Model Forum / General / Rockets / July 2005

I have so much crap, it can't be believed. I have an 1802 SuperElf board
dated circa 1978. I have two Digital Sharks StrongARM thin clients. I have
a box of PC type motherboards and boxes of cards, hard disks, etc.
Monitors, cables, discrete components, ICs, 2 osciliscopes, video capture
cards, to 19" rack cabinets, SMP servers, table saw, drill press, engine
hoist, weller soldering station. Lets not even talk about books!!

I usually don't keep circuit boards from any equipment that is to be junked,
unless they contain exotic parts such as RF components
(mixers/transformers/oscillators/etc), unique analog components such as
hard-to-find op-amps, A-D, D-A converters or the like.  I'll recover those
components and throw away the rest of the board
If you can easily identify power transformers, I suggest that those be
marked and stored.
I usually like to keep power transistors, heat sinks, large computer-grade
electrolytics, potentiometers, and hardware such as knobs, handles, etc.
I guess that in a nutshell, I tend to throw away the stuff that's easily
purchased new, and stuff that's just too tedious to recover.

Too much, too long.

petrus bitbyter

Any basic eletrical/electronic stuff I come across, especially heavy
rectifiers, motor starters, wire, plugs, etc.

Plumbing junk, esp. what I might need for plumbing the compressor.

Motors, engines, gearboxes, shafting, sprockets, chain, pulleys, belts..
anything else for power transfer.

Complete automobiles/machinery.. 4wd stuff, transfer cases,
transmissions, etc.

That's a good start on a list anyway, I got a lot of junk..

John

Don't bother with household trash. It really is trash. There isn't much
you can do with worn out vacuum cleaners, broken VCRs etc. You can take
the flyback transformers from TVs and the big power transformers from
microwave ovens, but that's about it. Sure, there'll be a gem here and
there, but if you're a serious scavenger like me household trash isn't
usually worth your time.

Factory, commercial and university/college waste is much more
worthwhile. Here in England we have "skips", which are giant rubbish
containers often hired by companies when they clear out premises etc.
But some places have a skip all the time, and the scrap metal skips can
offer especially rich pickings. Learn which organisations in your town
chuck good stuff and get friendly with the people who chuck it. Usually
you can talk them round to letting you have the stuff they chuck out. If
not and you really want it, you can sneak back in the evening and grab
it. Justify it by telling yourself you're reusing stuff and doing the
planet a favour!

In the past year or so I've scored the following (among other things):

Sun Ultra 2 workstation, 1280 MB RAM (needed hard drive, using it now!)
Two mechanical high vacuum pumps (pumps fine, had faulty motors)
Two Oertling scientific balances (one fine, I fixed the other)
Four nice 1/4 hp 1 ph. motors (all fine)
Near-new 1/2 hp 1 ph. motor (gave to a friend for his printing press)
Huge and heavy 1 hp DC motor (fine)
Six or seven 3 ph. motors (look good, not tested yet)
1 ph. watt-hour meter (fine)
Samsung 19" CRT (scratched, but gave it to a friend who polished it out)
1000 VA 230 V UK -> 115 V US transformer (works fine, nice condition)
Bunch of lab. retort stands and clamps (fine)
Hefty 3 kW Xpelair fan heater (fine, now in the workshop)
1" Jacobs chuck (end of taper had been repaired, but otherwise good)
Many SCSI enclosures (mostly good)
Anglepoise lamp for lathe (good)
SGI IRIS Indigo (now at a computer museum)
Kymograph camera (don't know what to do with it!)

Probably the heap of damaged/poor quality electric motors I don't use
but keep for bearings, fans, pulleys etc. Also the hot water cylinder I
once intended to use as a Van de Graaff generator terminal and a heap of
broken Apple ][ hardware.

I hardly ever toss stuff. Decent stuff I can't cope with I give to
friends or sell on eBay. But I did chuck a wall bracket assembly for an
Xpelair fan heater and regretted it. But fortunately last month I found
another!

When I was a student I kept a trolley (found in a skip) especially for
the purpose of recovery laboratory trash. Apparently it gained me
something of a reputation. Unfortunately it wasn't big to carry a spot
welder and radial drill I saw being chucked once. But a friend of mine
with a truck scored a Cincinatti milling machine a few years back.

Chris

Springs! I always strip springs from mechanical devices.

David

TMT, I have been a junk packrat for the past 30 or so years, but now I
am adopting the philosophy that if something is not useful in less than
two years, throw it away.

