I also love learning about mechanical engineering and manufacturing, but have never actually tried making anything.
Lately I have been interested in buying things that are made in the USA. One household item that I would like to buy is a toaster; I did a lot of searching online and this seems to be something that has a decent amount of demand.
Here is an example: https://www.usalovelist.com/toasters-made-in-the-usa/
>The made in USA item that we hear readers are looking for the most is the toaster. In fact, ‘Toasters made in the USA” is such a frequently used search term that there are many articles out on the internet filled with false in information, just to capture this search traffic.
There does seem to be a market opportunity for a nice quality toaster made in the USA.
My question is: as a software engineer with 0 experience building physical things, should I try building this? I have plenty of space to set up a small operation and a little capital to get started building. What are the pitfalls? Has anyone with a software background moved into manufacturing physical items like this?
Also: is anyone interested in building this with me?
Toasters are refined brilliance, if done right. The concept of "done" is computed using an analog computer programmed by human experts. (Ok, its usually a bimetal strip but it is placed so that the cooling of the moist bread keeps it from going off and your lighter-darker input is biasing when it considers the toast done.)
Tear apart some toasters. There won't be anything in a modern cheap toaster that isn't absolutely required. Ask yourself why everything is the way it is.
Research the UL requirements. I have the corporate 2 pound copper ball that had to be dropped on things from prescribed heights and not cause malfunction. Make sure you can hit this targets with what you think you can build. Also check the CE, they might have more modern rules.
Be ready for litigation. Toasters catch fire. The toaster moguls were horrified whenever they saw someone's toaster under a cabinet. Decades after selling the business they were still being sued by mesothelioma suits for things like a repairman that got lung cancer and repaired home appliances, so he probably might have worked on one of their 1920's models with asbestos insulation. Don't let it stop you, but put the backup insurance into the expenses.
Truly, hacker news is the most wonderfully diverse ecosystem.
That hasn't been the case in ages. Modern cheap toasters use a dedicated toaster chip (... yes), which is a plain timer but with built-in retained heat compensation for when the toaster is used back-to-back. Fewer components equals cheaper toaster.
A very fancy toaster would have sensor for the bread (mimicking the Sunbeam) rather than a timer, but that's not common.
Either way, any toaster you buy today is a digital computer. :)
I hoped that was the kind of toaster OP wanted to make, but despite what I wrote above, this is not a disagreement with anything you said. I think people have mostly come to their senses (or have just run out of disposable income) these days and I suspect the market for $1500 smart toasters, if it ever existed, has dried up.
I can't find any that have a camera inside though, and I can't imagine how there would even be room for a field of view for one.
Unless you mean a toaster oven which is different? Turns out Breville makes one with a camera, much to my surprise.
I am a little bit worried, that you aren't.
You—you're kidding, right? Right?
I'm not smart enough to parse that sentence, I think.
I’m not gonna claim to know anything about toasters or manufacturing, but I’d hypothesize that selling American made toasters to the masses is no longer feasible. Most people just want to buy a cheap toaster and don’t care where it is made. So if you were a large company selling to the masses, that business model doesn’t work. But that doesn’t mean you can’t make a much smaller business selling to toast enthusiasts today. I just think it’s largely about branding. Can you make a superior, long, lasting toaster that will appeal to toaster enthusiasts? And can you do it for a price that is in the realm of reasonable? I can imagine buying an overpriced toaster that will last me 30 years for $300 (I personally wouldn’t but if we’re into toast, maybe). But I wouldn’t spend $1000 on it. On the other hand, what do I know? There’s plenty of fancy coffee equipment that sells for more than that, although I’d guess that the coffee snob market is much larger.
https://www.dualit.com/products/4-slice-newgen
Not their whole range though, the cheaper products come from China.
I went to Best Buy to buy a microwave oven last weekend and noticed that all the microwaves: (a) had a Proposition 65 label (see https://www.mychemicalfreehouse.net/2023/06/why-most-applian...) or (b) were made in China.
Had any microwave been different on front (a) or front (b) it would have been shortlisted in a second. Instead I had to compare a number of twisty little claims that all looked alike and face the strong temptation to buy the absolutely cheapest because it seems the $250 microwave could just as well burn out in two years.
