IS old electronic hardware poison?

[onetwothree4]

Now i have been hearing some people tell me that i should not open old or broken electronics stuff ,because there is poison stuff inside.

Now anybody know anything about this? because i bee doing this carefree opening old stuff

 

[ronsimpson]

Sounds like my mother said that.

The old solder has lead. Don't put it in your mouth. Look at the old farts on the forum. After 40 years of breathing solder iron smoke, some of us are not insane. Old solder probably has a layer of oxide on the outside. You will have to work at it to get any in you system.

Don't break old CRTs and inhale the fumes. Done that many times and after 40 years I have noticed I am a little older.

The dust in old electronics causes trouble. My eyes water and my nose runs.

The people that made the electronics, 40 hours a week survived.

Use your head. Don't eat it, don't breathe it, don't rub it all over your body.

 

[kubeek]

Dont break and / or grind weird ceamic packages, might be beryllium oxide which is very nasty when inhaled. It is used mainly in RF stuff and microwave ovens. Usually there are warning stickers all over the place, but there could be some really old stuf from the 50s or 60s without any.

 

[Flyback]

see the ROHS regulations on google, you will see all the baddies that are inside pre-ROHS electronics components, but ROHS is concerned about these going into land fill and seeping into our water......the mercury inside mercury arc tubes wont do you any good..nor the mercury inside CFLs.

 

[Overclocked]

Is there more mercury in fish than a CFL bulb?

 

[Flyback]

yes but that's why pregnant women are told to avoid sardines

 

[MrAl]

Hi,

I was going to mention the microwave oven problem with the beryllium, but that's been mentioned by kubeck.

I have an even stranger story to report about old electronics, especially those which have been sitting outside for a while.
We used to go 'old stuff hunting' long ago when people would through out their old TV sets and stuff like that, putting them on the side of the road for the town pick up. I got lots of stuff that way but there could be a problem.
One time someone gave me an old amplifier or radio, and it looked fine, but it was infested with some kind of insects which came out later in the basement. What a job that was trying to kill all them buggers.
So i suggest if you pick up something that was outside that you examine it carefully BEFORE bringing it into the house or basement, or even garage. If you see anything move inside, it's probably not an automatic gain control
A little spray of some kind sprayed inside might reveal anything living inside as it will probably try to bug out of the case when it feels the spray. Be prepared for an army of critters although there could be only one or two at the time. There could also be eggs ready to hatch.

 

[gary350]

40 years ago, how we get rid of fluorescent light bulbs. Tape a D size Estes model rocket engine to the top end of the light bulb. Fire off the rocket engine and the light bulb leaves like a large white bottle rocket. LOL.

About 1995 industry was told to dispose of fluorescent light bulbs a certain way. We had 100s of fluorescent lights in the building it costs $1 per bulb for a disposal company to take the light bulbs away. It cost the company nothing to keep the old light bulbs in the warehouse so that is where they went.

15 years later the State offered to take everyones light bulbs away FREE. Millions of light bulbs were loaded into big trucks and taken to the land fill where they drove over them with bull dozers to smash them flat then covered up with dirt.

Very often these scares are fake, dreamed up by some get rich quick skeem to dispose of old light bulbs that contain micro small amounts of less mercury than are found in the fish we eat.

For the past 15 years people have been getting rich from the FAKE global warming scare. Before that it was the fake, el Nino Scare. Before that is was lead paint scare and the asbestos scare.

The real problem is, no one can be trusted. People will lie to make $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

 

[crutschow]

...............................................
For the past 15 years people have been getting rich from the FAKE global warming scare. Before that it was the fake, el Nino Scare. Before that is was lead paint scare and the asbestos scare.
................................

So after the significant rise in global temperatures over the past century and the known dangers of asbestos causing cancer, you think it's all FAKE?
Well, I guess it takes all kinds.

 

[atferrari]

People will lie to make $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

Also people will make $$ (as many as above) from real fears.

 

[shortbus=]

Is there more mercury in fish than a CFL bulb?

But you get more light out of a CFL bulb than a fish.

 

[ronsimpson]

For the past 15 years people have been getting rich from the FAKE global warming scare. Before that it was the fake, el Nino Scare. Before that is was lead paint scare and the asbestos scare.

