Toaster does not power on

[JMaia]

So I have this toaster that stopped working. It seems that it not get power. I tried opening it, and took a photo of the PCB:



I cleaned the contacts and secured them with some pegs so I could test the toaster, but still no power. Any tip on how to trobleshoot what the problem may be?.

 

[sagor1]

Is it possible the element is burned up? Check the resistance of the actual heating element....

 

[Pommie]

Anyone that secures contacts with pegs sounds like a troll to me.

Mike.

 

[JMaia]

Is it possible the element is burned up? Check the resistance of the actual heating element....

I don't know if I'm doing this right, but I used the multimeter probes on these red and blue terminals in the ohms options on the various sensitivity settings, but didn't get any readings:

 

[Les Jones]

From the way you seem to be testing you are assuming that the two elements are connected in series. Have you verified that this is the case ? (You could test each individual element. ) It is very unlikely you can buy replacement elements.

Les.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

From the way you seem to be testing you are assuming that the two elements are connected in series. Have you verified that this is the case ? (You could test each individual element. ) It is very unlikely you can buy replacement elements.

We used to repair toasters (and irons etc.) years ago where I used to work, but we stopped, probably in the mid 70's, as it became non-viable. The prices of new items came down, and the price of spares went up - so not worth bothering any more.

Certainly now, with give away prices, you're unlikely to be able to source spares for toasters - and quite a few I've seen have no sensible way of getting them apart, no screws or anything, just metal tabs bent over.

 

[JMaia]

We used to repair toasters (and irons etc.) years ago where I used to work, but we stopped, probably in the mid 70's, as it became non-viable. The prices of new items came down, and the price of spares went up - so not worth bothering any more.

Certainly now, with give away prices, you're unlikely to be able to source spares for toasters - and quite a few I've seen have no sensible way of getting them apart, no screws or anything, just metal tabs bent over.

True, and I did buy a new toaster, I was just wondering if I could fix this one before throwing it away. If I need to buy any expensive parts to fix this I won't do it since it's cheaper to buy a new toaster. Also I can learn about eletronics messing around with this stuff.

From the way you seem to be testing you are assuming that the two elements are connected in series. Have you verified that this is the case ? (You could test each individual element. ) It is very unlikely you can buy replacement elements.

I did not verify they are conected in series, in fact after reading your post and looking at the toaster I don't think so. So I tried the probes, one on the terminal and one on the correspondent point on the PCB:


And got a reading of 1.5 with the 200 ohm selected on multimeter, on both red and blue wires (so, both elements). Does this means they are functioning properly?

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

True, and I did buy a new toaster, I was just wondering if I could fix this one before throwing it away. If I need to buy any expensive parts to fix this I won't do it since it's cheaper to buy a new toaster. Also I can learn about eletronics messing around with this stuff.



I did not verify they are conected in series, in fact after reading your post and looking at the toaster I don't think so. So I tried the probes, one on the terminal and one on the correspondent point on the PCB:
View attachment 131369

And got a reading of 1.5 with the 200 ohm selected on multimeter, on both red and blue wires (so, both elements). Does this means they are functioning properly?

Most probably - they are simply a piece of resistance wire.

There 'may' be a thermal fuse, they usually look like a silver diode, and blow if it gets too hot.

 

[sagor1]

Measuring with the wires connected to the PCB may mean you are measuring resistance on the PCB itself, it does not mean the elements are good or not. The only sure way to test the heating element is to remove one wire from the PCB, and only then measure across the element with an ohm meter. That eliminates any resistance from the PCB itself.
Your reading suggests the element may be good, but if something is conducting on the PCB, it can throw that reading off.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Measuring with the wires connected to the PCB may mean you are measuring resistance on the PCB itself, it does not mean the elements are good or not. The only sure way to test the heating element is to remove one wire from the PCB, and only then measure across the element with an ohm meter. That eliminates any resistance from the PCB itself.
Your reading suggests the element may be good, but if something is conducting on the PCB, it can throw that reading off.

That is VERY, VERY unlikely to be the case with a toaster - perhaps you would care to suggest a scenario where that might possibly be the case?.

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

The heating element must be intact to power the modern controls. toast, eject, light, bagle mode.

 

[JMaia]

So any idea on how to detect the problem, should I remove the wire from the PCB to measure OHMS like sagor1 suggested?