Used bread machine from rummage sale

Fixing and making things, what tools to get and what skills to learn, ...
User avatar
Sclass
Posts: 2791
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:15 pm
Location: Orange County, CA

Used bread machine from rummage sale

Post by Sclass »

Just wanted to post this cool idea up. I bought a used bread machine from a local rummage sale. I donated my last one when moving a couple years back.

I make pastries that require a lot of kneading to break up the gluten. I was going to get a big mixer but they are too expensive. I use a food processor but it kind of churns and cuts the dough rather than knead it. The bread machine has this really good knead rest knead cycle. Set it and forget it.

That seems to be the going rate for these things. People (like me) seem to get tired of them and dump them. All for $10! Just thought y'all would like this kind of thing.

Ima gonna get fat! :P

jacob
Site Admin
Posts: 15907
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
Contact:

Re: Used bread machine from rummage sale

Post by jacob »

Put one of these in a drill press. There's your big mixer.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Stanley-Hardwar ... 0553523709

User avatar
Sclass
Posts: 2791
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:15 pm
Location: Orange County, CA

Re: Used bread machine from rummage sale

Post by Sclass »

jacob wrote:Put one of these in a drill press. There's your big mixer.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Stanley-Hardwar ... 0553523709
Good idea. I will stir my paint this way next time.

halfmoon
Posts: 697
Joined: Mon Nov 07, 2016 10:19 pm

Re: Used bread machine from rummage sale

Post by halfmoon »

Bread machines are a yard sale staple for good reason. We bought one for $5 some years ago and ended up donating it to Goodwill. Hot bread with little effort was a fun novelty, but two issues for us:

1. Soft crust and crumbly/cakelike texture. DH and I are fans of a crisp crust/stretchy texture.

2. Big fat hole in the center of the bread due to the kneading paddle. Maybe this has improved in later models?

My recommendation for excellent bread (pay attention, folks!):

1. Have a partner who likes to bake. My own talents are more in the consuming realm. ;)

2. Buy said partner a professional-grade KitchenAid stand mixer. Maybe these can be found used? If not, I'd consider it a BIFL item. DH uses his to knead bread and pretzel dough, shred veggies, grind cheese and make pasta (with attachment bought used). My philosophy: if you want someone to do useful things for your benefit, don't skimp on the tools.

Having said all that: if you're making pastries instead of bread, it may serve your purpose nicely. In that case, I need recipes to pass on to DH. :mrgreen:

User avatar
Sclass
Posts: 2791
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:15 pm
Location: Orange County, CA

Re: Used bread machine from rummage sale

Post by Sclass »

This is my third machine. Two went to Goodwill. Same same. Bread was so so and I didn't have the ambition to try more recipes and got tired of it. All of them were $10.

I had one of those kitchenaid stand mixers. Goodwill special made in the fifties. It was certainly BIFL...it obviously outlasted its first owner. I greased the transmission with food grade lube and I was good to go another century. $10 too. I donated it away because it was too big. I've heard from serious cooks this is the proper kneading tool. Oh well. I don't see those everyday at goodwill. ill keep my eye out.

Recipes are just online stuff. Nothing special.

halfmoon
Posts: 697
Joined: Mon Nov 07, 2016 10:19 pm

Re: Used bread machine from rummage sale

Post by halfmoon »

Sclass wrote:Recipes are just online stuff. Nothing special.
As with everything online, there's a lot of crap to dig through. I'm looking for someone (you're elected!) to point me toward usable pastry recipes I can pass on to DH so he can keep me fat and happy. :D

User avatar
Sclass
Posts: 2791
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:15 pm
Location: Orange County, CA

Re: Used bread machine from rummage sale

Post by Sclass »

Just an update on the breadmakers. I was having so much fun with my first one I bought another for $2. Panasonic brand. And boy does it have a lame recipe menu. Four settings. White, wheat, white dough, wheat dough. Seriously? It is a really well constructed machine but the software sucks. When I start the dough cycle I have to wait 30 min of "rest" time before anything happens. I think it is cycling the heater to get the water and yeast warmed up. After it kneads five minutes it shuts down for another twenty of rest. Lame! I basically want to use this thing as an automated stand mixer.

Image

So I hacked into it and figured out how its microcontroller was activating the motor. Open collector drive that when held low stops the motor. I disconnected the line with a switch and got the impeller to spin. The problem is these machines need to spin slowly at first then speed up or else you get a volcano of flour out the top of the pan. So I made my own controller to slowly throttle up the speed as the dough kneads. I had some old microchip parts lying around. I built this. It slowly spins for a few minutes then goes hog wild. I can get instant activation with no waiting at the push of a button.