As for toasters my recollection as a kid growing up was that toasters were made of metal and could toast bread quickly. When manufacturing went to China I remember my mother-in-law buying several plastic toasters from Wal-Mart in succession that burned up within weeks. Eventually Chinese toasters became reliable at the expense of running at half the speed of old toasters which they countered by adding more slots.
Today there are more concerns than ever about China's centrality in manufacturing so politics alone mean more consumers are like me and would be receptive to products which have a different origin (say Vietnam, Pakistan, Tunisa, etc.) particularly if this is coupled with a clear difference in quality, which I know is possible because of my history with toasters.
It is so for toasters but also for other domestic appliances. If you could communicate that you're really different there is a frustrated consumer who would listen.
I replaced my need for a toaster recently with a Breville Joule oven, and am quite impressed, I'd definitely buy one of their microwaves if I ever needed one.
[1]: https://atp.fm/560
Setting up a small operation and doing the physical actions of designing, manufacturing and selling the toasters is the easy, fun and obvious part.
I figure what your looking for, advice wise, is what's not obvious.
A few things you'll need:
-Product liability insurance, this isn't isn't easy or inexpensive to get. You need to have a lot of the below in place to get it.
- UL certification (or equivalent) this can be between $10-60k in total, you need this for anything that plugs into AC mains, anything that has a heater, a safety function, etc.
- FCC EMC/EMI testing, you need this if you do any intentional transmitting, have anything with digital electronics, etc. This is also pretty expensive.
Then you need to iterate the design until you meet the above.
I'm sure I'm missing some things
Manufacturing tooling and test jigs
A quality management system
Support and RMA systems
PLM software although you could probably get away with excel for a while
> UL certification / FCC
A lot of other certs if you want to sell into overseas markets... Luckily the US market is pretty big
Sure if you’ve spent a decade plus designing and crafting electronics and metal cases. If not - you’ll probably get stuck there
Also, there are services like protocase for the enclosures. They specialize in making semi custom and custom enclosures, they even have design templates that you can download, modify, and then order.
It's far easier than it was 20 years ago.
Sufficient capital is the big thing that turns everything else into a technical detail.
I mean UL certification is only a problem when the venture is under-capitalized.
It's become somewhat of a litmus test for me. If potential clients are are surprised by the time, cost and effort if these things, it's usually a sign they're not a well thought out venture, and therefore not a great client.
You can't have quite that level of untouchability as a US manufacturer, so you have to do it right.
I wish we could go back to a time when everyone takes their own risks and has to do their own research. Manufacturers could optionally pay some standards company to add some safety label to it to help boost customer confidence but it should not be compulsory. We're all going to die eventually and this obsession with safety is unhealthy and probably kills more people than it protects (e.g. due to the mental distress they cause and false peace of mind which dumbs down consumers and makes them feel like they don't need to do their own research... Not to mention the social harms caused by the passive 'trust the experts' mindset).
There might be regulation that is too much, also in the field of electrical engineering (and I am a certified EE), but most of it (especially regarding toasters) is pretty useful if you want to sleep sound.
This is not about making a toaster. I could make one using a long piece of wire and a transformer. It is about making a toaster that has a certain standard and does not kill people, burn down houses and/or interferes with radio traffic. All kind of things that would suck.
If you can't clear that bar as a manufacturer, you shouldn't be one. You could still build things for yourself – but if you want to sell things to others they should be able to assume you are not out there to kill them without deeply researching your company, aquiring a degree in mechanical and electrical engineering, buying your product and disassembling it. And I say that as a person that would be able to do that, unlike most.
If I sell you a toaster that I built in my own little workshop (USA! USA!), then: Wouldn't you prefer that there be at least some third-party testing to ensure that it is safe enough to not burn your house down? And if you don't care about your own safety (because you know how to Do Your Own Research), then: Wouldn't your kids and neighbors prefer this testing?
Maybe if you trust me (because you like the cut of my jib or something) then you'll believe me when I say that I had my engineering-type buddy go over the design and he said it was OK.
But caveat emptor: You should not trust me. I, the seller in a hypothetical truly-free market, am here to give you as little as I can get away with for as many dollars as I can take you for.
