A small gold mine in the trash!

[HiTech]

Was travelling home last night and happened to notice what looked to be an old tv channel decoder box tossed onto a pile of garbage at the curb. I stopped, thinking I could scavenge it for the parts only to discover a nearby box full of brand new electronic components. There were several new Potter Brumfield power relays (20a contacts!!) in their package, dozens of new LEDs, 1 amp rectifiers, 80 amp and 300 amp stud-mount diodes, 15w power resistors, some mylar caps, digital voice recording IC chip, large selenium rectifiers, 9v power supply, and some regulator ICs. I was like a kid in a candy store ... woohoo!

 

[Dr.EM]

That is truly bizarre, and lucky for you. I mean, sometimes people throw out old equiptment not knowing it is now a "modern antique" and quite valuable, but the parts you mention are so specific. Someone has obviously taken the time to order them and I find it incredibly unusual they were thrown out in new condition like this. Have fun with them anyway.

Just a thought, they may not be ROHS compliant, and the person who had them needed to manufacture with only compliant materials and so (needlessly) threw them out.

 

[HiTech]

I guess peeps can come across things in any number of ways. For all I know the homeowner could have had a son that dabbled in electronics and obtained the parts legally or illegally... who knows? He could have worked for a manufacturer that needed to toss out those parts for x number of reasons so he took them home instead, only to eventually find their way to the curb then to my waiting arms! Once I scarfed a Rickenbacher guitar amp, and a few small pieces of Swarovski crystal from a trash pile. I asked the old woman in the home for her permission to take the tiems... which she then said, "help yourself, the stuff belonged to my son who I kicked out of the house because of his drug problem. I want none of his stuff in my home."
Tough mom eh?

I'm going to use those high amperage diodes to convert my AC welder to DC. I have a think heatsink that will get mounted near the internal fan. DC welding is superior to AC welding.... that is until I can muster up some $$$ for a good MIG unit!

 

[stevez]

The trash collectors in my town do not seem to care what I leave for them at the curb, within reason. That can include plenty of circuit boards and electronic components. A friend in a neighboring town learned that he must pay for special disposal for similar items. He simply asked his friends in other towns to take a few items for disposal and problem solved, for the moment.

For this reason, and to avoid too much clutter, I avoid collecting too much stuff. Very soon, in my town anyway, it will be tough to get rid of circuit boards and components. Thankfully the stuff I bring in is more current and takes up much less space.

 

[moody07747]

great find!!!

trash guys down here are strict, they wont take electronics most of the time ...that goes to the recycling center along with allot of other items.....

i try to get down there for parts but they don't let you take anything out of the bins as they get payed by weight...

 

[RODALCO]

Good find there and lucky dip with all those parts.
Could have been from someone who passed away and the family didn't know what to do with all the bits while cleaning the place up who knows.

The trash sometimes has valuable items in it. I hoard a lot myself and quite often working VCR's have been dumped, complete with remote by people who have now 160 GB hard drives or whatever.
Older type copiers are also very good for parts too. Lots of good quality bearings, motors, chaindrives, gearwheels and powerfull transformers.

These are also good for parts, circlips, odd size screws and washers, steppermotors, tacho's etc.
I strip what I need of them and put the carcas back out on the road within 24 hours.

I do admit that I have probably too much junk in my workshops at home.

 

[Blasty]

Hello, new member here.

Sometimes the electronics gods smile upon us!

About a year ago, the community college here gave me several large boxes of stuff that was donated but they were going to throw out. There was easily a couple hundred pounds of it. It was mostly circuit boards with through-hole components (including loads of socketed logic ICs), which I am just now beginning to salvage parts from.

A couple other boxes from the lot were like you describe, HiTech. Stud mount diodes, massive cables, ceramic capacitors, big resistors, TO-220 heatsinks, 3-phase rectifiers, a couple power supplies, and more molex headers and various connectors than anyone wants to think about. There were also some miniscule phototransistors that mount through a single hole, connected by separate top and bottom pads. Useless but neat items included a 60-Amp, 700-Volt fuse!

After being interested in electronics since I was a little kid, I'm just now getting serious about it. It's nice to have all these components to experiment with.

 

[adaminc]

I remember hearing about people scavenging for highend but broken audio/video and comm equipment to strip out actual gold plated parts, i'm assuming it would take tons of crap to get any useful amount of gold, anyone else heard of this, or know someone who does it?

 

[Someone Electro]

I seen them do it from computer parts in africa.the gold plated pins on CPUs and stuff like that.I think they disolve the gold somehow.

 

[HiTech]

Many years back I was laid off from a job and worked part-time for a wholesaler travelling to military bases to pick up purchased lots of surplus electronic equipment he obtained. He'd buy it by the pound and have me test things and categorize them. The unrepairable items got stripped for the gold and I was amazed how fast it added up. He also let me sift through each pallet full for test equipment that I would like for myself. Some of that equip. is still performing faithfully for me to this day!

