap ones to last atleast 20 years. And whats with people replacing their toast cords? What are you doing with the cord that it doesn't last decades?
I wonder if this is a case where spending more money results in a worse product because the cheapest versions are essentially a solved design without any gimmicks or unproven design changes made to try justify a higher price/markup.
One obvious thing is that some people are probably toasting a slice a week and others half a dozen a day. The parts don’t time out, they wear out, so that really matters.
Another is that being cheap, there’s probably quite variable quality.
So it’s not that surprising that experiences vary.
You bring up a good point in that at one point it is also about ensuring the quality of materials and construction processes so that everything lasts by default. On top of that, repairability is another factor. I have a fancy kettle that I am sure will not last five years, and I regret buying it.
Minor point: lots of commenters here are defaulting to male pronouns for the author. In this Dezeen article, for which they spoke to Kasey, they use she/her pronouns. https://www.dezeen.com/2017/07/20/kasey-hou-reduce-electrica...
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I second this, using male pronouns for a trans woman is known as misgendering and disrespectful of the individual, regardless of your personal views.
Not relevant. In addition to the article linked above, her profile photo and video interviews with her about the toaster all indicate that she's an actual female woman, and there's no reason to assume otherwise.
I mean it's bad enough that most people in this thread saw a cool engineering project and made a default assumption of male. To have it gently pointed out that the designer is a woman and then still hold the assumption she's male is even more gratingly sexist.
Probably not intended as such but "actual female woman" is also a bit disrespectful, since it implies that trans women aren't "actual female women", why not use cis? It gets your point across and doesn't imply anything else.
> why not use cis?
Because some people don't use that term to describe themselves either, even if that is what they biologically are. CIS is a pretty good term, because it's very technically correct. Sadly many have been on the receiving end of debates where it is used a a slur, and considers it hurtful.
Do people consider it hurtful, or was it coopted as a slur by people like Musk who just want to erase trans people?
Personally I most see it used in anger, so I wouldn't use it, unless doing a biology report.
It also has the weird problem that you mostly see it in a "do you identify as cis", which I at least don't... I am cis, but that's not question. This leads to some really weird situation where you have teams of larger middle age straight, and cis, men, but you have one or two that answer that they don't identify as such.
This is very much off topic, but I'd personally I'd prefer that we just stop labeling people. Just use their name, it's fine, you don't need to know or even understand the gender of the person who makes a repairable flatpack toaster. It's an cool project regardless of who made it.
I think a lot of people just don't pay attention to the domain name or anything else besides the actual content.
I agree that much of this is unconscious bias. But it still grates.
I think it doesn't freeking matter. I don't even know WTF I am, but I don't expect everyone else to know, either.
I do think it matters that people default to male. I wouldn’t want people to keep calling me “she” because I happen to be in a woman-dominated field. I understand why one would find this grating.
But not that's not the case for many of us. We do know who we are, and an increasingly violent sect want us to bury it and pretend otherwise.
I see, I guess this is the other scenario where wrong pronouns can be used.
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My toaster broke a week ago. I tried repairing it and found out exactly what the post says: almost impossible without breaking it (or seriously bending parts just to take them apart). After realizing that I wouldn't be able to, I decided to buy a used one, but couldn't find any on offer around my area that looked in good enough shape. Ended up paying 25€ for a new one, which will arrive by post any time soon. I find the whole experience extremely unsatisfying and would love more of this (repairable and self-assembly-able electric appliances).
On the subject of toasters, if you want one that lasts then grab an old toastmaster or Sunbeam (the kind with the chrome sides) and spend a weekend doing a deep clean. They are held together with screws, not bent over tabs. You might be up against decades of baked on grease, so you'll have to break out the sodium hydroxide. You should probably replace the asbestos cord with a rubber one too. The toaster will then last the remainder of your life.
The main downside is that the slots are usually to narrow for bagels.
There aren't any infinite number of old toasters out there, but there's enough out there for everyone who wants to do the above.
Technology Connections' review:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y
Have you ever had one fail? Mine is the $10 plastic special from 20 years ago still toasting it's heart out.
The simpler a toaster is, the more likely it is to have eternal life. If you can buy a modern toaster that's just the knob and levers (no digital controls or whatever) then there's really no reason it won't last decades.
Tempting fate here but I don’t see any reason why my cheapo spring loaded toaster won’t give me another 10 years of life. There’s nothing to go wrong if used correctly.