That's what UL helps with, in this context: They're an impartial private company that tests products to ensure that they meet safety standards (most of which they designed themselves, but that's just a positive example of free enterprise at work). They do charge [plenty of] money for this service, but they've got expenses to cover (and profit to make!) just as you or I do.
But there is no federal law or national regulation requiring US consumers to use only UL-listed toasters. That's not a thing, and it has never been a thing. Such a requirement may be a thing in some more-local jurisdictions, and/or also an important part of some insurance policies, but the overarching regulatory environment that you seem to be railing against in the context of toasters simply does not exist.
Your risks can impact other people. If your toaster catches fire, it could kill people in the apartment next to yours. If the brakes on your car fail, you could kill anyone who is in your path. These other people didn't choose to take on these risks.
They killed hundreds building the Brooklyn Bridge, the hoover dam. So many horror stories of things like that xray shield sizer or lawn darts, or laundry mangles, etc.
That world wasn't better for anyone but the robber barrons.
When was this time?
> I wish we could go back to a time when everyone takes their own risks and has to do their own research.
Trust me, you really don’t.
Apart from all of the other obvious things people have mentioned, what this hyperlibertarian perspective fails to take into account is externalities. I might have done my own toaster research, but did my neighbor? What happens when my neighbor doesn’t do his own toaster research properly and ends up burning down both of our apartments? Insurance can’t cover everything that will be destroyed.
What I've found is that regulations make it impossible to sell simple machines, labor costs make it impossible to compete on price, lawyers make it impossible to go to market without being sued, and consumers who say they want reliable, well-made goods will balk and buy cheap stuff en masse when it comes down to the wire. And that's if you actually succeed in designing and manufacturing a good product.
Someone could do it, I think. But I'm deterred by all the stuff I just wrote, and the people who succeed in businesses that seriously challenge the status quo are the ones aren't deterred by that stuff. And for every one guy who does succeed in pressuring the status quo, a hundred guys flame out... but again, guys who succeed aren't deterred by that either!
And I've never really had much of a problem with cheap toasters being unreliable in the first place. But I guess there are people who do?
A toaster might well be a good space for that - cheap enough that it can be expensive in relative terms without being out of reach.
But figuring out the marketing of that feels almost as hard as the product.
I suspect a lot of exaggerated appeal to "why aren't things as good/simple/reliable as they used to be?" that might not be all about toasters, but where even an expensive toaster can be cheap enough to become a symbolic buy for people.
Dyson is a more glaring example (fans, vacuums, hair dryers), albeit with expensively achieved differentiation on engineering and manufacturing quality.
Revolution Cooking sells $280 and $350 toasters. They have touch screens, dozens of modes optimized for different kinds of bread, gluten-free mode and 7 toastiness levels. One of my colleagues has one and loves it dearly.
It appears to be a US design firm that uses contract manufacturing:
“we developed a proprietary alloy, a new, more efficient component design system, and intelligent heating algorithms that adjust in real-time.”
“Tom assembled a team of world class engineers, designers and product marketers in Boston, MA, where Revolution Cooking is headquartered today.”
https://revcook.com/pages/compare
This would be my biggest concern. The potential field full of landmines that is the patent process would give me pause. Not spending the money to properly research because of bootstrapping the process could ultimately be more expensive if some other company comes after you for patent infringement.
Whatever your idea is, I would definitely do some investigating before investing too much time and effort getting too far down the road to ultimately hit a patent caused dead end.
"simple machines"?
Among your examples I think this one is interesting.
Speed Queen is regarded as among the best washing machines + dryers and they are made in the US. They are extremely well built, they feel really sturdy to use and also are known for being extremely reliable.
I guess what I'm imagining is the Speed Queen of toasters..
For a toaster, what you need to do is recreate the Greatest Toaster of All Time, the Sunbeam T-20. (And then after you do that, recreate the Sunbeam CG-1 waffle iron.)
Regulatory capture & gratuitous litigation has made true entrepreneurship impossible in many domains. It's state-endorsed oligopoly of heirs, heiresses, and corporations.
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I've got more than decade of experience in designing products that are built in North America. I wouldn't touch a project like this unless it had a team of people with the proven manufacturing experience heading it up and some very convincing numbers about the commercial viability of the product because I don't believe they exist. There is good reason why the market only has commercial kitchen grade devices available.