As for trash scavenging or dumpster diving goes, curiosity got the better part of me last night, being a rainy evening, so I decided to head out for a road trip to a section of town that was trash night. I managed to find the following:

a box of several "wall warts" (various voltage outputs)
Samsung 26" stereo tv (seems to work fine)
vcr deck w/ built-in 5" color monitor (works perfect!)
digital answering machine (good for the recording chip itself!)
Zenith vhs vcr (in very clean condition, appears to work)
12" B&W tv (use for parts only)
exercise bike w/ digital timer/pulse monitor (I removed just the electronic unit itself & left the bike!)
Panasonic portable multiband radio (70's era and darn heavy too! works fine)
magnet mount, center-loaded mobile CB antenna
RCA vhs stereo vcr (has faulty SMPS as is typical of many Thompson Consumer vcrs- easy fix tho)

I prolly could have searched further but I ran low on fuel, was getting late, so I headed home. With all that booty sitting in my garage right now, I feel like 5 kids in a candy store with $50 to spend!!

 

[Dean Huster]

Blasty, before you commit to harvesting all the ICs from those boards, consider one of my more recent, yet late-in-life discoveries. An old mini-computer board that may be covered with 50 ICs is a lot of work to harvest, especially if the board is multilayer (usually is) with a ground plane sandwiched in the middle (also normal). I have several large boxes of such things and I realized that it was smarter to NOT harvest the components at that point. Rather, get out a permanent marker and number each board in sequence. Then inventory each IC by type number and quantity and record this information on a sheet of notebook paper, one sheet per board number. Better yet, enter this information in to your computer's WP or spreadsheet for easier sorting and finding. Store the boards in boxes (mark the outside with the board numbers) and then only when you need a particular IC, THEN grab the board and just pull that one IC.

You won't have wasted all that time harvesting a pile of chips you may never or only infrequently use. Those 50 chips per board probably won't store in that much more space than harvesting and putting into other storage systems. You can store the boxes in out-of-the-way places rather than using up precious shop space. You won't need to sort all the harvested parts. There's probably less ESD worries leaving the chips on the boards rather than having them loose.

Dean

 

[mramos1]

HiTech.. Sure you are not shopping in the local BestBuy or Circuit City dumpster. That is a heck of a find both times.

My kids hate it, but if I drive along and see anything with a small gas engine, I have to get it and try to fix it. hehehe.. Think they are embarassed. But if I had the HiTech find, man...

Being the local IT/Electronics guy, I have people give me broken items all the time. So I do OK there. But never found parts still in the package..

 

[stevez]

One alternative for some people in need of electronics supplies is to watch out for amateur radio events called "hamfests" and the popular flea markets that are a part of most of those events. Quite often someone will be there to help recover what value they can from a deceased friends collection or they'll be getting out of that hobby for a while. In the US it seems that less people do homebrewing - which means that the people who have the stuff are often looking for people willing to take their "gold". At one hamfest I purchased a handful of parts - and the seller asked if I actually used the stuff. Explained that I use some - and use the rest to trade for things I need. They filled my car with all sorts of parts - resistors (reels) and capacitors, transformers, etc. I tossed half the stuff when I got home - traded most of what was left and still have a pile of good stuff.

Now, with all this in mind comes my caution to others - think carefully as you elect to use some of this stuff. You don't know if it works or not and may eventually discover why it was tossed out in the first place. That doesn't mean don't use it. What it does mean is test it if you can and use it where it's condition will be easy to verify. That means don't put hours into building a fairly complex circuit with parts of dubious condition. The opportunities for error alone are significant - add a handfull of parts that don't work or are way out of spec and you may never finish. If you are skilled enough to sort thru that's great. The folks who are just learning might be the most cautious.

 

[HiTech]

I've attended many a hamfest and like to rummage through those neglected boxes often under the front of the tables that folks seem to overlook. Some nice parts boards and broken equip. than can be repaired with some effort and determination. I usually take a a back pack with me!

As for dumpster diving at Best Buy, hmmm you've given me an idea there! I scoured a large area the other night and I think I just got lucky. Many folks are doing their Spring/Summer house cleaning so I fig that's why I found so much. Last night on the way home from work, I scarfed a PC monitor and a 19" tv. Both chocked full of nice trim pots, hi-watt resistors, chips, mylar caps, etc. I alswya wanted a degaussing coil and the PC monitor has a very nice one in it (double loop) so I'll house it in some PVC and have me a free CRT degausser!

 

[mramos1]

Hope you have a place to store all this stuff. My wife is on me all the time. I have 2 VCRs I have to take apart tonight. I was given 5 21" monitors a month ago, 2 are stored at the neighbors house.

 

[HiTech]

I have a recently built lab in my basement. I finished a small area set aside as a storage room. It has shelves, benches, heat/cooling/dehumidfier and plenty of storage for components as well as whole equipment. I've worked in shops/lab most of my life but never had a nice lab at home. So I buckled down last winter, designed and built one from scratch, including the storage shelves, benches, and cabinets. I have is acoustically insulated to the point that I can hear electron flow inside a transistor!!

 

[Blasty]

Dean, Thanks for the tip!

So far I've just done the quick and easy work and pulled socketed IC's from the boards. I haven't needed any soldered ones yet except for some TO-220 regulators. Eventually I may pull off the IC sockets, as they're all very nice gold plated machine pin types. We have a desoldering pump at work that is great for pulling off parts with many pins.

I've also been cutting off the gold card edges and saving them. a few pounds of these sell pretty well on eBay to people who use them for gold recovery.

 

[dknguyen]

I have is acoustically insulated to the point that I can hear electron flow inside a transistor!!

Doesn't that drive you nuts after a while?

 

[AllVol]

I don't think he heard you.

 

[Someone Electro]

I do the oposite then soundprofing it.I put in a radio so there is no silence.I dont like being in total silence for extended periods.