Image

Now I needed to make it compact...or sorta compact and stick it in the bread box. I'd been watching youtube videos of people engraving circuit boards with CNC machines for awhile. So I thought I'd try it. It is pretty mindless given the prices of prototype circuit boards from China. I just quoted $2 each in qty 10 from a shop in Shenzen. Toxic waste in their drain not mine. Stink in their shop, not mine. Cheap. Shipped. Ordered online. Amazing for custom electronics.

But alas, I decided I should use my CNC mill to do something useful for a change. It usually collects dust rather than create dust. After I built the thing twenty years ago, I realized I wasn't interested in machining anything. I just wanted to build the machine. So it sat.

Here is the board. I used cheap FR2 bakelite impregnated paper. Modern FR4 fiberglass boards make glass powder that contaminates my work area and gets in the lead screws. So I hesitated in doing this till now. Recently I heard about the resin in paper boards and realized they're cheap (50 cts on ebay) and free of itching powder. It's a neat discovery. I also discovered a free CAM program called FlatCAM to make the isolation toolpaths using standard RS274X Gerber files from a pcb layout tool. So multiple discoveries here, fiberglass free boards, free CAM SW, cheap carbide tools.

Image

Another shot of the board:

Image

Closeup of the engraving quality. I got these really cheap gravers from China. Ten for $5. Solid Carbide V tipped cutters. I also got 10 mini carbide drill bits dia 1mm for $4. Five blank 4x5" boards for $2.50. It was cheaper than a bottle of ferric chloride. And I hate chemical waste to boot.

Image

Image

This may be a good trick if you want to do the prepper thing and go off the grid. Electronics offline. Just have a stash of parts, a cad/cam system, stable electrical power and some solder. No Fedex, China post or website required.

Fun fun fun in retirement. More to come.

vexed87
Posts: 1521
Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2015 8:02 am
Location: Yorkshire, UK

Re: Used bread machine from rummage sale

Post by vexed87 »

This looks like a cool project, I wish I could get my head around PCBs and how they work. I wouldn't know the first thing about designing my own boards... did I understand correctly, you designed and printed that copper coloured board yourself?

halfmoon
Posts: 697
Joined: Mon Nov 07, 2016 10:19 pm

Re: Used bread machine from rummage sale

Post by halfmoon »

Wow. And also: WOW. You built your own CNC milling machine? Sclass, you're a genius. 8-)

User avatar
Sclass
Posts: 2791
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:15 pm
Location: Orange County, CA

Re: Used bread machine from rummage sale

Post by Sclass »

vexed87 wrote:This looks like a cool project, I wish I could get my head around PCBs and how they work. I wouldn't know the first thing about designing my own boards... did I understand correctly, you designed and printed that copper coloured board yourself?
I think it was bill gates who said this was the best time in human history so far to be curious. PCBs are old tech. A foil of copper bonded to an insulating material. You basically cut out the wires with the engraver here or with an etch. The pattern can be transferred photographically or with a robot CNC tool. Layout is done with a software. It is basically like playing dot to dot. From the graphical tool you produce industry standard files for the photo stencils and they are used by you or a hired party to make the boards.

A good free system that has a shallow learning curve is Eagle PCB. You create the drawing of the board with this tool. They have a free version with limited component, hole or size restrictions. A kid can do it. Once you design the artwork for a board, do a search on Google for cheap China Prototyping PCB and all these little shops come up with $10 /10' deals. They take your file and send you back shiny clean PCBs. No mess...at least no mess at your home.

V- you're certainly smart enough to get your head around it. Tons of DIY videos on YouTube. It is very cheap now. Some of the videos literally have kids doing it.
halfmoon wrote:Wow. And also: WOW. You built your own CNC milling machine? Sclass, you're a genius. 8-)
Thanks for the compliment. But no, I tested below average in IQ on the state IQ tests in my public school. I'm actually dumb enough to try this stuff. :lol: I built the CNC because I was curious about this stuff. Now anyone with YouTube access can do it.

It indeed is a great time to be curious.

So last night I woke up freaked out wondering if my paper "Bakelite" boards contained asbestos. Anyone know of a home diy analysis technique to check the fibers? I own a microscope.

Edit- for the curious, some photos of my setup in an old thread.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4111&hilit=Milling&start=25

User avatar
jennypenny
Posts: 6851
Joined: Sun Jul 03, 2011 2:20 pm

Re: Used bread machine from rummage sale

Post by jennypenny »

It's been 15 years since I looked into it, but you have to use a solvent to check for it under a microscope. Most solvents were too nasty to use at home, but IIRC acetone-based nail polish remover worked. (Is that even still available?) You can find pics of what it would look like under the microscope online. I remember that forensics sites were more helpful than asbestos-related sites.