Storage of junk consumes valuable space that is often worth more than
the replacement cost of junk items.

   Harry C.

   What on earth makes you think I can get all THAT in a BOX?  Now that
space is becoming an issue, I'm having to start figuring out what I need to
get rid of.  I'm keeping a lot of my car parts, regardless of how long I've
had them, 'cuz that make and model are history, but a lot of other stuff is
going.  I've made two or three dump runs so far this year, so there's been
some progress.

I threw away probably about a million dollars worth of stuff that we
all paid for, as tax payers. (original cost). The items I salvage are:

heavy power cords
large capacitors (size of a beer can at least)
electrical terminals
ALL SCREWS
heavy semiconductor devices
fans (sometimes, not much anymore, as I have quite a few)
all interesting switches
all electric motors
some mounting hardware, which usually is very handy

I recently threw away a refrigerator, and salvaged galvanized
racks. One of them now is used as a part of my chicken coop:

http://igor.chudov.com/projects/chicks/07_Day_65/dscf0022.jpg

(look to the right)

I have a great pile of screws now, and a great pile of "I will sell it
one day" stuff. All comes quite handy at various times. One is a DPDT
30A transfer switch the size of a jumbo egg.

i

Bring in an inventory crew and we can discuss mine.

Gunner

"Considering the events of recent years,
the world has a long way to go to regain
its credibility and reputation with the US."
                                unknown

I strip printers CD and floppy drives for stainless steel bars,
microswitches, springs and stepper and regular motors.  I save all wall
warts, multi color LEDs, Lots of switches, attractive knobs.

Magnets and aluminum spacers from hard drives,  
Connectors from older computer cases.
Any bearing I can find (Where do I buy small numbers of bearings?)
And of course anything that looks unusual and hard to find new.

I used to collect "good stuff" like power transformers, meters, pots,
switches, heatsinks, power transistors, big caps, etc,  but the boxes
are getting bigger and bigger and I use so little of it (sob!) that I
now have to be a little selective and ruthless. However, I always grab
fuses if they are easy to get at.

Household crap is barely worth fighting with the covers to get the
innards out these days, however, commercial, industrial, medical and
military stuff is worth spending the time on. Also I highly recommend
photocopiers, full of motors, optical bits, power supplies, switches,
and other interesting bits.

And I still find unlimited uses for Magnetron magnets ex microwaves,
so while I'm in there, I grab the many microswitches, thermal
switches, power transformer on the control board, and HV parts. I can
strip one of these in about 5 minutes now. Dunno quite what for, but
I'm sure they will be useful one day.

I went through a phase of collecting the boards from disposable
cameras, they have a few interesting bits on them, but what can one do
with more than 50?

Of course, you need a big barn to keep all this crap in.

Barry Lennox

EVERYTHING!

    Bob Kaplow    NAR # 18L    TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD"
        >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD! <<<
Kaplow Klips & Baffle:    http://nira-rocketry.org/LeadingEdge/Phantom4000.pdf
   www.encompasserve.org/~kaplow_r/    www.nira-rocketry.org    www.nar.org

    Homeland Security Administration: The Gestapo of the 21st Century

Capacitors...resistors...                   

Books...NEVER get rid of a book...

Tom

=>....what kinds of electronic and mechanical "trash" is WORTH
disassembling and keeping for parts to build other projects?

"Trash?" Never. "Stuffe" and "Junque," maybe, but never the "T" word!

I think I have managed to save about every single bit and piece of
anything I have ever owned (I'm 71 now) and have actually used one or
two items in other projects. My wife and I built rows of heavy shelves
in our basement so we could store treasures for possible use in the
future (I had three shelves and she the rest--she's as bad as I). I
was lucky to have worked for an electronics company for 20 years and
managed to squirrel away mounds of valuable goodies. On several
occasions, several cartons of obsolete components would appear in the
hallway near the stockroom with a sign reading, "Take all you want,
but have it out of the building by 5PM." Oh, the good-ol' days.

I have stripped boards for valuable, i.e., hard-to-find parts, tossing
them when they are down to vanilla R and C components. Always save
large electrolytics, power transistors, heat sinks, high-wattage
resistors, easily removed connectors (bless he who invented the
thodderthukker!). Wire is always saved, whatever its configuration, as
well as cases, plugs, sockets, relays, etc... ALWAYS save screws!