Back when I was a kid in the 80s toasters would break because we shoved in hacked up pieces of bread or bagels where the food touched the elements and caught fire. And knives were poked inside to extract burnt remains from the heating elements.
I was shocked to see there are toasters with motorized lifting mechanisms. Is there any practical reason why this is better than a spring?
> there any practical reason why this is better than a spring?
Depends what you mean by “practical”. Motorised avoid the jump scare and don’t risk launching light pieces out of the toaster.
I’d also assume (but don’t know as I’ve never been much of a toaster person) they can have a longer movement range and limit crumbing through lower acceleration stress.
Actually toasters need to be able to switch off a huge current, which causes arcing. This arcing may slowly burn the PCB and desolder the metal contact mounted on the PCB. At least that's what happened with my last toaster after >5 years. Repaired it once, then after a year it broke again, but this time the PCB through hole was severely burned and it wasn't trivially fixable anymore.
Motorized mechanisms... hmm. Well, sometimes toasters pop up toasts too hard making them land on the floor.
> Is there any practical reason why this is better than a spring?
People are propagandized to pay more money for them, then do it again when they break.
I bought one from 1965 last year. Got it cheap on eBay. Seller said it didn't work. Seller just didn't know how to turn the knob on the side. I have to buy bread that isn't as wide as I was getting but it's totally worth it. Perfect toast every time.
got a 1930s toastmaster single slice for $30 on eBay. new carbon switch contacts, new nichrome wire, new cord. functions great and really looks nice. there are a lot of broken toasters in the world.
Even other more complex appliances get tossed too easily. My spouse’s desire to get rid of our 15yo microwave was replaced a while ago by the satisfaction of being able to keep it going. I’ve fixed it twice with a few bucks of parts (waveguide cover, door switch).
Funny, my first thought in seeing this headline was The Toaster Project by Thomas Thwaites: http://www.thetoasterproject.org/ (~2010) - more of a reflection about globalism and what is possible to create from scratch. https://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_thwaites_how_i_built_a_toas...
What I don't like about Thomas Thwaites's Toaster project is that I feel the end product intentionally looks bad. I feel the artist could have chosen different paths and could have created a practical toaster just with a little bit of care. The artist just choose to not do that because if the toaster would look practical and usable that would undermine their message about globalism, and the supposed impossibility of the task. Because in a project like this "man sets out to build a toaster, and actually succeeds" does not sounds good. And that just feels like learned helplessness.
He's an artist, not an engineer. I'm willing to believe that the toaster genuinely is his best effort. I know that I could do far better, but I have a lifetime of experience in herding atoms. I suspect that my attempt at oil painting would be equally risible.
> He's an artist, not an engineer.
He is by training an industrial designer.
But also, there is no clear boundary between being an artist and being an engineer. There are artist who show great mastery of engineering in their art work. Either because they studied engineering, or because they picked up enough relevant skills practically to achieve what they want to achieve.
I have a particular taste and not everyone will agree what is and isn’t art. But i consider for example David C. Roy‘s wooden kinetic sculptures both art and engineering. Similarly Jacob Tonski’s Balance from Within (a victorian sofa balancing on a single leg) incorporates both art and excelent engineering. Or Thea Ulrich’s aerial moon sculpture. Where the physical manufacturing of the sculpture is the engineering component, while the aerial dance performed on it is the art component. In each of these they could have said “hey I’m just an artist, you can’t possibly expect my thing to work” or “hey i’m an engineer, you can’t possibly expect my thing to have artistic value”. But they were not satisfied with either of those, and pushed themselves, their art and their craft until they got something wonderfull.
Where there is a will there is a way. And where the will is to make the object look shitty, you will get that result. Which is fine. But i have heard people draw the conclusion from his work that somehow this is the best anyone can do. And that is not fine with me.
I, too, would like if his product was built as well as possible, ideally all shiny and almost too perfect to belive it was made in such a way.
You should try it. I'd love to see what an engineer could do with building toasters from scratch.
Having mended a few toasters in my time I salute this effort. Cheap toasters are very difficult to take apart and mend. The toasting mechanism on this one looks great.
Cheap toasters only last a few years before dying. Usually because someone jams it up then clumsily unjams it while damaging the element.
