Some years ago, I purchased a Sunbeam Radiant Control Toaster at a salvage store. Lately, it stopped automatically accepting and toasting the bread. I found, through trial and error, that it would accept and toast the bread if I tilted it over toward me at about a 45-degree angle. That helped for a few weeks until it finally stopped working completely.
I decided to take it apart and possibly replace the heater contacts. After many years of use, they must be kaput, I thought. When opening it, I tried to keep from bending anything until I found out how it was intended to work. It clearly had a very crafty mechanical logic system that sensed the presence of bread, starting the thermal motor to lower the bread while starting the heaters. The contacts were still in perfect operating condition. When it “sensed” that the bread was properly toasted, it would shut off and lift the toast.
I found that the return springs that lifted the toast had weakened a bit, so the bread presence sensing switch couldn’t trigger the starting cycle. I figured a light tweak of the spring bracket should cure that problem. However, there was no bracket to tweak, only a punched hole in the inaccessible frame. How else could I fix it? Shorten the spring? This wasn’t going to be easy.
Digging further into the mechanism, I found an adjustment screw that increased the lifting spring power. Not only that, but that adjustment screw was accessible from the bottom, without taking the toaster apart -- just open the crumb tray, and there it was. The engineer should have added instructions on how to make the adjustment -- it would have saved a lot of time and effort.
This entry was submitted by Robert Nepper and edited by Rob Spiegel.
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Yes, Nancy, my kids are the same way. After three years, the product has so many new features, the old product has little value. Pretty clever of the electronics industry to create early obsolescence.
cvandewater, I'm sure that toaster designs could vary, but also note that Dangela's comment below described fixing the toaster "to hold the bread down so it would toast", implying that more than just triggering is required.
Robert, I just had to comment. I read your first paragraph and I just had to laugh. It was great. I was visualizing you tilting the toaster to get it to work. My wife would have been telling me to get rid of the thing (and she's and engineer).
Interesting, Jhankwitz. I wonder how many engineers are now in the position to focus 100% on component longevirty. Maybe a few in defense, aerospace, and medical devices. Maybe some in Detroit as well.
Those were indeed the good old days. My kids just can't understand why I get aggravated when an electronic product or an appliance doesn't last longer than three years - they have grown up in a disposable society and its hard for them to comprehend something built with longevity in mind - anything older than three years is "old" to them and should be replaced anyway...
Thanks for your good work! I use a Sunbeam Radiant Toaster, a CoffeeMaster vacuum coffee maker, an Oster Snowflake ice crusher and a blender of a similar age. I know people who regularly use Mixmasters.
I push these thrift store finds on my friends who are amazed that at one time appliances were made to be serviced and last several lifetimes. The quality of the industrial design still impresses me. Anyone who considers classic cars worth collecting should also look into classic appliances.
You might look at the "automatic beyond belief" or the other vintage appliance websites. A real engineer from the Chicago Flexible Shaft Company would be valued source of information.
Ah, the years have been far kinder to those products than to my memory. I don't recall any maintenance instructions included with any products other than the routine oiling of professional hair clipper bearings. Truth is, my focus was 100% on component longevity, not product manuals. Those were created by other Engineering teams and graphic artists.
So, the question of the day, Jhankwitz, is whether the Sunbeam was sold with a manual that explained the adjustment screw at the bottom of the toaster. I can understand Robert not having the instructions, since he bought the toaster as a resale shop. But what about new owners? Did Sunbeam alert them?
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