As for disposing of stuffe and junque, it can be traumatic as most of
you know. Tossing that rusty 4-inch encabulator will defintely prompt
a project several months from now that requires a 4-inch encabulator.
Right?

In this vein, allow me to share a (maybe not so) humorous story. Not
too long after getting my ham license, I was fatally bitten by the
Teletype bug when a fellow ham and co-worker sold me all his TTY gear,
which included spare parts, manuals, and other good stuffe. Wow! The
smell of hot oil, the thunderous din, dodging gear teeth as they
ricocheted out of the case! Ecstacy! From then on I was hooked, and
collected, cataloged, and stored every bit and piece that even vaguely
could be used in a TTY application.

Over several years I acquired several more TTY machines, in the end
managing to have five running simultaneously on HF and VHF radio
circuits! The sound was deafening! But what fun it was to keep them
all running. A local radio station surplussed all their paper and tape
when they converted from mechanical to glass terminals, and of course
I was there with my little LUV truck to help them out!

Moving time came finally and I decided that it was time to cut back a
bit. (Actualy, the new house didn't have room for a tenth of our
stuffe, let alone all the TTY equipment.) A local ham and I had been
conversing for months about TTY and he said he would take all the TTY
gear I didn't want. He came over, looked at it, and came back a week
or so later with a mid-size U-Haul truck. We loaded it all in and I
watched him slowly roll away, the sides of the box bulging as he
disappeared arround the corner.

I heard a few months later that he was in divorce procedings! I guess
she just couldn't take it!

Moral: Be careful what you toss out. Better yet, build more shelves!

Cheers--

Terry--WB4FXD
Edenton, NC

What I threw that I kicked myself for was a Cibiko.

My wife is a bigger gadget freak than I am and she had insisted on
getting one when they came out.  Since she didn't have anyone else
around with one she never got to use its primary feature (wireless chat)
and the rest of its game features were fairly lame so it soon ended up
in a box in the crap - er I mean craft - room.

We were sorting stuff in the room when we were getting ready to move and
decided to toss it.  One month later there was an article in Servo
explaining how to use a Cibiko as a portable rs232 terminal interface
for debugging mobile robots.

ARRG!

Catman

  Pretty much anything, for suitable values of "project". IOW it
depends what you like to build.

  That pile of lumber. I don't have a fireplace any more...

  An assortment of synthetic laser crystal castoffs (impurity
levels off just enough to make them useless for that application,
but still pretty).

  I just acquired an old electric wheelchair (for free!); I plan to
adapt the snazzy magnesium wheels to a bicycle. The controller box
is a joke, full of paralleled transistors and humongous relays.

  Mark L. Fergerson

Well, since you also asked for experiences...

When I was in college I found the EE dept was cleaning out a lab and had
scrapped a machine for scoring IC chips.  Probably from the 60's or early
70's.  The machine was mounted on a plate metal base about 1/2 inch thick
and about 30 inches by 18 inches.  Mounted on it were various various
motors, steppers, slides, a vacuum table etc.  I grabbed it and stored it in
a friends garage.

A couple of years later, I was still in school and working for another
department at the University.  A researcher there told me they needed a
stepper controlled slide.  I went back to that old machine and unbolted the
perfect motor/slide combination.  Sold it back to the University for $100!

Name and University withheld to protect the guilty...

Vacuum tubes. Particularly replacements for my Tek 545 o'scope.

Also, a few original IBM PC cases, power supplies and disk drive faces.

I already built one, but some day, I've got to stick a top of the line
multi-processor motherboard into another one and take it to a Linux
bootfest.

I keep a box of broken laptops for spare parts. Especially, keyboards,
screens, mouse buttons, etc... which are almost like consumables.

I also have a box of harddisks from my old machines... You never know
when you need a disk with an old version of DOS to repair some old
machine to run some ancient version of software.  Some of the install
floppy disks for older versions have long stopped working. Keeping the
harddisks is easier than keeping a museum of all old machines. I used
to make it a point to keep old tape drives, in case I need to read an
oddball tape; however, I had to downsize.

Other than that, I harvest rs232 driver chips (1488,1489, max232),
and small power supplies as well as PC power supplies, fans, etc...
I also keep oddballs cables and connectors, and screws/nuts, you
never know and they are always a pain to track down when you need
them. I have used old AC cords on more than one occasion to replace
a frayed one.

An assortment of glues, like epoxies, CA, rubber cement, RTV, Loctite,
just in case I don't have the right screw/nut to fix something.

Later, -ingo