Thursday, April 21, 2011

Make a toaster from scratch?

I mean scratch-scratch, not pre-configured components.

This guy tried. -> http://www.thetoasterproject.org/

Honestly, even if it turns out terrible (it does) I applaud his effort and love stuff like this.

Short version:

He was able to use a modified microwave to separate out iron from a piece of its ore, acidic water from a former copper mine in wales gave him some pure-enough copper for the wiring, mica (insulation) was hand chipped from a place in Scotland, and plastic was recycled/reconstituted from existing sources.


Step 2, Attempt 2: Smelting Iron Ore in a Microwave from Thomas Thwaites on Vimeo.

Last paragraph:
Amazingly, it worked. Kind of. He was able to boil down, he says, "the massive industrial activity devoted to making objects which enable us, the consumer, to toast bread more efficiently." In the end he put together a haggard-looking stripped-down version of something we can buy for the price of a sandwich. It only took him nine months, several trips across country lines, and a many moments of lateral thinking.
He did plug it in once, but because he wasn't able to make insulation for the wires, the toaster started melting itself about 5 seconds in. Thwaites considers it a partial success.


Source -> http://gizmodo.com/#!5794368/why-its-harder-than-you-think-to-make-a-simple-toaster

No comments:

Post a Comment