Let me tell you about my toaster...

[Old and In the Way]

Ok, the wife bought a nice toaster last Spring. Extra wide opening for doing bagels.

It broke a few weeks ago - the handle wouldn't stay down to turn the toaster on. I could hold it down, but the inside coils were inoperative too.

So, being thrifty and inquisitive, I thought I'd see what I could do to fix it. Turn it over, see 4 screws in the base. Easy.

First 4 screws come out of the base, no problem. The top doesn't disassemble from the base. Upon closer inspection, I see 2 more screws that need to come out. After trying to unscrew them, I look closer and see that they have some kind of tamperproof screw head I've never seen. Impossible to take out. Screw that, I take my drill out and use carbide drill bit to deal with that problem. Messy, but effective.

So I diss-assemble the top from the base and, instead of the expected electro-mechanical toaster technology, I've got a high tech toaster with not one, but 2 printed circuit boards! Instead of a variable pot to control the darkness, I've got a PCBA with a capacitor/Resistor network and some timer transistor. On the main board, I've got a relay that energizes a magnetic coil/transformer to act as a magnet to hold the handle down and boost the voltage to the heater coils?. What a clusterfuck. Give up. I cannot believe that someone would actually redesign a toaster to incorporate 2 PCBA's to replace the simplicity and reliability of a friggen toaster. I assume this had to be for some energy compliance standard, but I think the true purpose is to make it impossible for someone to fix the damn things.