I hope the comments here don't end up quibbling about the practicality or economics of this toaster specifically, because the point here is the process. This project involves reverse engineering, designing from scratch, manufacturing, developing beginner-accessible documentation, and performing real-world user studies. We should be encouraging people to do more of this!
But I am actually interested in the economics! The author mentions sending her designs out to a factory - I would expect this is astonishingly expensive for a single prototype! Wouldn’t that be thousands of dollars? Is anyone familiar how to get good factory-made parts like this at DIY budgets?
Not that that takes away from the article at all. This project has many merits, and although cost may not be one of them, it’s still interesting!
This project seems to take its heating elements, clockwork timer and knob from a classic Dualit 2 Slice toaster - so those parts are all available off-the-shelf.
Other than that, this design needs some laser cut and bent metal, and some wooden feet. If you're able to bend the metal yourself and find some off-the-shelf feet, you could probably get the flat sheets of stainless steel laser cut and shipped for less than $100.
On the other hand, if one wanted a factory to do more demanding production processes, with more worker time or more machine setup - you're right that it would cost a good deal more.
On the subject of Dualit toasters: I've picked several up on the street over the years, cleaned them up and replaced a few parts (heating elements and/ or timers) and for about £10 effectively had a new toaster to give away/ sell. Dualit toasters aren't the best but I wholeheartedly recomend them from the point of view of DIY repair and maintainence. Our current model is 20 years old this year.
Yeah, the knob and the lack of automated pop-out made me think that they at least deeply evaluated dualit models. I have 2 dualits. Both inherited, both well over 20 years old. There really is not much to repair with these things.
I will say the OP’s design looks cool, it’s certainly an interesting exercise and portfolio item.
I’m like this with Mazzer grinders. It’s a niche kink, but I’m addicted to them.
People claim they break, but I’m yet to find one that wasn’t fixed fairly easily. With the intention of selling, I sand and paint them. But then they are so beautiful I can’t.
Best are the models ‘Major’ and above. The air vents look so good. Who needs to grind 20kgs of beans per day? Not me, but I can do this 5 or 6 times over.
The last one I picked up off the street had no problems whatsoever, except for the fact that the power cord had been cut off. Presumably someone had cut it off deliberately, which is infuriating - but hey, free toaster.
People usually do that to specifically indicate that it has a problem of some sort, so someone else doesn't assume it's working. Although with a toaster, just the act of flipping it around to cut the cord might dislodge whatever toast bits were causing it to smoke and such in the first place.
In my experience, desperate people cut the cords off of perfectly good appliances to sell the copper as scrap. Copper wire fetches something like ~$1/lb as scrap. It's infuriating when they cut it right at the connection to the appliance, making it too time consuming to test.
A label of "Broken" or "Works" or "Missing X" is so much more helpful for appliances left out.
Good point, if it was just sitting by the curb, a metal scraper might have just cut the cord instead of taking the whole thing. I've noticed that different scrapers have different criteria for what they'll take. Some will take the whole thing and break it down or just sell it as unsorted metal and others are more particular and will pick through and just take what they know they can get the most/easiest money for.
I once had to cut the power cord off of an appliance (a dehumidifier, in this case) as part of the process to claim a recall. They company didn't want me to ship back the entire unit (annoying, but understandable given the weight of it), but they wanted to ensure that it wouldn't still be used, since it was recalled for being a fire risk.
There are also services that can do the sheet metal bending for you if you have the cad designed. Of course shipping can get pricey, but I think it’s not prohibitively expensive.
I build things like this in similarly low quantity - you are probably looking at a grand or two toaster kit there, 95% of which is the custom parts - if it was done locally. The time for someone else to do it is what your paying for. It can be done exceptionally cheap in dollars if YOU do it, but you'll still pay with your time, and you'll still need machine access.
Cheap and easy "factory" quality is probably PCBWAY or similar in China - they do more than PCBs these days. Call it "prototype" budget - several hundred dollars of parts instead of thousands.
My experience is that PCBWay and similar usually offer better quality than doing it yourself. They get their costs down by automating everything they can. They're usually competitive at initial samples than many of the big houses too for essentially the same reason.
The other big insight here is that often making 50 doesn't cost much more than making 1, as much of the cost will be in programming and setup charges, not actually running the part. Sheet steel is pretty cheap, too.
I am super late to mention this, but we use sendcutsend also, great results. For 3D work, was surprised not to see https://www.hubs.com/ mentioned - used to be 3DHubs. US and international multi-axis machining, 3d printing, etc. Quite helpful.
OSH Cut (https://oshcut.com/) provides similar services. Their automated DFM analysis software is pretty impressive.
Perhaps more interesting to the audience here is that Caleb Chamberlain, the CEO (and a college acquaintance of mine), writes a series of articles about running the business for the trade publication The Fabricator. You can find them here: https://www.thefabricator.com/author/caleb-chamberlain. He covers both business (operations, strategy) and technical aspects of running a highly automated small job metal fabrication shop.