After going through a few toasters in quick succession I finally bought an expensive Dualit one. It's still going 25 years later. I changed the timer mechanism once which was a joy, and you can easily buy spare parts.
The Dualit cost over 10 times more than the cheap toasters though. I don't regret that purchase though and it has actually saved me money over the years and made much less landfill.
Funnily enough the toaster in this article looks quite like the Dualit. I don't suppose that is a coincidence!
Having recently done a timer replacement on a Dualit, I think that might literally be a Dualit timer module. Looks identical in the packing box photo. It wouldn’t surprise me if the heating elements were the same as well (haven’t checked) though those are probably more commonly available as generic items.
There's a video.[1]
- Toast is toasted on one end, un-toasted at the other.
- Control is just a timer, so the second time you use it twice in succession it will be hot at the start and will need a shorter time, which you have to figure out.
Check out the Sunbeam Radiant Control Toaster (1949-1980), which is still considered the peak of toaster design.[2] It's repairable, too. Now replicating that would be a good project.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKbUNDPXCWk
[2] https://www.theverge.com/22801890/sunbeam-radiant-control-to...
How do you give out a mains powered toaster with assembly instructions just like that?
My experience with diy electronics is that most kit designers are super wary of even giving instruction on mains anything...so as not to be held liable.
The British used to sell appliances without the plug attached - it was just bare wires. Buying the plug separately and knowing how to attach it was just a basic skill you were expected to know.
Not sure what changed, as I understand it they don't really do that anymore.
> The British used to sell appliances without the plug attached - it was just bare wires. Buying the plug separately and knowing how to attach it was just a basic skill you were expected to know.
I'm having flashbacks to moving back to the US from the UK-o-sphere, and re-splicing plugs for appliances that supported both voltages.
My understanding is that selling appliances without plugs was done to make work for the electronic shops. People attaching their own plugs would seem to defeat the purpose.
I remember the mr bean skit where he buys a tv and jams the cord into the plug and somehow this works LOL.
I didn't realize they sold them that way intentionally!
It wasn't uncommon for people to just jam wires into the outlet in a pinch, to the extent that public service announcements warned against it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH0Kxjx0sEM
Britain had two common standards for electrical outlets (BS 1363 and the older BS 546) plus a few less-common proprietary types. BS 1363 became the preferred standard for new installations in 1947, but the other types remained fairly common for decades. Appliances were not required to be supplied with a fitted plug until 1994, by which time BS 1363 had become dominant (if not quite ubiquitous).
Thank you for this context. I couldn't guess why would anyone sell a device that's supposed to be plugged without a plug. But if there were different standards it makes some sense.
Flashbacks to my ex's dad drilling the "missing" holes in his Ikea computer desk (pieces in the wrong place) makes me wonder if consumers are ready for DIY electronics. Love the concept and industrial look of it though.
You could make a USB toaster, it would just take a lot longer...
With 240W power delivery now available, you'd just need 6 ports to get near max allowed power.
Just cook the toast from the flames of the battery.
Nonsense. We just need...about 10-15 USB-C laptop charging blocks rated at 100W each. I'm sure can find a 1:10 USB charge splitter (heck, maybe we just need to get creative with a few 1:4s) on Temu.
What could possibly go wrong?
Or, in the pre-USB-PD days, you do this[0]. Only 30 USB ports required. I swear I remember this being a toaster instead of a hot plate, but I guess you would need around 300 USB ports for a toaster.
[0] https://hackaday.com/2022/12/01/throwback-usb-hotplate-used-...
For starters, that USB splitter would be single use, assuming it didn't melt before your toast was done.
Brilliant comments like this make me miss Slashdot moderation. +5, Funny
If you want repairability then you can buy a Dualit. They are unreasonably expensive but very easy to fix. Mine is 25 years old. I replaced one of the elements a few years ago. It's held together with screws and bolts - totally user-repairable.
Fun project, nice write-up, but not solving a problem that needs to be solved.
I recently replaced the timer dial in a Dualit. Super easy since wires have crimped connectors. The replacement part could have been cheaper (~15% of new toaster)
Is there good data on goods that are the largest contributors to e-waste?
A toaster is a great test case for learning about repairable design, but I can only imagine most people will only buy on average 1 or 2 toasters in their life.
Framework seems like they're tackling laptops, which to my gut feel like they're largely responsible for consumer waste.
