[[Re: workshops] The Sanford & Son story]

[M.Ruberto]

another great resource is the guy who comes to your place of work to repair
the copy machine. be friendly to the fellow and he'll tell where to find large
copiers being trashed. one of those large units can provide a years worth of
parts alone. great mechanicals too. this one copier i was "referred" to was
this huge Savin, took me a whole week to strip. what great stuff. it had a 15
amp isolation transformer which now powers my entire studio now. like all
other things i dismantle i took that machine apart so that the wiring
harnesses were intact, and when i finished stripping it i reconnected all the
electronic stuff to see what working subsystems i could use as they were and
to take readings of what boards ran from what voltages. this method allows me
to take entire sub systems and put them to use doing other things if i choose.
it's great when you need a servo motor and you already have one with a custom
driver board designed specifically for it. also check out "backwoods" flee
markets, a virtual goldmine. by the way i had a few similar burning
experiences as a kid! ;-) Mike. 

Quinton Fulsom <qfulsom at usa.net> wrote:
> Oh this is a topic I cant ignore!  Since I was about 5 I was tearing apart
> stuff, going to a "dump" outside our neighborhood in the country and tearing
> apart stuff and getting parts.  This was when I also had my 1st experiment
by
> plugging it into the wall socket and catching my room on fire!  In fact I
also
> have thought it should be mapped where all the garbage sites are & studied
it
> when I was a teen.  My father was a big wig heading the greenham-common
> missile project in England and if you remember the 80's I was pretty
terrified
> (still am) of the consequences of a nuclear war.  Anyway, understanding that
> if it were to occur and what kind of goodies people threw out I know this to
> be the only source for electronics at some point no matter how old they are
> that wouldn't have suffered from the blasts effect of dis-orbiting
electrons.
> 
> Military sites are great and auction off the greatest stuff by the pallets
for
> just dollars.  Lots of old transistors & pots.  I also like to go by thrift
> shops & in fact there is one hear that resells only electronic items mostly
> computers.  Lots of goodies there.  One thing I learnt when I was working
for
> AMP is that when electronics boards are manufactured, since all of them now
on
> reels, there is a certain percentage of parts that are never implanted, I
> would guess about 5 percent.  These parts they carry off into a huge barrell
> to recycle as they call it.  This is an unbelievable source for transistors,
> resistors, caps, ic's etc.  I've yet to be in a city that didn't have a
> recycling station that gathered this stuff up and usually if you go talk to
> someone there they will let you go on a free for all (if you dont get too
> embarrassed!).  Another good thing about this is because of the bulk
involved
> in their purchases, electrolytics are generally freshly manufactured within
> that year.
> 
> Another great source for old parts you cant find anymore is any computer or
> tv/radio repair.  Almost all of the japanese transistors can be found in
them,
> especially old computer monitors.
> 
> These days I don't really have the time to go around doing this stuff or
have
> the need but my point is that some people can and do have to and I really
> think it is a good idea to discuss it in case the worst of circumstances
arise
> and any of us may find ourselves in a similar situation.
> Quint
> 
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