How many people here scrap old electronics?

[nevermind1281]

Am I the only one that takes apart broken or stuff for the garbage and takes the chips, transistors, capacitors, resistors, chokes, coils, and wire(if there is enough)?  I used to take apart old printers that we had and just take the LEDs, but now I take just about everything(except SMT).  I dont use all of it, but I have already used some(capacitors and a resistor).  My VCR just crapped out, makes blue screen but will has audio, so I am going to scrap that pretty soon.  An old monitor that we have is just about dead and ready to upgrade to an LCD, so I might take that for parts.  I dont know if I want to mess with the cathode in it, dont feel like getting killed too soon, I can just see the news headlines "Cheap kid gets killed when trying to get $1.50 of electronics".

 

[nanop]

I wish that I could get my hands on all the electronics in the garbage in my neigborhood. The only bad thing is how to dipose them. U can't throw away a huge TV in the trash. In my town, u have to pay about $10-50!!! so people can pick them up and take them away.  :'( :'( :'(

 

[MP1]

I had a small TV that I needed to get rid of. It was dead. The metal scrapper would not take it...the dump would not take it...so, I put it on the curb in front of my house with a sign that said "FREE", and it was gone the very next day.  8)
Love those guys that like to tear things apart!! Maybe nevermind1281 lives in my neighborhood?

MP

 

[Theatronics]

in my teens I longed for parts and things to rip into.
In my 20s I had a whole storage shed full of 'stuff' from old ham radio equipment,
to Personal computers.
In my 30s I learned that my time was worth money so I suddenly realized that
ordering new parts is better than spending hours looking though broken gizmos
to find one that is 'close' to what I need.
Now (my 40s) I keep a nice balance of unique gizmos for research and Reverse engineering and
a shelf of up to date parts supply catalogues.

As for getting rid of old electronics, It is becoming more difficult due to the hazardous chemicals and elements used in construction.  The best advice I can offer is disassemble the unit entirely, and then throw it away a little at a time.  That way you may find a few items you do want to keep and you can toss the stuff you don't need.

 

[ante1]

The piles of nice to have stuff have a tendency to grow over time. Once in a while a cleanup and sort out go-through-the-piles is necessary! Unfortunately it is unavoidable to find that some time after such an event you need a piece you have thrown away!

 

[nevermind1281]

I just take stuff apart because I know somewhere down the road I will be looking for something that radio shack doent have, and dont want to order online(I start off with a $5 list and end up with $50, I cant stop!). 

 

[Ldanielrosa1]

I used ot tear just about anything apart.  Now I try to limit myself to things that I know have something I want in them- like nokia 5160 (and similar) cellular 'phones, they have a graphic LCD with serial input.

 

[nevermind1281]

I just took apart an old Sega, there were 31 capacitors, took them all, and they are all 10uF, 47uF, and like 3 100uF.  I need all the 10uF and 47uF for other things I do so that worked out well.  I am on an old VCR right now, I have a bowl filled with caps.  I dont bother with surface mount, and right now I am getting to the power supply and I have to be very careful of all of the exposed stuff.  I wil write back later and tell how much stuff I got, and if I get shocked.

 

[mugsby]

did you take the 68000 out of the sega? i only salvage high cost parts, you can buy a resistor for a penny, it isn't worth my time in that case.

 

[nevermind1281]

Whats a 68000?  I still have it so can get it off still.

 

[sssaaa]

I prefer used parts if you take it from somthing you have in your scrap which made by japan.
japan parts quality is good as compare to others.

 

[allvol]

I had some good luck with recycled parts today.

At what we call in the US a garage sale, I bought an old cassette tape Panasonic answering machine.

 

[Mooncat]

I remove only the parts I can test.  When I was at school, a friend and I salvaged resistors and capacitors, but we found that Rs were usually gone high, and the Cs were leaky.

Now I keep only the boards, and I do sometimes find parts I use, plus motors, relays etc.  The multicoloured wiring comes in handy.

 

[nevermind1281]

Yeah, if there is enough wire then I will take it.  I got a ton of wire from some old printers once.  But my best find was a $1(dollar store) cable, it was a printer cable but it must have had 60 around 30g wires in it, and the cable was like 8 feet long so I will be good on the small wire for a long time.

 

[nanop]

Dollar stores are great places!!!!!

I found many useful and cheap things there. I don't really care about the quality like gold-plated on many cables, so dollar store always has them. They also sell Door Bells, and other devices that would have an lcd screen, piezo and other speakers. U just take them apart, and get the component out. Buying just a 8-ohm speaker rated for 3 watts cost 2.39!!! at radioshack, but buying a door bell at the $1 store for $1 + tax, you can take the Door Bell apart and u get a switch, 8-ohm speaker rated 5 watts!!, and some resistors, capacitors.

I wish that I could get the music chip out, but there is always a weird black thing covering it.
Does any1 know what this black stuff is?
IS there a way to remove it?


Thanks for ur help!!!!

 

[nevermind1281]

It seems that the dollar stores with good stuff are usually the closeout ones, not the big chain ones like family dollar or dollar tree.  I havnt been to a goon one lately because I have been busy, but when I go I willjust about anything I think I need or may need in the next year(I plan ahead )