|
General Vintage Technology Discussions For general discussions about vintage radio and other vintage electronics etc. |
|
Thread Tools |
27th Feb 2018, 3:57 pm | #61 |
Dekatron
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Derby, UK.
Posts: 7,735
|
Re: Repair vs Replace; Wasted Resources
I've never bothered with an electric toaster -- I just stick a couple of slices of bread under the grill. I prefer the taste of gas toast over electric toast anyway.
__________________
If I have seen further than others, it is because I was standing on a pile of failed experiments. |
27th Feb 2018, 5:39 pm | #62 | |
Octode
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Fleet, Hampshire, UK
Posts: 1,764
|
Re: Repair vs Replace; Wasted Resources
Quote:
When I rejigged my 50s Frigidaire, I found the compressor rating surprisingly low |
|
27th Feb 2018, 5:47 pm | #63 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: Biggin Hill, London, UK.
Posts: 5,208
|
Re: Repair vs Replace; Wasted Resources
I always try to repair something rather than replace it. And I guess I take this to excess sometimes. When a plastic roller failed in a device that cost <£100 and the manufacturers refused to supply spare parts, I took it as the final justification to buy and learn to use a lathe so as to make a replacement roller. Of course the lathe has been used for many jobs since....
By chance my toaster failed a few weeks ago. So I took it apart. It seems to have been made deliberately difficult to dismantle and repair. The cover screws were 5 off pozidrive and one tamperproof Torx. If you wanted to replace the mains cable then you had to dismantle the whole thing (and FWIW the live and neutral wires were soldered to a PCB, whereas the earth wire was connected to the element chassis with a 1/4" faston ('lucar', whatever you call it) terminal). One interesting (?) feature is that the element was tapped near one end, the tap was connected to a half-wave rectifier to supply power for the microcontroller, etc. I just hope that end of the element never goes open-circuit as it would be spectacular!. Anyway the fault was burnt contacts on the 'main switch' which consisted of 4 bits of springy metal soldered to a PCB. I would not like to use that to switch 5A at mains voltage, but anyway. A clean-up with propan-2-ol and it seems fine. |
27th Feb 2018, 10:19 pm | #64 |
Hexode
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Royal Berkshire, UK.
Posts: 471
|
Re: Repair vs Replace; Wasted Resources
I always investigate first, then attempt a repair. More often than not with no real effort & great success.
Some I see as a challenge, the latest example, when the garage tells you the motor in your auto-adjusting headlights comes with the headlight, as a sealed unit & 'cannot be repaired' ... At £600 each (if one side has failed, the other will follow, advice) plus labour, it was worth my 90 minutes of careful dismantling, only to find the silver disc in said motor oxidised, so the 'car' didn't know what position the headlight was in vs passengers/load, so went into fail-safe 'staring at the road' mode. I was very pleased with my efforts, cost me 90 minutes, some contact cleaner, a cotton bud, a cup of tea & 2 dark chocolate digestives, the posh ones! I guess the years of dismantling/repairing potentiometers in vintage radios, repairing video recorder/cassette tape mechs has helped! I'm told my most impressive, was repairing a train set from the 1980's. Motor was obsolete, collector wanted £150 for his last remaining motor. Me? I had a scrap CD-ROM drive, so I removed the tray motor, made a mounting to fit the train & transferred the drive gear(s) over ... Worked a treat, I'm told so much quieter than before, & boy did it shift up the track!!!! Mark |
28th Feb 2018, 3:43 pm | #65 | |
Dekatron
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Surrey, UK.
Posts: 4,395
|
Re: Repair vs Replace; Wasted Resources
Quote:
The tapped-down element/dropper business reminds me of the tapped rectifiers in AA5s so as to feed a dial lamp with minimum complication and again could be seen as an exercise in to-the-bone cheese-paring or manufacturing elegance, depending on point-of-view. I'm willing to bet that the smoothing cap was a low-cost type positioned closely to the source of intense heat in the interest of limiting operational life to slightly beyond the mandatory warranty. It's always satisfying to chalk up minor victories against cynical obsolescence, though. |
|
28th Feb 2018, 4:12 pm | #66 | |
Dekatron
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Fakenham, Norfolk, UK.
Posts: 4,255
|
Re: Repair vs Replace; Wasted Resources
Quote:
Paul |
|
28th Feb 2018, 4:25 pm | #67 |
Heptode
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Wellington, New Zealand.
Posts: 653
|
Re: Repair vs Replace; Wasted Resources
What I miss is the dedicated craftsman who repaired things for cash but mostly for the love of it - the Freds of this world who beaver away in their workshop rebuilding avo meters for example. We used to have local guys who could rebuild the actual meter movements, or your mechanical watch/clock but many seem to be hitting retirement/giving it away now. The trouble for the rest of us is the time involved and the skill mastery needed - the present age does not allow these.
|
28th Feb 2018, 9:33 pm | #68 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Surrey, UK.
Posts: 4,395
|
Re: Repair vs Replace; Wasted Resources
Yep, I too have a sturdy steel pastel-and-chrome toaster with clockwork run-back bell and manual lift- I could never fathom the rationale behind the pop-up toaster, so ingenious that the toast was already cooling before you could get to it! Still, it's another flimsy mechanism to fatigue and eventually fail....
|
28th Feb 2018, 9:44 pm | #69 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Brentwood, Essex, UK.