No, it wouldn't cost thousands. There are plenty of shops that specialize in prototypes and small pilot runs and there's nothing complicated about the design or material of this product.
It looks like off the shelf electronics with custom sheet metal parts.
Are far as low volume prototyping goes, sheet metal is as cost efficient as it gets for large metal parts. If you're sourcing from China, I'd estimate 500 bucks per prototype (with two sets in case one breaks).
Perfect in what sense? Kickstarter is useful if you're thinking of doing something capital-intensive and need money and customers beforehand. This comes with downsides: deadlines, shipping, cranky customers, etc.
This is a hobby project and there's nothing to suggest that the author wants to get in the business of selling toasters for a living... or that it would be wise for them to do so.
My parents literally have a toaster from the 70s that they still use. I have a toaster I bought 20 years ago. Toasters (usually) don't have e-waste. They are incredibly simple machines that are easy to buy without so much as a single diode. That's because they are really simply just a box with heating elements.
If you want to battle e-waste like the article suggests, maybe pick a product that doesn't already have a 50-year service life without the need for repairs.
Modern toasters are generally way less reliable than older toasters. I think it is very difficult to buy a new toaster today that you can be confident will have a 50-year lifespan.
>Modern toasters are generally way less reliable than older toasters. I think it is very difficult to buy a new toaster today that you can be confident will have a 50-year lifespan.
On the flip side, modern toasters cost $10 and last nearly as long. Not everything needs to last forever, but I've never had a modern toaster wear out. You only think the old ones were reliable because they cost enough that people would pay to have them repaired. That and a huge helping of survivorship bias.
> On the flip side, modern toasters cost $10 and last nearly as long.
This claim can only be meaningfully examined in like 60 years, minimum, and I have my doubts. I've yet to see a 70s era toaster die, and have personally watched four modern toasters go into a dumpster in the last 25 years. Old toasters were reliable because consumers of the day wouldn't tolerate disposable crap which informed every aspect of material selection and design.
And I've never seen a modern toaster die, even the cheapest of the cheap ones, but I have seen people replace them for aesthetic or feature related reasons. I can almost guarantee there are more 70s toasters in the landfill than there are 2000s ones. You're falling hard for survivorship bias.
You appear to be confusing first hand experience with some kind of theoretical misunderstanding of why shit gets thrown away. I used a 70s toaster in the 70s, know how their made, etc. Likewise I've closely examined a number of more modern toasters over the decades. Without exception newer models come with noticeably flimsier internal springs and locking components, thinner heating elements and cords, and less durable housing materials. If you're convinced you can engineer a product out of substandard parts and materials and expect durability to remain unaffected I might have a few questions.
Not everyone has a big American kitchen where you can try new appliances and not worry about space. I've been thinking about getting an air fryer but it's not an easy decision because I'd have to remove something else that I use; and I know others in the same position.
It wouldn't replace the toaster, because that fits on the windowsill and an air fryer would not.
Isn't an air fryer already the poster child of a "can't have a regular oven because I have no space in the kitchen, I'm renting the apartment, or both" appliance?
I'm lucky enough to have space for both. They do different jobs - there's overlap, obviously, but I don't bake bread in the airfryer and I don't cook chicken wings in the oven.
>Isn't an air fryer already the poster child of a "can't have a regular oven because I have no space in the kitchen, I'm renting the apartment, or both" appliance?
I suppose it's that for some people but everyone I know with one also has a fullsized oven. They are used for different purposes and often you don't want to heat up your whole oven to warm up some fries for 10 minutes.
I hear you—I also have a tiny kitchen, but there happened to be a carveout for a microwave, which we replaced with a toaster oven. But I grill all my bread on the frying pan, because it this is the objectively superior method. :)
>Also true, but how many people are buying toasters in 2025? I would bet that air fryers and toaster ovens outsell toasters 10:1.
More houses probably have toasters than all the others combined, but toasters don't really wear out all that often. You buy one for $10 when you setup your household and it lasts a decade or more.
Depends where you're from. Lots of people use toasters in the UK.
I'm due to buy a new one, because the supposedly decent one I bought less than 5 years ago isn't toasting properly, and either burns the toast or does nothing despite adjusting the dial.
I bought one in 2017, lasted 2 years before 1 of the heating elements died. We struggled along with 2/4 slices until we replaced it during covid with a 2 slice toaster. I dont really trust its going to last 50 years or whatever.
Another -often overlooked- benefit of buying used appliances, is that they have proven to be sturdy, and/or repairable.
Cheap temu-junk doesn't end up in thrift stores. Or, if it does, is easily filtered out. If I see a toaster that looks well used and/or aged, I can be certain it has at least proven to last a while and actual use.
It's also why I buy refurbished washing machine, refridgerators, etc: a refurbisher commonly won't refurbish stuff that's hard to repair: their economics prefer stuff that's sturdy, easy and cheap to repair. Win win win.
