5 ms·

I have a Sunbeam Radiant Control toaster that still works flawlessly. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y They

by ethbr0 3y ago

I have a Sunbeam Radiant Control toaster that still works flawlessly. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y They used a shielded bimetalic thermostat to measure the radiant heat coming from the toast surface, instead of a timer, to establish doneness (consistently toasting despite heating element variance) and implemented the mechanical lowering & raising of toast without a single motor (which is why 60+ year old examples still work).

bern4444 3y ago
What if you only want 1 piece of toast and not two? Will it still automatically go down?
- ethbr0 3y ago
  I believe they're weighted so that a single piece of toast has enough mass to trip the mechanism. Since they only use a thermostat on one side, you do need to use a particular side for single toast.
- reichstein 3y ago
  Only one of the holes has a trigger. You fill that last, or only.
idlewords 3y ago
But how do you cancel without a cancel button?
- ethbr0 3y ago
  If you make a toast-related error, by inserting bread into the toaster and then deciding you don't actually want it toasted, you unplug the toaster. As the elements cool, your bread returns to you, unharmed.
  - mcpeepants 3y ago
    > unharmed harmed to a degree that is proportional to the toast-decision-making latency of the operator
- stickfigure 3y ago
  You move the darkness slider all the way to the "light" end for a second. For all the machine's faults, this one wasn't a big deal.
stickfigure 3y ago
I've lived with two of these (at home growing up, and later via a roommate) and I hated both of them. The toast slot is too narrow. You can't heat a bagel - well, technically you can force it in there, but it won't come back out with some help from a utensil. They get flakey and you end up bouncing the toast a dozen times to get it to lower. Yes, I know there's an adjustment, but it's finicky and annoying. It's a toaster for crying out loud. Yes, the design is ingenious, but there's a good reason they aren't made anymore.
- MostlyStable 3y ago
  I'm pretty sure that the reason they stopped getting made was influx of dramatically cheaper toasters, at a time when the idea of paying top dollar for premium kitchen tools was not very common. I'm also pretty sure that fixing all of your issues would not be hard with a modern re-design. It would just result in a ~$100+ toaster. The crazy thing is is that _there are more expensive toasters than that_, that are basically identical to cheap toasters except they look better. I'd _gladly_ pay $100 for a new toaster that had the features of the Sunbeam and was well made enough to not have the finicky features bits you mention. And paying for premium kitchen tools is _common_ now, to the point where even people who don't really care about cooking will still have a KitchenAid Stand Mixer and a Vitamix Blender.
  - stickfigure 3y ago
    > fixing all of your issues would not be hard with a modern re-design I'm not so sure. You could probably make the slot wider, but it's still a 100% analog device that operates via heat expansion of metals. The adjustment is going to be finicky. People expect toasters to "just work" without maintenance. As soon as you add digital electronics to automate the analog adjustment... why bother with the complicated analog part? The only major advantage this toaster has over a spring/timer device is that the toast (usually, but not always) goes down by itself. Pushing down on a toaster spring just doesn't seem like that much of an inconvenience. Have you ever owned one of these things? Did you genuinely like it?
    - 3y ago

by ethbr0 3y ago

bern4444 3y ago

What if you only want 1 piece of toast and not two? Will it still automatically go down?

ethbr0 3y ago
I believe they're weighted so that a single piece of toast has enough mass to trip the mechanism. Since they only use a thermostat on one side, you do need to use a particular side for single toast.
reichstein 3y ago
Only one of the holes has a trigger. You fill that last, or only.

idlewords 3y ago

But how do you cancel without a cancel button?

ethbr0 3y ago
If you make a toast-related error, by inserting bread into the toaster and then deciding you don't actually want it toasted, you unplug the toaster. As the elements cool, your bread returns to you, unharmed.
- mcpeepants 3y ago
  > unharmed harmed to a degree that is proportional to the toast-decision-making latency of the operator
stickfigure 3y ago
You move the darkness slider all the way to the "light" end for a second. For all the machine's faults, this one wasn't a big deal.

stickfigure 3y ago

I've lived with two of these (at home growing up, and later via a roommate) and I hated both of them. The toast slot is too narrow. You can't heat a bagel - well, technically you can force it in there, but it won't come back out with some help from a utensil. They get flakey and you end up bouncing the toast a dozen times to get it to lower. Yes, I know there's an adjustment, but it's finicky and annoying. It's a toaster for crying out loud. Yes, the design is ingenious, but there's a good reason they aren't made anymore.

MostlyStable 3y ago
I'm pretty sure that the reason they stopped getting made was influx of dramatically cheaper toasters, at a time when the idea of paying top dollar for premium kitchen tools was not very common. I'm also pretty sure that fixing all of your issues would not be hard with a modern re-design. It would just result in a ~$100+ toaster. The crazy thing is is that _there are more expensive toasters than that_, that are basically identical to cheap toasters except they look better. I'd _gladly_ pay $100 for a new toaster that had the features of the Sunbeam and was well made enough to not have the finicky features bits you mention. And paying for premium kitchen tools is _common_ now, to the point where even people who don't really care about cooking will still have a KitchenAid Stand Mixer and a Vitamix Blender.
- stickfigure 3y ago
  > fixing all of your issues would not be hard with a modern re-design I'm not so sure. You could probably make the slot wider, but it's still a 100% analog device that operates via heat expansion of metals. The adjustment is going to be finicky. People expect toasters to "just work" without maintenance. As soon as you add digital electronics to automate the analog adjustment... why bother with the complicated analog part? The only major advantage this toaster has over a spring/timer device is that the toast (usually, but not always) goes down by itself. Pushing down on a toaster spring just doesn't seem like that much of an inconvenience. Have you ever owned one of these things? Did you genuinely like it?
  - 3y ago