Not sure where you people are getting these multi decade toasters, I need to replace mine every 5-10 years. Obviously not the worst case of e-waste either way but 1 or 2 seems like a severe underestimate but that could just be my own experience.
Usually a heating element dies or similar. If it were easier to replace the heating elements I'd think it'd help reduce waste, but as you and others have noted, that wasn't the point of the article.
We have a toaster with a built in FM radio. That thing is pushing 15 years now. Obviously adding an FM radio to a toaster is idiotic and we don't use that feature, but the toaster part just works. It was a Christmas present from my wife's employer, so I can't imagine it being all that expensive.
But I see your point, we've had multiple other toasters, some toasted themselves to death by melting their own plastic casing.
The saddest failure was a Krupp coffee maker, that thing was amazing, made the best coffee. Sadly I melted the power cord on a stove top. This was before I had a proper set of tools, so I gave up trying to remove the "security" screws, that would have let me open it and replace the cord.
I've only bought two toasters in my life.
The first was a two-slice Kenmore (RIP Sears) which still works. It cost $20 and was purchased close to 25 years ago. I only used this a couple times a week and now the usage is very sporadic, but it always works when I need it to.
The second was a Cuisinart toaster oven, which is not exactly a toaster but has ended up being our primary toaster. I have no idea how old it is since we bought it at a garage sale for $5 about 5 years ago. This is used almost daily, sometimes multiple times a day, and for a lot more than just toast.
I can see buying one more toaster, meaning a toaster oven, in my life, but it will probably be to get new functionality (e.g., air fryer, larger capacity, etc) instead of replacing something broken.
I, too, would bet that your Cuisinart is likely to outlast you and me. That's what I have, and it's been in daily use for close to a decade now. Other than the silkscreened buttons losing their labels (easy fix: cut out some clear labels made with the P-Touch) it's as good as when it was new. We like it so much that we still kept it when we got a drawer-based air fryer 2 years ago which is my favorite kitchen purchase of all time.
Based on my experiences in eWaste:
Tech thats not getting properly recycled is LCD Monitors, was CRT's but they became profitable to mine for copper and gold.
People are too sensitive to scratches on their screen and just throw it out. Once a monitor hits an eWaste bin that only gets worse.
But the much larger problem with eWaste is packaging. Theres more packaging, with different grades of plastic, than there is shit inside of it that can be repaired or recycled.
Phones are collected and recycled. Batteries are collected, sorted and recycled. Ancient Desktop computers are often marked as scrap, "recycled" to a developing country where they are suddenly reborn as... desktop computers and live a third or fourth life. Otherwise desktops are fairly recoverable, they go straight to "ex government" style stores, ebay, what have you.
Laptops are pretty bad too, because of the integrated screen.
Hard drives, some people like to destroy instead of wipe for security reasons. But the metals are fairly recoverable.
Networking gear tends to live on in someones home or study lab, or it goes to developing nations.
I actually find that appliances were quite unlikely to even hit an ewaste bin, likely going to landfill instead.
I'd say mobile phones are worse, many more produced so even considering phone size. And harder to take apart even though laptops are getting worse. But this is all anecdotal, don't have any hard info.
For contributors to e-waste in terms of quantity of items, I'd assume somewhere in the top 10 you'd for sure find vape pens, cell phones, tablets, and all manner of computers.
By weight there is probably a lot of large appliances, since their PCBs and chips are so unreliable, usually only lasting a couple of years, and people feel like suckers spending the ~$500-700 of labor and parts (mostly labor) that every repair costs on these, both because they feel like 'this one must be an especially bad design, so maybe I should buy a new one / a different brand' and because it seems insane to spend like 70-100% of the purchase price on a repair. So the whole thing is chucked in the landfill. Of course, the replacement will be a P.O.S. too, but what choice do we have?
1-2? I'm on 6 or 7, and I'm hoping to get another few decades in. I've spent as little as $10, and as much as $50. When the last one died, I gave serious consideration to the Dualit, but the slots aren't long enough for my usual bread. So I went with Wirecutter's $30 recommendation and fully expect it to die within the decade as well.
Admittedly, I eat toast for breakfast at least 340 days a year, but I do sort of wish someone would sell a toaster that lasts so I could quit putting crappy ones in the landfill.
Probably a lot in generic household appliances - washing machines, microwaves etc. They've all get electronics in these days.