How old is it? It might be easier to search by the product number online instead of testing it yourself, unless you're into that. More of that info is posted online now.

ETA: check and make sure I'm remember that correctly since it really has been over 15 years

User avatar
Sclass
Posts: 2791
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:15 pm
Location: Orange County, CA

Re: Used bread machine from rummage sale

Post by Sclass »

Hey JP. Great I have some acetone and SO has that stinky nail polish remover.

I just crushed some of the board (newly manufactured "Bakelite" FR2 board bought on eBay from China...a month old). It is some kind of phenolic laminate with a little fiber in it. I don't get the itches while handling like FR4 PCB which has glass. I've inhaled and ingested way too much of that over my life.

It has some clear fibers in it that look curly. Not much. Not thick and wooly but there's a curl of this monofilament line stuff here and there. I tried burning it with a lighter and it burns and doesn't ball up into a clear boule like I would expect from glass. I would suspect flame would not bother asbestos fiber. This stuff gets black and vaporizes.

I tried heating with a hot air gun at 500 degC. It didn't melt or burn up.

This is new PCB material so I think it should be ok...but I really am leery of anything I get out of China these days. Some of the vendors will mix up anything they have and sell it to you as babyfood.

Ok, needle like fibers do not dissolve in acetone nail polish. They look like glass. This is confusing because I think I'm dealing with multiple types of fibers in this board.

Ok, got some photos.
I started seeing fibers like this on the surface around the drill holes. The board is kind of a sandwich. The top is copper foil, the inside is kind of dark Bakelite, and the bottom is a fiber reinforced resin material. This is the bottom. The drill hole is 1mm dia.

Image

Here is a fiber. It is about 1mm across. Some of the curly fibers like this one melt in nail polish remover. They first curl up and disappear.

[Image

Then there are others like these straight clear needle like ones in the hole at 2 o'clock.

Image

zoom up on the same needles:

Image

Just curious if this stuff can hurt me. I think it is a mix of fiberglass and possibly Dacron/nylon fibers used to reinforced the laminate.

jacob
Site Admin
Posts: 15907
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
Contact:

Re: Used bread machine from rummage sale

Post by jacob »

vexed87 wrote:This looks like a cool project, I wish I could get my head around PCBs and how they work. I wouldn't know the first thing about designing my own boards... did I understand correctly, you designed and printed that copper coloured board yourself?
You could do it with hand tools just like how neanderthals did it back in the 1980s and 90s (and presumably before).

Noncurated shopping list:
https://www.amazon.com/Uxcell-Anti-Etch ... B00W8WBISG
https://www.amazon.com/MG-Chemicals-Fer ... 005T8VHCS/ (can or could also be bought in the form of yellow crystals)
https://www.amazon.com/Teenitor-Quality ... 01M3V6AQQ/
https://www.amazon.com/WEN-4210-Drill-C ... 005UKGLAS/

1) draw the circuit board design on a piece of paper. Or print it out if you already have it.
2) tape the paper to the PCB blank
3) drill all the holes
4) removed the paper
5) clean the pcb with steel wool
6) draw all the lines between the holes with the special pen (if you need to erase, steel wool works)
7) immerse the board in ferrochloride until all the copper is gone (about 24 hours ... don't leave too long or the ferro will get under the lacquer!)
8) remove lacquer with steel wool

Now you can get CAD or somesuch programs that convert electric diagrams into layouts. However, it's not that complicated to make something that works. The tricky part is to not waste too much space between the components. If space is not an issue, you can always copy the original protoboard layout with one of these and completely skip the drawing and the acid bath:

https://www.amazon.com/Busboard-Protot- ... 01KHWGLJ4/ (standard protoboard layout)
https://www.amazon.com/Uxcell-25Pcs-Dou ... 0166GCD42/ (just holes)

George the original one
Posts: 5404
Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2010 3:28 am
Location: Wettest corner of Orygun

Re: Used bread machine from rummage sale

Post by George the original one »

jacob wrote:You could do it with hand tools just like how neanderthals did it back in the 1980s and 90s (and presumably before).
Us '70s Neanderthals used the fancy tape & rub-on templates. Etch resist pens weren't as reliable back then and getting ICs to line up was easier with the templates/tape.

jacob
Site Admin
Posts: 15907
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
Contact:

Re: Used bread machine from rummage sale

Post by jacob »

@GtOO - That sounds more like primordial ooze to me :)

User avatar
Sclass
Posts: 2791
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:15 pm
Location: Orange County, CA

Re: Used bread machine from rummage sale

Post by Sclass »

George the original one wrote:
jacob wrote:You could do it with hand tools just like how neanderthals did it back in the 1980s and 90s (and presumably before).
Us '70s Neanderthals used the fancy tape & rub-on templates. Etch resist pens weren't as reliable back then and getting ICs to line up was easier with the templates/tape.
Seriously? Take a tip from the kids on YouTube. You don't have to torture yourselves.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BoKo_JiJWNY

Some of these kids use magazine pages as transfer paper. The results aren't professional but they're shockingly good for a laser printer and a page torn out of Time.

