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February 10, 2018 Smoky aka L'il Toaster
Over the years we would occasionally get side tracked or just forget that the toaster was cooking. One guy was particularly forgetful. Wayne made a lot of charcoal bagels! Several times we set off the fire alarm so we would have to open up all doors and windows and set up a portable fan to clear the smoke enough to silence the siren. Since the alarm was also monitored by Houston ARTCC, we would often get a call from the Systems' Engineer and explain that the building was not burning down! So, the little toaster became known as "Smoky". Smoky proudly sat on top of an ancient microwave oven, serving the FAA well for another 20 years. It outlasted two tv sets and 2 microwave ovens and even performed just fine on it's last day. No fire alarms! Smoky and I both retired on December 31, 2012. Just thought I'd share that little story. Anyhow, back to the project. As I was putting Smoky in my truck on my last day at work, I noticed that it just felt like a little SE amp. I knew it would never be used to set off fire alarms again so I started thinking about how to stuff an amp into the toaster. Not long after, I forgot about it... Until this past summer when I ran across it while shifting junk in my shop. I put it on the bench and started gutting it. It's amazing how complicated these little things are! And there is definitely a correct way to assemble/disassemble the unit! It took a few days to get it gutted enough to put a tiny amp chassis in it and still leave the door latch operational. But I finally did it. Then I set it aside waiting for cooler weather.
In January I picked up a Roberts Model 1057 R2R electronics chassis and
started experimenting to see if the iron would actually fit in the toaster. It
did! So, with a lot of help from Hoffman's forum I finally decided on which
simple amp circuit to build and started rolling...
This was the $12.50 donor from eBay. All I really used from this was the PT, OT, fuse holder, and hum pot.
Now for some fun...
I'm done! Thanks for all the ideas I got from Hoffman's forum for this project. Here's the schematic and point to point layout... smoky.pdf (177KB)
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This
idea has been kicking around ever since the day I retired from FAA. On
my final day I was boxing up my personal stuff at the radar site. Along with
the usual stuff was an old toaster oven that had belonged to my wife when I met
her. In fact, it was her only household appliance. We used it daily in our house
from the mid '70s until about 1990. Then the thermostat and door solenoid quit
working. It would still make toast but you had to keep an eye on it because it
would not shut off or open the door. So Carol upgraded and rather than trash
this one, I took it to the radar site and put it to work.
