This has been a topic of wonder for me for some time, never bothered posting about it before. I live in Rochester, NY in the U.S. I've always wondered about dumpster diving or finding other sources of free electronics broke or otherwise for disassembly or repair. Mostly for component retrieval and a simple broad curiosity of looking at a wide variety of electronics components.

I'd like to limit this thread to mostly things applicable to a mid volume US metro area in scope.

We have a lot of a really high tech companies in the area, and many more lesser tech companies. Harris communication which has big military contracts for communication equipment, Kodak, Xerox to name a few off the top of my head.

I want to keep things on the legal up and up as far as getting someone elses garbage, or officially requesting legal disposal rights to something someone wants to get rid of but not sure how I should proceed. Any tips tricks or general suggestions from users would be appreciated.

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Don't you have a local "Craigs List" or equiv? I don't live in a very big town, and there is always free electronic stuff posted, even actual parts:
FREE: Box of electronic parts Victoria City, Victoria
We also have local electronic recycling depots here where you could always find some good junk. As long as you ask first, it is usually OK with them.

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Inside every little problem, is a big problem trying to get out.

 

Contact electronic repairers, they usually have back rooms full of dead stuff that customers never bothered to collect. It's a considerable cost to them to dispose of it.

 

I'd imagine that if it's in a dumpster or trash can, it's free salvage. I live in a small town, so not much help, but never seen anyone hassled by the police, when looking through trash piles left for collection. Would never get me to dig through a dumpster in NYC, be afraid of finding a dead body...

 

Some years ago, a case came before the US Surpreme Court over wether or not evidenced obtained through the trash is admissable in court. The Court ruled that garbage is not owned by the person who threw it out. I tell my friends that my dumpster diving is a right protected by the SCOTUS!

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You don't need a quadraphonic Blaupunkt -- you need a curve
ball.

 

I think the only worry is going on private property, then again if nothing is posted..

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I've mentioned it before, but a friend of mine lives just down the street from a music shop, and he collects thrown out 'non-repairable' items from round the back. He gets some great stuff, he gave me a car full a few years back.

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PIC programmer software, and PIC Tutorials at:
http://www.winpicprog.co.uk

 

Hmm.... I think I'm going to check out the local Circuit City dumpster

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You don't need a quadraphonic Blaupunkt -- you need a curve
ball.

 

Too bad Circuit City went out of business earlier this year.

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Yeah, I meant Best Buy, of course

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You don't need a quadraphonic Blaupunkt -- you need a curve
ball.

 

Nahh, that's retail, everything defective gets shipped back to the maker, aside from some small stuff I doubt you're going to find much there.

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Depends on the item and manufaturer. Somethings are tossed and written off. Besides, I"m interested on cool technology, which often comes in small packages.

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You don't need a quadraphonic Blaupunkt -- you need a curve
ball.

 

I'm thinking its cheaper to make a lot of stuff these days, than to try and troubleshoot and repair. I've never tried surface-mount components, but looks like a total pain in the ass. You would have to be pretty good to remove a chip, solder in a new one, and not mess up parts near by. That kind of skill couldn't be cheap. Not to mention shipping the unit to China...

 

My wife worked at circuit city until about a year before they closed, almost all of their returns when back to the maker. You can go to sites like newegg and find a large selection of refurbished units, which are just parts that were returned under warranty and fixed, they resell them to recoupe their loss a pinch because it's cheaper than recylcing it, most of that stuff can't technically be thrown away anways.

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I go down to a computer repair shop and they give me plenty computer power supplies, I once came back with 11. They are perfect for capacitors and toroids for transformers, they also have some useful copper wire and heatsinks, don't trust the transistors though.