Toaster Computer

[Gordon Johnson] recently completed part 1 of his toaster computer project. He used a standard four slot toaster as the enclosure and cut holes for access to the ports and a wireless antenna. While the specifications of the components used are not mentioned, the build is well documented on his site, complete with lots of pictures and a video. While he used a traditional fan based cooling method for part 1 of the build, he plans on using a special cooling method for part 2 that uses aluminum and mineral oil to create a thermoelectric cooling effect.

28 thoughts on “Toaster Computer

  1. I like how Gordan is willing to share his work while

    he is still in progress, and I look forward to seeing

    the finished project. I am wondering what will become

    of the toast holes in the finished product.

  2. tripointlogic & chris need to get off their high horse before someone knocks them off to try to get some sense into them. did you ever try putting a computer into something that wasn’t built to hold computer parts?

    thought not. piss off! Why not offer useful comments like “he should have mounted the power supply inside the toaster.” or maybe got a smaller supply to facilitate the mounting inside. But no, you just dis the work and come off like a pair of lamers without a clue. not everyone has stuff handed to them on a silver platter and sometimes people want to try stuff with the old parts they have sitting around. what a concept! oh… this is the mantra of most projects posted on hack-a-day – use excess parts or really cheap parts to build kewl stuff.

    I’m starting to agree with trekna. the comments were better without the trolls… and since most of them seem to be trolls recently. let’s just leave the comments off.

  3. I didn’t think aluminum + dielectric made a “thermoelectric cooler.” I thought the mineral oil solution was just a liquid heat sink — you can dunk your entire computer in mineral oil safely…

    I thought thermoelectric coolers were solid-state heat pumps mostly using the Peltier effect…

    OK and about the trolls who are bashing everything they see: don’t pay any attention to them; no mature adult would waste their time or yours by writing something like that. They must be between 13 and 15 and very, very insecure. I mean, seriously, would you really care if a child insulted something you worked hard to create? They have no training, no knowledge, and no experience and therefore they have no qualifications to judge anything on this site as positive or negative. And by and large, it’s been my experience that those kids are usually the dirt-poor ignorant souls who can’t afford any better equipment than an “AMD cpu and CRT monitor.”

    Funny story: I just took out an old amber-on-black monitor and the ISA controller for its use in a new project. But if you trashed me about what I’m working on, it wouldn’t matter because your entire existence is irrelevant to me. So don’t worry about the trolls; there -are- a few of us who can make relevant or contributory comments. And we’re all capable of just skipping those moronic insecure rants from the kids with no parents and no lives.

  4. @sly and dan

    Did I ever put down his project, NO! I put down the amd cpu and crt monitor.

    And I can’t say as i’ve ever tried to put a computer into something not designed

    to hold one and I wasn’t commenting on that. And I don’t have a high horse, my

    wife did but she sold it and got a smaller one.

    Sly your an ass and i’m sorry that your poor.

  5. It seems like no matter what gets posted on here, some daffy douche

    will say it’s lame or bemoan the death of hackaday.

    _screw_them_

    I recently put together a low-powered Micro-ATX PC to play with

    Linux on. I called it “The Toaster” because of it’s modest resources and basic

    mission, which was to be a basic web machine.

    I wish I had thought to build it into an actual toaster!

    This is a most righteous and worthy project indeed.

  6. bahaha. you think i’m poor? think again. you obviously are overtly judgmental. this is purely an observation made of your presence here. btw, those who are on a high horse never think they are until they’re knocked off. your horse may not be as high as your wife’s, but you’ve just shown that it’s high enough. And if I’m an ass for stating my observations, oh well… guess I’m an ass. I’d rather be an ass than a bully any day. And for old time sake (even though it was just earlier today)… piss off :-p

    the pico-supply is a good idea, but that link pulls up a 404 on their site

    try this one

    http://www.mini-box.com/picoPSU-120-power-kit?sc=8&category=13

  7. Lol, this hack involves sticking screwdrivers into toasters.

    He should do something humorous with the toast slots, even

    if it’s just something simple with red LEDs. It might also

    be interesting to put a biometric scanner down one slot,

    that way he’d look like a toaster-fingering badass whenever

    he logs on.

  8. oh god kill me now

    this is stupid and should never of been posted

    and who the hell still uses a crt …. or a toaster ….

    or amd for that matter … 2 thumbs down

    this should be taken down from hackaday

  9. Hi all.

    Thanks for the backup against the rest of the “trolls” on here. And yes, I am a poor college kid. :P Well, anyway, I don’t enjoy wasting a whole lot of money on projects when I could use it for other things. The CRT monitor is so amazingly old. I plan on getting an LCD monitor eventually. But as for the suggestions for part 1 of the project, I simply didn’t have time to finish the everything (hence the two parts). Yes, slim CD drives will “pop-out” the top, I had planned on making use of the levers to turn it on and off (use paperclips to magnetically turn the computer on and off by touching the two prongs on the motherboard).

    As for the PSU, I couldn’t acquire a pico PSU that would A. fit and B. generate enough wattage in order for it to function fully (with part 2 kept in mind).

    Once again, thanks for the support! I will be sure to keep all of you posted.

    Cheers!

    -leetupload

  10. to the op, i think someone on here with the know how should make you two pieces of bread, from copper about 1/2 inch thick and run some heat pipes to a custom heatsink that would be amazing, although there is potential of getting burnt, but hey real toast has that hazard too!!

    I actually like this mod! better then my bluetooth dongle in a travel size lotion bottle!! hehe

    10/10

  11. Hello!

    I am a hacker. I can get you a yahoo, aol, hotmail,myspace faceobook..etc password. Once I have the password, I will show you proof I have it. I will take snapshots of the account or even message you from the account. I do charge a fee per password though.

    Are you interested? Email me at Fordf202006@yahoo.com

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