In my limited experience, things that get hot and or wet as part of their function tends to break more often than those that don't. So basically anything in your kitchen or laundry.
I love this because it is making a practical, everyday item more accessible.
I know the toaster is not explicitly open source but I've been lamenting the fact that such an incredible amount of energy is spent making things more accessible but most of those things are not what 'normal people' actually need.
For example I think there is a greater need for more open source couches, bikes, houses, clothing, etc than the need for, say, software that helps us coordinate containerized web infrastructure (from a social good perspective)
Agreed on the social good of open source everyday items. I'd love to go to a build-it-yourself store/workshop where they have tools, materials, experts, and open source designs available.
The social good of open source software is at an inflection point. Stallman has always been right, but for decades it's been an 'yeah, but so what' situation. In today's consumer tech, surveillance is pervasive and manipulation getting more effective. Of course, that's only a problem if we lived in a fascist state where the government could force companies to work against our interests. Or lived in a network state run by a software company.
The only prudent options are moving to open source SW infrastructure running on personally controlled HW, or moving to an off-grid cabin in the woods. I'm incredibly grateful to the folks that create software like immich and jellyfin that allow me to degoogle w/o losing capabilities that I've come to rely on.
I don’t mean this in an overly judgmental way, but how much utility is there to open source physical objects for most people if they don’t also include some sort of cost benefit? What’s the utility of an open source t-shirt you can make for $30 when a 5 pack of shirts from Walmart is $10? I like the idea in concept, but how does a normal person implement open source physical good production?
Companies pick it up and start selling the open source product. Since it's open anyone can fix it, modify it, upgrade it etc. Prices go down, both for devices and parts. Even if no new parts are available you still have giant used market.
When I was a kid we had an two-slice electric "Side door Toaster" when we stayed in our caravan on holiday.
It had two spring-loaded fold-up doors on each side which you put the toast on. Then they folder vertically to put the toast near the elements. Half way through you pulled down the doors, flipped the slices over and toasted the other half.
https://www.ronebergcairns.com/2006onwards/home06_026.html
Probably easier to construct that a pop-up
If you have an Airfryer, it is possibly the most consistent method to make toast. 150 degrees at 3 minutes makes perfectly crunchy toast.
Perhaps it depends on your air fryer. Mine just dries the bread out, and toasts one side sorta..
I have the same $30 no-name toaster that my now-ex purchased shortly after we were married in 2010. I open it up every few years to deep clean the crumbs, and I've changed the cord twice. Thing is an absolute tank.
I try to be a BIFL type of person and am willing to pay a premium for items that will last. Occasionally I hit up against something like this toaster, though, which runs completely counter to my expectations of what makes an indestructible kitchen appliance.
How hard is replacing the cord? That seems like it goes a long way to extending the life already, though.
Replacing: usually not hard. Open the thing, unscrew the things holding the ends of the wire on, remove old cord, put new cord's wires in, screw down, close thing back up.
(Often "open the thing" and "close the thing" are the hardest - modern devices with plastic clipped on plastic and needing delicate shimming to pry stuff open)
Depending on the level of fix you're going for and where the break is, it can be anywhere from very simple and a few minutes, to much more involved.
If the break is actually at the plug end, you can often pop off the plug housing, trim the wire back, and do basically the same as above.
If the break is in the middle of the cord and you're not squeamish about the final fix having electrical tape on bare wire, then cut, strip, twist, tape, and ... don't fuck it up?
I would also personally not do this with an American ungrounded toaster, even though I have an EE degree and have done a lot of wire stripping, re-assembling wires, electrical tape, soldering, etc stuff.
A new toaster is cheap. House fires are not.
With experience, there is nothing hard about changing a cord.
Without experience, it is harder. Removing the strain release requires mechanical sympathy; desoldering/soldering requires soldering skill; etc.
If it was your job, you’d pick it up in a day or few. If it is not your job, the learning curve is spread across the time between jobs and there’s relearning if the jobs are infrequent.
The thing is with something like this, if you're clever with the design you could make a device that packs flat, but isn't entirely flat.
So imagine you make the depth of the toaster greater than the height (easy with those feet). You put a quarter inch radius on the top plate, make the front and back plate a half an inch shorter so they nest inside the top plate in the box. And in fact if you put locking tabs on the two plates to keep the front from oil canning, those would also fit in if you flip the plates the right way 'round in the box.