Posts: 5,339
|
Re: Repair vs Replace; Wasted Resources
Our old hair dryer used a tapping off the heating element to feed its 12VDC motor via a diode. After the element had failed O/C in ithe "high voltage" section, rather than bin it, I used it in our motor caravan as a cold air hair dryer and air bed inflater. I hadn't thought about it before, but it would have been interesting to see what happened had it failed O/C in the low voltage tapping!
|
28th Feb 2018, 10:22 pm | #70 |
Nonode
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Worcestershire, UK.
Posts: 2,052
|
Re: Repair vs Replace; Wasted Resources
|
28th Feb 2018, 10:33 pm | #71 |
Retired Dormant Member
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Shropshire, UK.
Posts: 3,051
|
Re: Repair vs Replace; Wasted Resources
I rather like that 'industrial' toaster!
What is it? Looks rather like a Dualit in concept, if not appearance. |
28th Feb 2018, 10:56 pm | #72 | |
Dekatron
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Fakenham, Norfolk, UK.
Posts: 4,255
|
Re: Repair vs Replace; Wasted Resources
Quote:
http://www.rowlett.co.uk/wp-content/...owlett-1-1.png The future of ours is secure for as long as the parts stay available: except I could be tempted should Rowlett's 1957 model turn up anywhere, but I suspect my wife, tolerant though she is, might insist on it being somewhere other than in the kitchen. Paul Last edited by Paul_RK; 28th Feb 2018 at 11:17 pm. |
|
1st Mar 2018, 12:47 am | #73 |
Nonode
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Kirk Michael, Isle of Man
Posts: 2,350
|
Re: Repair vs Replace; Wasted Resources
Back in 1988, I bought a Servis Quartz 600, a very early microprocessor based machine. Motor brushes failed after about 15 years, at least three mains filter caps failed, but otherwise it was excellent. However lack of space and a need for separate fridge and freezer meant it had to go. Enter a Zanussi ZWC1300, the only one small enough to fit the now smaller space. And so, yesterday, after only 6 years use, the very noisy fast spin suddenly became a machine gun from the sound. What a pig to dismantle! Finally got it to bits; the drum is fastened to the bearing hung "Spider" by just three crude tubular rivets. A bit like oversize shoelace eye holes. All three of them were quite slack allowing the drum to wobble and rattle. I think three stainless steel bolts with nyloc nuts are called for.
So, I have moved from a reliable machine that is easy to work on when required to one that is clearly intended to be scrapped when anything fails. Les. Last edited by MotorBikeLes; 1st Mar 2018 at 12:49 am. Reason: edit text error. |
1st Mar 2018, 6:03 am | #74 |
Banned
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Middlewich, Cheshire, UK. & Winter in the Philippines.
Posts: 3,897
|
Re: Repair vs Replace; Wasted Resources
Don't be too despondent Les, I have the same washer, fits on a boat better than a full size one, and it is one of the better constructed ones.
The modern crap they are passing of as engineering have drum and tub in a single assembly which cannot be separated. So no new bearings possible either. Those rivets are usually very good at their intended job. Its the slight corrosion of the ally spider with strong washing powders that causes the initial loosening. Using a bleaching agent accelerates the problem. Allowing the machine to dry out by leaving the door ajar helps slow the rot. |
1st Mar 2018, 9:16 am | #75 | |
Dekatron
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Wiltshire, UK.
Posts: 13,998
|
Re: Repair vs Replace; Wasted Resources
Quote:
That's the whole idea: if you keep toast hot after the toasting-process has completed, it goes soft because moisture continues to migrate out of the hot inner untoasted part of the bread and softens the outer toasted part. Take toast out of the toaster as soon as toasting has completed, then let it cool with each slice kept away from the other slices so air can circulate between them to dispel the moisture [a device has been invented to aid this priocess - it's called a toast-rack] - that way it retains the satisfying crunch! [other people may like their toast hot but soggy] |
|
1st Mar 2018, 9:54 am | #76 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Oxfordshire, UK.
Posts: 4,311
|
Re: Repair vs Replace; Wasted Resources
You'll be telling me that carbon film resistors sound different from metal film ones in your hi-fi next !
Cheers, GJ
__________________
http://www.ampregen.com |
1st Mar 2018, 10:06 am | #77 | ||
Dekatron
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Surrey, UK.
Posts: 4,395
|
Re: Repair vs Replace; Wasted Resources
Quote:
Shows just what a diverse bunch we human beings are! |
||
1st Mar 2018, 1:03 pm | #78 | |
Dekatron
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Fakenham, Norfolk, UK.
Posts: 4,255
|
Re: Repair vs Replace; Wasted Resources
Quote:
Doubtless moisture does continue to migrate to the surface to some extent, but, in the bowels of a toaster with still warm elements to both sides of the slice, the toast is surrounded by air that continues to be drawn through the toaster's ventilation slots and warmed by the elements as it passes them. The said warm, dry air effectively prevents any softening of the toasted surface. Paul |
|
1st Mar 2018, 1:11 pm | #79 |
Moderator
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Ipswich, Suffolk, IP4, UK.
Posts: 21,288
|
Re: Repair vs Replace; Wasted Resources
This thread is now toast.
__________________
Graham. Forum Moderator Reach for your meter before you reach for your soldering iron. |