Who wants a $75+ toaster just because it was "Made In USA"? Is it going to make toast better than a $15 toaster "Hecho In Mexico" or whatever other country? Even making the infrastructure to make a toaster would not do much in the way of increasing the manufacturing abilities in the US. What could it do if the War Powers Act were invoked?
Or, am I just way too much of a simpleton to be able to see potential?
- was made in a free Democratic country
- is of quality
I often pay a premium for such items.
Not because I need that, I just enjoy overly heavy things
There's a market. Not big perhaps. But it needs to be more than just 'made in America'.
There’s a market for knit hats made in the USA. I doubt the quality assurance or price could compete with a factory from Asia, but they still sell. Partly because Americans want to support American businesses. Not the same as a toaster, but I can see consumer demand being similar.
Sure, some people will still buy it, but it will be a tiny fraction of those who said they wanted the product.
Don't forget, when you buy a toaster from China, you're basically making them bleed and sweat on it for nothing more than your currency they can only use to buy back stuff from you, if you'll allow it. It's a very good deal, so good US consumers should increase their chinese imports rather than decrease it. Or next thing they know, they'll be the ones sweating in sweatshops soldering around toasters for capital-rich Shanghaiese.
The is a reason why LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton) is one of the most successful and valuable companies in the world.
I'm not saying it's easy. Any business endeavor, regardless of product market fit, still requires execution. Easier said than done, but many an entrepreneur has proven their critics wrong.
Americans are known for their willingness to take business risk and fail then pick themselves up and try again. Makes life exciting and worth living.
But that said, I'm not going to buy "American Made" just because it is, i'm going to buy "Quality Made" and if it happens to be a domestic manufacturer than all the better!
Are you saying there is a proven market for luxury toasters?
While in general this is true I think "premium" grade home appliances generally top out around twice the cost of mid-range (I'm thinking vacuums, ovens, refrigerators etc where you compare similar capacity). This probably isn't a sufficient premium to cover the overheads.
Coffee machines are probably an exception here.
I'm not educated about the toaster market - are they more like microwaves or more like coffee machines?
Premium grade != Made in USA
Here's a $200+ toaster I was seriously considering buying at one point. It is not made in the USA, and most made-in-USA stuff sucks honestly
https://www.amazon.com/Mitsubishi-Electric-ST1-T-Toaster-ult...
Having the world's largest pool of investment capital and one of the most liberal bankruptcy systems in the world also helps. If there's anything Americans are more willing to do than risk losing their own money, it's to risk losing other people's money :)
> The is a reason why LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton) is one of the most successful and valuable companies in the world.
It very much isn't because they sell premium quality products. They sell luxury products. Luxury branding has very little to do with product quality or performance. Also, the US doesn't have a competitive advantage in manufacturing home appliances. They actually have a competitive disadvantage, as the most capable manufacturing capacity for these products doesn't exist in the US anymore.
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This might surprise some here, but if you can do 100% of the design and get good at it, it's possible to bootstrap a hardware company, even as a solo founder. I know it because I've done it.
However I intentionally started with physical products with no electronics in them. I also tried manufacturing in the USA initially but quickly realized it to be uneconomical and too slow, especially for bootstrapped consumer products.
My advice: 1. make a breadboard prototype @ home & design the product on your computer 2. have prototype parts made in China until you are satisfied with the final assembly 3. once you have pre-order volume, have the molds & dies made in China, import the tooling in the USA and setup your own shop.
The other thing is getting good at Industrial design takes a few years, it's not necessarily intuitive -- you have to understand the processes that you are designing for and get good at making drawings and hiring shops. It won't happen in a year unless you just focus on one part/process, so I would team up with someone who has that experience.
Feel free to contact me, info on my profile, happy to chat & help out.
What is “hiring shops?”
The state of toasters seems quite dire. Most are basically the same mechanism internally with different style covers.
Some quick learnings/thoughts:
- why are they open at the top? Some expensive Japanese toasters are more like grills or ovens, and sealing in steam seems to be key to their hyped results.
- commercial toasters and some like west bend have 'drop thru' toasting, where the toast drops out of the bottom when done instead of popping up. Nice design.
- Two slot toasters always power both slots even when toasting one slice.
- Many toasters don't allow you to change the timer mid-toast. I mean you can change it, but it doesn't do anything until next cycle. Also few indicate how much time is left.
