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Take toaster out of box and toast bread until you've nailed the setting that suits you.
Now, break lever on side of toaster that activates an internal mechanism and that's it.
Anyone can now make toast to any setting they like, but when the toast "pops" the toaster defaults back to its original
setting.
No more whining about who changed the setting etc.
Optical Eye Toaster
Optical_20Eye_20Toaster
better supplemental toastedness detection, for xamdram [Loris, Oct 26 2012]
I (+) [cromagnon]'s idea, but it's not complex enough for my tastes
Orbital_20toaster
Now THIS is complex... [normzone, Oct 26 2012]
[link]
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How does breaking a lever on the side of the toaster
make it default back to its original setting after
someone else has changed it? |
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I'm glad there's something here that symbolises
something, even if it's only symbolic. |
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Oh, of course! Suddenly it's so clear! |
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I think the idea here is not that you break off the
lever
that sets the temperature, but the lever that sets
the /default/ temperature that the toaster returns
to after being adjusted and subsequently used. |
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As to how this could be accomplished, I don't think
it would be too difficult. If the toaster uses a knob
to determine the browning setting, you could use a
dual spring system to create tension either way you
turn the knob from the default, and a clamp to
create enough friction to keep it at whatever
position you set the dial to. When the toaster pops,
the clamp is released momentarily, causing the dial
to spring back to its default position. |
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Out of the box, the entire dial mechanism would
rotate,
spring mounts and all, so there would be no
default. After breaking off the lever, the spring
mounts would lock into position, enabling the
return mechanism to function. The only problem I
see with this design is that it doesn't really need to
involve breaking off a lever. A switch on the back
would work just fine. Most people aren't going to
bother changing the default unless they really
intended to do so. |
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I think the Idea here is to break one of the internal linkages, so that the lever is still there but has no effect. The setting you want is permanent/internal (and becomes the default) because of the broken linkage. |
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How about a separate button or two with personlized memory settings like some cars have for seat position? Everyone else is able to adjust the toaster to how they like it but you can revert back to your personal preference with the push of a button. |
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Have you ever noticed that if you are the second person (in a row) to make toast, it will toast faster because essentially the toaster has been pre-heated. I'm not sure this idea can really work unless the toaster been engineered to detect exactly how much heat is to be generated at the specific time of toasting. |
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I *think* bigsleep was proposing optically measuring the surface colour of the substrate to determine whether it was done. Which I further think would be a good idea for toasters in general, nailed or otherwise. And then observed that kmlabs had already proposed in 2005 (Optical Eye Toaster, linked). |
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Also, doesn't the ambient temperature of the bread have some effect? Certainly, gourmet sourdough slices from last month's farmers market take a lot longer to toast from frozen. |
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I'm pretty sure you could use the acoustic properties
of the toast to determine its done-ness. As toast
becomes less moist and bread-like and more crisp
and toast-like, its resonant frequency and
absorption spectrum will change. Thus, the toaster
will have a tiny sound generator firing pulses of
sound through the toast, to be picked up by a
microphone on the other side. Once the right
absorption spectrum is reached, the toast pops up. |
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Why not just use a high-powered laser to ablate a
sample of the toast and analyze it with the built-in
mass spectrometer? |
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That would certainly be more appropriatly complicated
than using a high-powered laser to toast the bread. |
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However, the laser could be dual-purpose, or coupled with
the pantone-scale optic analysis and resonant frequency
detectors. Maybe neutron activation analysis has an
application here as well. We could end up with a real
culinary radiation
hazard if we try hard enough. |
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What is the electrical resistance of bread? If we apply a high enough voltage to opposite edges of the slice, do you think a current will flow? Do we need to evacuate the toaster to prevent arcing? |
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needs more dongles, widgets, gears, circuitry, and
badgers. still worth a bun |
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I've thought of a few ways to do it. One involves springs, cogs and nitinol, but as [bigsleep] and [pocmloc] point out, different bread, different outcome. Nothing can save this idea, not even a nail. Fail! |
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[AusCan531] Bake your idea and make a gazilion dollars! |
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