Lead production started 3000 years ago. The Romans used it in plumbing (plumbum, Latin) also as a additive to wine. It did not help the Romans think clearly.
After 1976, with lead banned in US gas, the lead level in blood dropped 80%, children's IQ went up 6 points and violent actions decreased.
The removal of lead in gas came in 4 stages across the world. Each area produced a similar graph where the violent crimes increased/decreased as lead was added/removed to gas.

Or it is all an evil plot to confuse the masses.

 

[onetwothree4]

Al right seems like most stuff is safe , just have to keep away from tvs(was told about CRT implosion), messing with ceramic stuff, bugs,mercury and lead
(But can't you play with the mercury[extract it]? i want to play with mercury)
And washing hand properly before putting them in my mouth

 

[gary350]

Like I said already, if you eat lead or breath lead you get poisoned. Lead is safe as long as you dont eat it or breath it.

I would not play with mercury. I have several jars of mercury that I need to sell. A quart mason jar of that stuff weighs 27 lbs.

2 years ago my 24 year old son asked, why do gas station pumps say, Lead Free Gas? That is a very good question? Why do gas pumps STILL say, Lead Free Gas, no one borned in the past 25 years knows what that means.

There is no such thing as global warming, there never was. Scientist have known for 70 years the weather on earth is directly related to the weather on the sun. The sun has been having solar storms for many years. It is also a fact that when water turns to ice it expands by 10%, ice floats with 90% of the ice under water. If a glass of ice melts the water level drops 10%. If all the ice in the ocean melts water levels will go DOWN not UP. You can not change the laws of physics.

In 1977 scientist reported a new discovery, there is only 1 Star in the northern sky. LOL. What a lame discovery. If you read the Bible it says, the North Star is the only star in the northern sky.

 

[Scotophor]

There are many additional harmful substances found in old electronic gear not yet mentioned. Selenium rectifiers can still be found in a significant amount of equipment. Many metal parts are cadmium-plated (cadmium-plated metal usually has a distinctive greenish-gold tint). Phosphor powders found in fluorescent lamps and CRTs are potentially far more harmful from being inhaled than the mercury vapor of which people are so afraid.

Moving off-topic now...

There is no such thing as global warming, there never was.

What rock do you live under? Earth has undergone many cycles of warming and cooling in its history. This is clearly evident from many different sources (ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica, the fossil record, analysis of earth surface strata, etc.) The issue being denied now (mostly by the rich and powerful, and the others who have something to gain by doing so) is not whether Earth is warming, but why, and whether we can or should do anything about it. Since it's warming to a greater degree and faster than ever before, and this recent (geologically speaking) rapid warming precisely coincides with the advent of human industrialization and population explosion, and for several other reasons, it is quite clear to me and over 90% of the world's scientists that we humans are at least the primary cause, possibly the only cause.

It is also a fact that when water turns to ice it expands by 10%, ice floats with 90% of the ice under water. If a glass of ice melts the water level drops 10%. If all the ice in the ocean melts water levels will go DOWN not UP. You can not change the laws of physics.

You clearly don't understand even rudimentary classical physics. If a glass of water at 0 °C contains floating ice, and the ice melts (and there's no significant evaporation, condensation, or warming of the water) the water level remains the same. This is because of buoyancy and displacement. A floating body only displaces a volume of water equal in mass to its own mass. The mass of the ice doesn't change when it melts to water, so its displacement doesn't change either.

Ignoring for the moment the minor complication of salt water in the oceans vs. fresh water from melting ice, and the far more significant issue of warming of the oceans, the main reason that melting glaciers and ice sheets will cause sea level rise is... (wait for it...) most of Earth's ice is NOT currently floating in/on the oceans! But if all that ice melts, the water all goes into the oceans almost immediately.

 

[MrAl]

There is no such thing as global warming, there never was. Scientist have known for 70 years the weather on earth is directly related to the weather on the sun. The sun has been having solar storms for many years. It is also a fact that when water turns to ice it expands by 10%, ice floats with 90% of the ice under water. If a glass of ice melts the water level drops 10%. If all the ice in the ocean melts water levels will go DOWN not UP. You can not change the laws of physics.

In 1977 scientist reported a new discovery, there is only 1 Star in the northern sky. LOL. What a lame discovery. If you read the Bible it says, the North Star is the only star in the northern sky.

Hi,

Sorry but i just had to comment on your notion of the effects of ice in water when it melts.
When the water freezes, the volume of that water expands by about 9 percent. When it melts, it contracts by the same amount.

