Toasting Bread with a Toaster
October 22, 2007
Most of us prefer to have light food for breakfast, so toasters have become a part of everyone’s life. A toaster is a simple device that toasts breads for you in less time. Toasters are available in different colours, features, styles and sizes, so knowing how it works will help on finding the suitable one for you. Here are a few details.
Infra-red radiation is used by toaster to heat pieces of bread. Place a piece of bread in the toaster and you can see the coils glow red producing infrared radiation, which gently dries and chars the surface of the bread.
Using nichrome wired toaster to create infrared radiation, wrapped across the mica sheet has two features that make it a good producer of heat. Nichrome an alloy of nickel and chromium has high electrical resistance like copper wire. It does not oxidize when heated whereas the iron wire would rust quickly. Nichrome wires are connected directly to a plug.
To make a toast, drop a piece of bread into the slot and plug the toaster, the bread would become dark enough. Now you can unplug the toaster then tip the toaster upside down to get the toast out.
Now people who don’t have patience can have another model of toaster, which is the spring-loaded tray that pops the toast out. In this, you need not turn toaster upside down. Otherwise a timer that turns the toaster off automatically. The spring loaded tray has metal holder to raise or lower the bread. Many toasters include grates on either side of the slot, which press against the bread and centers it.
The working mechanism of the toaster is explained now. When you thrust down the handle, the plastic bar applies power to the toaster. 120 volts power runs directly through the contacts to the nichrome wires to start toasting the bread. Circuit made up of transistors, resistors and capacitors turns on power supplies to electromagnet. It attracts the piece of metal on the handle holding the bread in the toaster. Capacitors charge the resistor and when they reach certain voltage it cuts off the power to the electromagnet. Then the plastic bar rises and cuts off power to the toaster. The toaster will have variable resistor to control the darkness of the bread piece.