- crumb trays don't work for many toasters, they're too narrow compared with all the places crumbs fall.
- expensive 'old school' toasters like Dualit just don't have the features, and are too clunky.
- the toasters with windows toast much more slowly (use tube heaters instead of a 'grid' of nichrome) and the window is useless anyway since the heater element makes everything orange.
- One thing I find amusing is some reviewers are testing these $100,$200 toasters with regular supermarket chorleywood bread. I mean at least toast some actual bread, not foam.
If you didn't make the biga, poolish, or starter, it's not really bread. It’s just processed wheat product. </pointless elitism>
Seriously though, I have a bread machine, maybe the cheapest model (lidl equivalent) which I love because of how easy it is to repair, and I make my own bread with little effort for maybe 1/2 the price of supermarket bread, and a world of difference in quality.
> - Two slot toasters always power both slots even when toasting one slice.
> - crumb trays don't work for many toasters, they're too narrow compared with all the places crumbs fall.
Always thinking what a waste of energy when only toasting a single slice.
> - Many toasters don't allow you to change the timer mid-toast. I mean you can change it, but it doesn't do anything until next cycle. Also few indicate how much time is left.
Never knew time-left could be implemented, but would definitely be a nice feature.
Only 1 of these features are enough for the consumer to consider buying this new toaster.
Even the cheapest toaster works well enough, and most of the more advanced features either don't really work consistently or are not compelling. So to command a higher price, it's really a veblen good, some kind of status symbol etc, and any extra features need be 'backup' for that; "oh no, we didn't buy it just to status-signal, it has this feature ...".
I think there are a couple of features that could be attractive though. Faster toasting. And if the reviews etc are to be believed, steam-toasting like the Japanese toasters. More efficient could be a thing - only power the slots necessary, and enclose them to stop the heat escaping. These features seem mutually supporting.
Because of convection, heat rises, and allows the non-toasting part of the frame, etc., to remain safe to the touch. It would be very bad to take an existing toaster and try to operate it on its side.
Plus, the simplest way to get even toasting is even heat on both sides of the bread (except when you do Bagels).
I can see an argument about hot air rising, leading to unevenness, or about hot air drying out the bread, but 'the toaster would get hot' doesn't make sense to me.
Regarding horizontal toasting, that is something I had in mind. I might hack my broken toaster to try this out.
Dualit is in the UK and has been manufacturing high quality, hand built toaster for a long time, but most consumers would balk at the prices they ask for their appliances and I doubt you as a startup would be able to manufacture a toaster any cheaper.
https://www.dualit.com/collections/classic-toastershttps://www.dualit.com/collections/spares
Frankly, I don't even own one, in spite of being a champion of the "buy it once" mentality. But it's on the bucket list.
The incredibly loud mechanical timer drove us all nuts. We always forgot to change the heating element (#slices) selector, so invariably ended up with one uncooked piece of bread. The pop up function is beefy but difficult to get escape velocity on small items. They eventually ditched it and went back to a £20 long slice Cookworks from Argos. They still have the Aga (also bloody annoying).
I personally like avoiding buying from manufacturers in places without modern labor laws and I frequently buy American made products, but for me anywhere in Europe is equivalent to America.
I would guess that the group of people for whom made in England is not sufficient and who would also spend $400 on a toaster is probably pretty tiny.
I paid about 3x what I would normally pay for a toaster for one on eBay. I expect it to last much more than 3x as long (a decent standard toaster usually lasts us around 3 years before something breaks unrepairably).
``` I have been looking at starting a business and am a Dentist with lots of experience.
I also love learning about masonry and construction, but have never actually tried building anything.
Lately, I have been interested in buying things that are made locally. One construction item that I would like to invest in is a brick house; I did a lot of searching online, and this seems to be something that has a decent amount of demand.
There does seem to be a market opportunity for high-quality houses made locally.
My question is: as a dentist with zero experience building physical things, should I try building brick houses? I have plenty of space to set up a small operation and a little capital to get started. What are the pitfalls? Has anyone with a dental background moved into constructing physical items like this? ```
Don't expect your former job knowledge to be of much use for this endeavor.
This does not mean "Don't do it!" but rather "Be aware of the scope!".
Good luck!