Repairing a heater wire in a toaster.

[sigmeyer]

First of all i just wanna say i love posting on this website and i get alot of useful feedback doing so , i just wish i could do it more often...

Okay , so i am currently doing nothing because of the corona outbreak thing and i was trying to repair a cheap toaster that i have...And unfortunately it is just as i thought , the heater is broken. And i was wondering what can i do about this? So here is what i tried so far
I have dissasembled an old chinese soldering iron and i took the heater wire from it to try reconnect the broken heater wire... and it worked untill the wire melted and right back at the same problem ... however i was thinking of putting extra strings of wire when connecting them and it seemed to bypass that part of a heater without even heating up the wire i put... not sure how long this is gonna last.
Any thoughts on this?

[sigmeyer]

Re: Repairing a heater wire in a toaster.

Also the heater wire is just 1 big continuous heater ... No seperate ones , so if there is just one break , the whole toaster stops working.

[petehall347]

Re: Repairing a heater wire in a toaster.

best to use a new element ...

[eccerr0r]

Re: Repairing a heater wire in a toaster.

If you insist on repairing, you have to crimp. You're probably better off using the same gauge heater element but if all else fails, just jumperring with a short piece of copper wire will do. No heat there but the rest of the heater will work.

However unless the heater element was mechanically damaged, the heater may pop somewhere else soon, likely the heater is near end of service life...

[sigmeyer]

Re: Repairing a heater wire in a toaster.

Yeah , i used a large wire gauge to connect it ..it worked like that for a day and it failed, i just thing its interesting that its not the wire that burns ... but the heater itself just burns at the end of connections.Im thinking that the connection surface is way too small so the heater burns out at the very place it touches the copper wire. I wonder if crimping it would make any difference... BTW the heater is just some flat piece of wire maybe half a centimeter wide.
If i were to crimp the wires how would i do that without those crimp connectors?

[sigmeyer]

Re: Repairing a heater wire in a toaster.

Im sorta thinking of just scraping it for spare parts if nothing else..

[R_J]

Re: Repairing a heater wire in a toaster.

I repaired one a long time ago, I made a small ferrell about a quarter to half inch long out of thin tin that fit over the element and used that to crimp the broken element together.

[eccerr0r]

Re: Repairing a heater wire in a toaster.

Yes it needs to be crimped together with a proper crimp connector and needs to be done properly. Twisting the wires together will not do, and obviously not soldering. Ideally it needs to be welded together, and a good crimp will be just about as effective as a weld.

[sigmeyer]

Re: Repairing a heater wire in a toaster.

I repaired one a long time ago, I made a small ferrell about a quarter to half inch long out of thin tin that fit over the element and used that to crimp the broken element together.

Thanks for the suggestion , i will try this one out.
I would like to learn how to weld but dont have the machine.

I have some scrap metal laying around and will definitely try this...Never repaired a heater before so this will be the first one. thanks again. I dont have a crimping tool either so im just gonna try to do it with pliers.. Will upload some pics for you guys to tell me what you think.

[sam_sam_sam]

Re: Repairing a heater wire in a toaster.

If you have a high current transformer ( 5 amp or more - more would be be better ) and a couple of nails you could weld them together but you have to have a way to turn off transformer power for this to work

You have to leave it connected long enough for the metal to glow a little bit

If you have a battery spot welder it would be easier to do

[sigmeyer]

Re: Repairing a heater wire in a toaster.

so here it is my crimp job... seems to be doing good .. i tested it 3 times at full settings and no problem ... the large aluminium piece seems to dissipate heat at that weak point... so i think this toaster will be good untill the heater fails somewhere else. Thanks again for the suggestion R_J great call

Um i was actually thinking of buying a cheap welding machine... dont have big transformers laying around...