The follow-up is live!

I must thank you for this video - it prompted me to subscribe. I watched it maybe three years ago and was charmed with the toaster's design genius. Perhaps a few weeks after seeing it, I spotted a T-20 at a street fair in Saugatuck, MI. That makes it one of the first ever made, in 1949 or 50. It was sitting on the ground surrounded by all kinds of consignment stuff in front of a store, with a $10 tag on it. Love at first sight. I could see some discoloration around the (ancient) cord, so I was careful enough not to plug it in. I was pretty sure it wouldn't work, anyway. I pulled out this video again and went to work. As expected, one of the posts inside was burned. I cleaned that up, got a new grounded cord, and finished the repair. It toasted be-you-tifully from the first slice and worked fine until recently. I began to notice a bright glow in a tiny spot at the bottom of the power-side slot, even if the toaster continued to work. Then one morning it stopped working, no theatrics, no sparks, just "I ain't feelin it today". Opening it up, I found that the same post had burned out again, and the damage was more serious this time. I was able to remove the post completely and replaced it with a 1" stainless machine screw (the original bolt is a standard size - 6-32) and washers and nuts. Rewired and reassembled, the toaster went right back to work. Thanks once again for this quirky and very useful video.

Robert Weiss

I wouldn't handle electrical devices with bare feet. It is safer to wear insulating shoes.

Lorenzo Novara

Also for but crimps look for 3M branded ones, especially the heat shrink ones. They're so much easier to use and more reliable.

James Sutherland

These crimpers are sort of an industry standard. You might get a set if you do a lot of this kind of thing. They're great and work on almost everything -- <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0018LD2PU" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0018LD2PU</a>

James Sutherland

I remember our neighbor across the street had one of these and i was fascinated by it. My family could not afford one this fancy. In the early 70's i bought on of these "Sunbeam Thinline Touch N Toast" as a wedding present for my brother. I remember it also lowered the toast slowly. You had to touch the button to start the process. Please do a video on this one too. You can find one on ebay.

I'm not particular about early access, but please make a post here as I've disabled YouTube notifications to prevent duplicate notifications.

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

Just FYI, I had YouTube suggest this video to me this morning (and watched it) when not logged in, so it’s possible a bit more live than you had in mind (normally hidden things don’t get autosuggested). For a second channel video follow up it doesn’t seem a big deal it went live early (and it meant I could easily watch on my TV directly). But just thought you might want to know. Ewen PS: interesting toaster series, and interesting video for an appliance I’ll never own (I literally don’t own a toaster).

Ewen McNeill

I'll tell you from experience (without a gas car since 2012, and well over 100k miles) that you don't need to worry about it. Routine service is simple: rotate and change tires. That's it. Some climates need regular brake fluid replacement and other brake service (because the brakes don't get used as often - EVs will likely use one set of pads their whole life), but that's the extent of it. I get my tires done at different shops each time, none have ever even blinked. It's a car, 100% normal to them. Working in EV charging engineering, I'd also messed up the charger in my Leaf, and took it to a dealer to get fixed. (on all modern EVs, the actual device doing the battery charging is built into the car, you just provide a smart power cord, the EVSE). The repair was to replace the onboard charger, and it was fairly priced, though the experience was a little bumpy (dealers still suck). Under warranty is where most issues would arise, and out of warranty, you're probably not likely to need to dig into these things. Everything is solid-state and will last pretty much forever.

Matt Falcon

I want to hear your rant about car dealerships. One reason I'm hesitant to buy an electric vehicle is because most independent repair shops won't work on them (yet). Does that mean most service needs to be performed at dealerships? Not sure I like that, I've had bad experiences with dealer repairs

BigClive just did a review on a 110V hotdog cooker running on the UK Mains directly; cut the cooking time down by 60% roughly. I'm not sure diode rectification on the mains is going to have the desired effect.... if nothing else, it'd have a nice 50hz buzz :)

I just spent 48 minutes watching a video about a toaster I will never own and I'm okay with that.

Patrick Bianchi

I would rather solder it and use shrink-tubing around the joint, although, if the other wire is aluminium, that might be more difficult... Maybe a tip for filming the work: to me you appear to narrate live while you're doing it, might it not be easier to concentrate on the work (which is probably not easy anyway while filming) and overdub the narration afterwards?

MrHammond

Sign me up for the rant about car dealerships. Your rants are one of my favourite things about the internet!

I've always heard it pronounced "Bakerlite" in my British twang.

Big Car

Yup, you've got to pick one or the other. And both are real risks! If i were in a household with kids, I'd probably go for the ungrounded, but adults are unlikely to poke about [am I giving adults too much credit? haha] so probably best to be grounded in a kid-free household!

Hmm. You've made me do some googling and there appears to be some healthy debate on this subject. It comes down to which risk you want to mitigate. With a grounded chassis, it could be the case that someone messing around in there with a fork or whatever could be in a worse position if they are touching the toaster with their other hand. But, without a grounded chassis, there's a lot of potential for the chassis to become live thanks to the plethora of wires inside the toaster with marginal insulation. Different countries appear to have come to different conclusions on this matter. Personally, I'd rather ground the toaster because I'm smart enough to not shove a knife down there, and I can't be sure there won't be a wiring fault.

Technology Connections

Are you sure it's a good idea to add a ground wire? Toasters are not grounded on purpose. If someone goes spelunking around inside with a metal object while it's energized and are touching the case, that ground wire is going to provide a mighty efficient path for an electric shock! That's what I've always been told, anyway!