But once you get to that gate, why not upload your files here? They'll take the outputs from Eagle PCB. You don't necessarily have to make circuit boards. Make some luggage tags.

http://www.pcbway.com

Plated through holes, double sided, green masked boards and milled outlines. $10/10. I think it'll cost $10 for a small amount of double sided copper clad, a bottle of ferric chloride and the little black doughnuts.

George the original one
Posts: 5404
Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2010 3:28 am
Location: Wettest corner of Orygun

Re: Used bread machine from rummage sale

Post by George the original one »

"Back in the '70s"... but not now.

We didn't have laser printers in the '70s. China was off-limits for business. Eastern Europe & Russia were only visited by rare individuals. ASCII art was stored on paper tape run through a KSR teletype. Uploaded to a data center at 300 baud because 1200 baud modems weren't invented until the '80s. Cell phones weren't invented yet, either, so you had to pay for long distance calls since most companies did not have 800 numbers unless they were really big and business orders were usually mailed in with a check or money order attached and you got your goods a month later if they were in stock. An international order from England took 3 months to 6 months to arrive via the cheapest mail route.

Yes, we're much smarter and better off today!

enigmaT120
Posts: 1240
Joined: Thu Feb 12, 2015 2:14 pm
Location: Falls City, OR

Re: Used bread machine from rummage sale

Post by enigmaT120 »

And I'm older than George. Oh dear.

7Wannabe5
Posts: 9369
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: Used bread machine from rummage sale

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Sclass: Super-cool. I wish I had your skillz, but I am happy just because I actually understand about 18.9% of this thread due to the online robotics course I am taking, which is pretty much the first time I've studied electronics since I had one of those 500 in 1 experiment sets from Radio Shack in 1975.

My ideal would be that I could take all the stuff out of any random dumpster, or yard sale free box, and know how to upscale (clean, fix, integrate, refurbish, renovate, etc.) or recycle it (disassemble, feed to worms, unknit into yarn, shred into mulch, etc.)

User avatar
Sclass
Posts: 2791
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:15 pm
Location: Orange County, CA

Re: Used bread machine from rummage sale

Post by Sclass »

GTOO, I get it. Thank you. I feel young now. I used to watch engineers do ruby lith when I was a teenager in the 80s. I never got to do it that way. By the time I was allowed to muck up a design we had DOS based CAD. What is amazing is I see what the kids are hacking with now and I feel old. I dug this twenty year old chip out of a junk box for this project. It took forever to get the ancient compiler running on Windows Vista...a now ancient OS as well.

7W - I want your skills too! This isn't exactly a guide to the best way to do this. Its really about how I spend my time. There has been no better time to dabble in this stuff. The parts are cheap, kits plentiful, how to videos abound and there is a community of people at all levels ready to answer naïve questions. Really, you don't need my skills to make something like this work. It takes a small subset which can be acquired like you're doing by jumping online and just trying stuff.

I was pointed to the site sparkfun.com by a young guy. It is a hobbyist place but the kits are really easy to use and cheap. If you don't like the pricing, use their tutorials and buy the same cloned hardware from China. Something like my bread maker override can be built in a few hours by a beginner using an Arduino board. I know a lot of good SW people who have jumped over to hardware starting at sparkfun.com. The barrier of entry is low if you really want to play. The cool part is once you get something going, you can replicate it easily for other people who say need to monitor temperatures in their frozen greenhouse.

Trimmed board on my shear. Placed parts. Ready for solder.

Image

Soldering. This is where a real professionally fabricated board is better. Soldering unmasked bare copper boards without the green masking on the surface is harder. This type of CNC isolation routing is very vulnerable to short circuits. I must be vigilant when soldering in components. Holes without through hole plating are more difficult to solder too.

Image

Done. Looks nice. I just flashed the EEPROM and now I'm going to test it out. Windoze forgot about my USB driver over the last week and cannot recognize my programmer. Ugh. This is why Arduino is a great place to start for beginners.

Image

I think this process loses on cost, dirtying up my garage with mystery fibers. It wins on getting boards the same day you design them without making some smelly etch that has to go to hazmat after you're done.

Post Reply