So lets say we have a 1 cubic meter container in the shape of a cube with perfectly rigid sides and open top and it is filled exactly to the top with water. When it freezes, in theory the top will rise by 9 percent if we dont loose any water as it freezes. Thus, when it is frozen we have a block of ice 1 meter by 1 meter by 1.09 meters in height. The density has gone down as the volume went up because of the arrangement of molecules. The density goes down by 9 percent.

Now we take that block of ice and place it into a built in swimming pool with sides 3 meters high and length and width 3 meters, and lets say that the water is 1 meter from the top of the pool sides (ground level) before we put the ice in. The total volume of water before we put the ice in is 3*3*3=27 cubic meters, and the surface level of the water is 1 meter down from ground level.
Now we drop the block of ice in gently. The water rises by 1/9 of a meter because the part of the ice under water is 1 cubic meter and the top 9 percent of the block stays above water. That's because the weight of the water displaces the same amount of water that 1 cubic meter of water would have, if the water was in a container that had super thin walls with no weight themselves.
Ok, so the water rises by 1/9 meter (the total height of the water in the pool is now 3.111111 meters where before it was 3.000000 meters).
Now the ice melts. As the ice melts it puts all the volume back into the water itself, but the volume decreases over time as the ice melts, so when the ice has melted the total increase in volume of the water is again 1 cubic meter, so the water says at a depth of 3.111111 meters and does not increase.

But there is a problem here because we assumed something that may not occur in nature. That is, we assumed that the ice is all floating. If we have any ice that is supported by land, when it melts it does add to the volume of water so the water level would rise. This would be like having a block of ice next to the pool but not in the water, and when it melts it puts 1 cubic meter of extra water into the pool that it did not have before so the water level rises by 1/9 meter.
Since ocean water levels have risen over the years, i would think this is partly the reason.

We should probably also look into water that contains about 3.5 percent of dissolved salt.

 

[Overclocked]

Im surprised no ones mentioned Cadmium. PCB's (used in the 60s) are hazardous, but should be mostly gone.

For the past 15 years people have been getting rich from the FAKE global warming scare. Before that it was the fake, el Nino Scare. Before that is was lead paint scare and the asbestos scare.

Even if it was fake, Isnt it time we got rid of fossil fuels and used something more plentiful? We wont ever reach the outer planets on Fossil Fuels alone.

 

[ronsimpson]

IS old electronic hardware poison?

H2O is harmful when taken in large amounts. Some one drowns every two minutes.

You will really have to work at it to get hurt by consumer electronic! Maybe if a pile of old computers fell over on you.
It is dangerous to walk. Old people fall and hurt them selves.
The most common place to have a heart attack is sitting on the pot. so don't sit on the pot.

 

[gary350]

[QUOTE="
Earth has undergone many cycles of warming and cooling in its history. This is clearly evident from many different sources (ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica, the fossil record, analysis of earth surface strata, etc.) The issue being denied now (mostly by the rich and powerful, and the others who have something to gain by doing so) is not whether Earth is warming, but why, and whether we can or should do anything about it. Since it's warming to a greater degree and faster than ever before, and this recent (geologically speaking) rapid warming precisely coincides with the advent of human industrialization and population explosion, and for several other reasons, it is quite clear to me and over 90% of the world's scientists that we are the cause.
.[/QUOTE]

YES, YES, YES, that is correct. The earth goes through natural cycles like you said. Natural cycles does not make global warming a man made problem like people claim. Al Gore was on TV a few weeks ago, he admitted there is no Global Warming problem. There was a 1 hour special on TV scientist have been keeping quiet about global warming to keep their job it puts $$$ in their pocket.

Ice expands about 9% when water freezes that is why water pipes break in the winter, that is why a glass bottle will bust if you put it in the freezer. I make good money removing dents from peoples motor cycle gas tank, all I do is fill it with water then put it in the freezer. After refreezing it 2 or 3 times dent is completely gone.

**broken link removed**

http://dailycaller.com/2014/02/25/g...ientific-evidence-of-man-made-global-warming/

http://ossfoundation.us/projects/en...s/31000-scientists-say-no-convincing-evidence

People will believe what they want to believe because they don't want to be confuses with facts their mind is already made up!.

 

[schmitt trigger]

The liquid electrolyte of older caps was poisonous.
Other than the precautions other members have mentioned, it is good hygiene to wash the hands after handling any old equipment.