You can tell from the bolts in the picture that there are already right angle bends in the sheet metal. So they're already using the third dimension just not with as much flair.
I had similar thoughts. It’s already quite handsome for a project of this nature but there’s still a lot of low hanging fruit for aesthetic improvement without negatively impacting other aspects.
it's not just aesthetic, you don't want to encourage misuse with a large flat top surface to place things on.
I didn't even think about that. But when I started reading your response I had a sudden flash of cutting my forehead with a falling can of beans and suddenly wishing that cans weren't so sharp.
Sharp edges on appliances aren't that good either.
Can someone draw what hinkley is talking about?
I tried to find pictures of boxes with rounded corners and they're all rounded on the vertical corners, like a box of mints. Or the polar opposite of a bread box with a lid with a >4" radius of curvature on the lid.
But look at the lid on a metal tin. The lip around the edge is often not a perfectly sharp bend. There's a small radius to it. So imagine the 'lid' was a single piece and the other sides were flat pieces that bolt together. If you size the pieces right they should fit into the 'lid'.
The control knob looks like the one off a Dualit toaster (their Classic model is also extremely repairable), as do the heating elements: https://www.dualit.com/collections/toasters
(I bought a Dualit after using one at a B&B many years ago -- I absolutely love it, though it really is a little overkill for making a few slices of toast each day. But it's a pleasure to use.)
This is excellent work. I like everything about this project - user assembly and repair (repair is much easier not only if the item is designed to be repaired, but if the user assembles it in the first place); flat pack for efficient shipping/storage; the overall focus on reuse and waste reduction. Perhaps, with more projects like this for a wider range of items, it'll be possible to pull manufacturers to a more right-to-repair, cradle-to-grave kind of world.
The goal of reducing e-waste is commendable. I really like the idea that if people built their own toaster then they will know how it works and they will feel more comfortable repairing it if something goes wrong with it.
That being said I would have started a project like this with researching why toasters end up in the trash. Is it because they break? (and if so which part?) Or is it because people get bored with the old design and want something new which fits their kitchen decoration better?
My suspicion is that there are garbage toasters not built to last. And then there are good quality toasters where the toaster probably could serve for decades. Maybe even hundreds of years with part replacements. But changes of taste, and design is what limits the lifetime of the second kind of toasters in reality not breakage.
I have a toaster from the 70's. It's a nice toaster, but has a big problem I didn't expect when I bought it:
Apparently most grocery store bread is significantly more wide now than in the past! Most bread won't fit!
If the inputs to a device change, that can also cause obsolescence.
We had an old toaster which was swinging plates to hold toast against the elements as a central core. Want both sides toasted? flip the toast. It was a 1920s design. Very functional, few parts to break (springs, hinges mostly) and it burned toast very effectively. It also did not accrue crumbs the way modern sealed-box toasters do.
I think if I was making a toaster I'd be looking to this model rather than the slot model, simply because its simpler. Or, placing toast on a flat bed with a reflecting heat plate behind the element. That would work for far thicker toastable objects, and also refreshing pita &c.
So many ways to die. Very cool project btw.
PAT isn't exactly a particularly sophisticated benchmark.
But then again, toasters aren't exactly idiot proof (neither are most things in the kitchen) so I guess as long as that case has a low impedance path to the earth pin, and there aren't any exposed single insulated wires, I'd also be happy.
My first thought was “is it UL listed?”
Then I saw the PAT, looked that up, and it is not near equivalent. Here is a 20 year old version of UL 1026 Electric Household Cooking and Food Serving Appliances for comparison.
http://u.dianyuan.com/bbs/u/31/1121404214.pdf
>Two participants changed their views about toasters in general because how toasters work was not as complicated as they first thought
We really do need to acknowledge that spending time taking things apart is a critical life skill. If you don't do it, you're forever a slave to buying new things.
Agreed. I take apart stuff that is dead, partly to see how it comes apart and gain skills in finding hidden screws(under stickers et al) or non-destructively popping plastic clips (80% success rate...).
But also once it's apart to see how it functions, what good design choices were made vs what was a bad choice because it broke. How could it be improved? Are all the design choices for the consumer? etc etc
Aside: I have a lot of HDD platters sitting around.
I guess I'm the only one who thinks it's just not a very good design. Right off the bat there is no excuse for all those screws, and those trays block all the radiation from the elements from reaching the bread! It's a terrible design for accomplishing the task.
