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  • Author Author: funinalaska
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Enough building, time for demolition

funinalaska

Today i took a break from building and coding and trying new things o go back to a favorite past time from my child hood.

When i was younger I loved to take things apart.

Any time my family or someone we knew got a new appliance, or was getting rid of old electronics My dad gave me the old one to take apart.

I think this was for 2 reasons.

1 was because once I had a device to dismantle I was guranteed to be in the garage dismantling it for a good few hours if not a few days.

2 was (I think) because it made it much easier to dispose of in the trash.

I took apart all kinds of things. from old computers (TIs and Apples) to dehumidifiers (no I never let the magic gas out) to clock radios and coffee makers.

I had a blast doing it.

I would even sit there with my dad's old pen style soldering iron desoldering all the components I could from the PCBs.

I would put the things I thought were "cool" into containers and keep them the rest went to the garbage.

Sometime in highschool we cleaned out the garage and I lost all that stuff to the trash as well.

I never really did much with any of it, I would keep some switches, LEDs and simple basic motors to play with, but never really made anything.

Now I am wishing I had some of that stuff.

I think I remember throwing out a whole shoe box full of transistors of all shapes and kinds.

a paperbox full of resistors, and another full of capacitors.

 

Well, today I got to have a little nostalgic fun.

I was given 2 deceased laser printers.

They wern't actually dead, but there were made to not function by their owner.

So I decided to have some fun ripping them apart.

I got one of them completely gutted. not too much useful in that one other than maybe the nice regulated power supply and a couple cool motors but I am not sure if I will be able to do anythign with 2 of them cause I think the driver board is built on to them (they are steppers)

The other one was an all in one machine. I got the top third of it (the scanner and control surfaces) ripped apart.

I was actually pleasantly surprised by some of my finds in that one.

My first surprise was to find not one, not two but three matching stepper motors, This is good for me, I havent really gotten to play with a stepper motor yet.

The next surprise was that all the buttons on the control surface were actually a ton of soldered on tactile buttons, not the contact style buttons I am used to seeing in electronics.

there were also a whole bunch of LEDs that I am scabbing as well.

The first printer was almost completely Surface mounted electronics and what looked like proprietary chips at that.

I am hoping I will find at least one more matching stepper motor in the printer portion of the one in progress then I will have 4 of them. If I can figure out how to use them I am hoping to build something out of them. No clue what yet though.

The one disapointment in both printers is that it appears the displays on them are some sort of propritary hardware that I dont think I will be able to use. Oh well, they may just look cool hanging on the wall in the garage.

 

Anyone else out there do much salvaging from old hardware?

  • Where I am I dont have access to yard sales or anything like that. In a town like this people dont hold on to anything very long at all other than cars, ATVs and Snowmobiles.

    So I dont often get access to fun things to take apart.

    The two printers I got are from a shipping container that was being emptied that was mostly full of old business paperwork for a business that was going under.

    They are not that old, but still fun to dismantle.

    Unfortunately other than LEDs, Switches, power supplies and stepper motors there doesnt seem to be much useful in them.

    The one has a rediculuous high voltage board in it. I was surprised to see that.

  • A good engineer never outgrows the joy of taking things apart.

     

    I go to garage sales and find a ton of neat little toys and older electronics that provide many hours of entertainment.

    I am always amazed at how much you can learn about production techniques, component choices and the occasional bad design.

     

    I especially like old printers.  The movement stage has innumerable uses for controlling auto focusing cameras, panning, and tracking applications.

     

    My newest toy is the Frenel lens off a 50-in projection TV.  Once I get it mounted I look forward to melting all kinds of things with the sun.

     

    I look forward to each season with hopes of finding a good score.  Did I mention that I picked up a 600 USD check scanner for 5 USD? 

     

    It is amazing what people think is junk.

     

    DAB

  • I always have an eye out for older used equipment, many come from surplus or the round file. there is the chance I can repair them and if not there are usually some cool parts inside.

     

    I will never say no to taking an older computer, everything can be recycled or reused. the amount of aluminium and copper is reasonable. its not realy worth the time to strip the boards when a 1 Foot box full of motherboards only fetches $10. powersupply boards are better but the scrap guys here can't tell the diffrence.

     

    leds from early 70s' are one of my best finds.