What's wrong with the screws? Screws are the king of repairability.
I've always wanted toasters to have a lid to keep dust out. That's one thing I would add to their design.
flatpack | ˈflatˌpak | noun 1 Electronics a package for an integrated circuit consisting of a rectangular sealed unit with a number of horizontal metal pins protruding from its sides.
My toaster is from the 1950s and works fine. Also it's not ugly as sin.
When I see repairable I also think moddable.
Can it run doom by toasting a new frame per slice?
Any toaster can do this. If you reduce “frame” to “pixel”
Back in 2001, Robin Southgate's toaster ran Java (https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/just-javatm-2/013148211...) and could probably have been able to run doom, one frame per slice!
Trying to reduce eWaste as well and was wondering if anybody could recommend repair meetups around NYC, maybe in Westchester?
I would definitely confuse this with my NAS and put a couple of hard drives in it.
I was immediately reminded of this old gem: https://makezine.com/article/craft/a-homemade-toaster-built-...
No idea what it is about toasters, other than their simplicity, but I really love the effort with the flatpack version.
So cool. From 2009 so there's been some link rot; they had a Tumblr that seems fully disappeared from the web.
Most current site: https://www.thomasthwaites.com/the-toaster-project/
Older site: http://www.thetoasterproject.org/page2.htm
Some videos: https://vimeo.com/3162229 https://vimeo.com/3186135 https://vimeo.com/3186840
They also did a TED talk on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ODzO7Lz_pw
I’d love to buy one of these.
I would definitely buy one, assuming there was some guarantee on parts availability "for the lifespan of the company up to X decades" or some similarly long time.
I would doubly do so if the design were open-source.
I would triply do so if I could have all my new home appliances this way. I tossed my last fridge and my last washing machine over parts which would have been in the single-digit dollars to manufacture.
If the author is not commercializing this, the design and instructions should be open-sourced (and, ideally, advertised to a Chinese discount company).
> and, ideally, advertised to a Chinese discount company
Do you need to provide the documentation to the discount company? I was always under the impression the best way to get a product made was
a) make a compelling video
b) post to a crowdfunding site and make a lot of PR noise elsewhere
c) wait for the knock offs, if it takes a while, write up some posts about how you're having trouble finding production partners
d) if the knocks offs are decent, send a good knock off to the backers, otherwise refund their pledges.
Cool project, also curious about the economics. Have been thinking recently with the increasing quality and affordability of 3d printers and assistive benefits of LLM's it would be cool to basically have the equivalent of lego builds kits for all kinds of consumer goods.
I wonder when teenage engineering will sell a 2000 dollar version of this.
This is great. I have personally gone through a half a dozen toasters. It such a waste.
I want to buy one for my lifetime
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/79454372/get-solana-wall...
Nice! Although I hope the next project will be a repairable panini grill, those are way more versatile than toasters.
I designed an automotive part that is fabricated out of sheet metal and this article resonates with me because while the completed product looks very simple, the process of getting to the completed product is very complex and has dozens of iterations of designs, failed prototypes, mistakes, etc.
That's what is so infuriating when my products get copied by sellers from China or similar - they are taking all of the hundreds of hours of work that I put into a design and skipping that, going straight to the easy part of producing the finalized part.
Making the thing is the easy part - making up the thing is the hard part!
Apparently you can use LLMs with tools like OpenSCAD now and it not be utterly terrible, so that might save you some time :)
This looks awesome, I definitely want one! Are you selling these too?
I feel that the real thing that this guy is getting at, which I am also a fan of, is "How could we as a society, shift the culture away from disposability and consumption to sustainability and repair?"
As someone without all the answers, it seems like only a heavyhanded degree of regulation could have any chance (e.g. high taxes on whole categories of devices with low/no repairability). Though perhaps in a trade apocalypse situation that may happen sooner than we think (such as total breakdown of trade with China) perhaps repair will suddenly be relevant. This is why, as I understand it, basically every car owner in Cuba is also a mechanic.
Of course, they had the benefit of having 1950s cars when trade barriers went up. We've got houses full of devices built and purchased with the understanding that you throw away anything with a plug or a battery within 5 years max!
This brings a smile to my face after just rough assembling laser cut sheet AL which forms the enclosure for a water circulating pump system I built. Same style of raw sheet metal and external screws. It just needs to work and look decent.
edit: I'd buy one of these.
goooddd
A post worthy of Hacker News Hall of Fame.
am I the only one who read this headline and thought it was a random three-word identifier?
> Repairable flatpack toaster
Good bad so-so
That's a lot of JS for a static site. For some reason it hijacked my keyboard shortcuts for back and forward.
same. wtf?
My parents are using an electric hand mixer that is 45+ years old. It's still fine.
Products of the past did last longer because they weren't as cost-optimised yet. It seems similar to the story of the vastly over-build Volvo red block engines.
Yet, we don't live in a (global) society that cares about living consciously, to build things that last. If something lasts, we don't consume. And that's our true purpose. To consume the things that are produced.
Do we need 20+ brands of peanut butter? Why do brands even exist? Why can't we just but 'peanut butter'?
The word and our society is actually so strange, if you really think about this. By the way, did I mentioned yet, I really miss David Graeber?
MY first job (in the last 70s) was working in a TV rental store doing small item repair. In particular, repairing toasters was probably my #1 activity. Essentially the failure was nearly always the same -- one of the three toasting elements failed, and so I would replace all three elements, and the customer got a working toaster back.
It was never clear to me (at least I don't recall it being clear) why the heating elements failed. It could be from someone sticking a hard tool into the toaster when trying to remove a small item (and breaking the element). It might be that a piece of bread gets stuck to a portion of the element and catches fire at that point -- maybe that weakens the element at that point. This was, of course, long before toasters got electronics in them!
The heating elements in a toaster are essentially the same as the heating elements in a lightbulb. Eventually, enough heat cycling, the metal fatigues or melts at a certain point, the circuit opens, and your toaster stops lighting up the room. Of course, trauma is always an option too.
Products of the past did not last longer.
Products of the past for the same price point as today (adj for inflation) especially did not last longer, if they even existed at that price point.
that's strictly not true, at least for many segments. my 1960s Kitchenaid mixer has been used since..the 60s, and if you buy a new Kitchenaid today, don't expect that plastic gear to last very long if you actually take it out and use it.
I found an 1969 ad for a kitchenaid mixer. It's cost $125 in 1969 dollars. That's over $1000 in todays dollars. You're comparing a mixer that costs half as much. And, believe me, fixing the skimp issues that kitchenaid introduced to give the execs a bigger bonus can be fixed for a lot less than $500.
Furthermore, you probably can buy a mixer for $1000 that has a similar chance of surviving 60 years for $1000.
I had a 60s kitchenaid and it was super loud, possibly over 90 db. Additionally, it had square corners where stuff got stuck, couldn't handle some solids well, and to wash it you often had to remove the blade and gasket.
One interesting thing was a gimmick about heating soup with the blender using solely friction.
I eventually bought a modern plastic refurb which has been a dream. I do think it is a shame that it won't last 50 years.
A Kitchenaid K5-A mixer cost $159 in 1960. That would be $1,700 today. I'll bet you can get someone to make you a replacement metal gear for something less than $1,000.
Do it for 'smart' TVs now.
Nice!
I know a good recipe for toast.
Come on, this is basically what a Dualit Classic is. I really don't see this is much more than an exercise. The problem is asking people to spend 5x to 10x the price of cheap mass produced unmaintainable tat.
The problem as I see it is that 99% of toaster owners don’t know where to find the parts in this toaster and/or how to replace them.
That’s where I’d love to see more experimentation.
There’s a maker space in my old town where you can just take stuff and they’ll nerd out over helping you fix it. I wish there was that, but in a store format.
I want to live in a world where it’s just common parlance to say, “my toaster broke so I have to stop at the FixIt on my way home.
Yes yes, fixing it is too expensive to support this business model. I want to dream, okay?! Maybe a toaster like this makes it much more reasonable for cheaper appliances to be fixed by the summer student from high school who will learn invaluable skills for $15/hr. I would have killed to make min wage taking apart and doing basic repairs on stuff.
I mentor high school students who can CAD and fabricate plastic and metal parts. Surely we could fabricate more young people like that too.
I've toyed around with a similar idea. A pizza shop style manufacturing/fixit hub that would pick up and deliver locally manufactured items like that.
I even think that repairing items at a loss could work out, because you'd get valuable customer data on what items they used enough to break, and what parts broke, giving you an insight to make your own product lines that didn't break in that way.