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  1. #1
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    Default Salvaging Useful Parts from Printers

    There's a lot of handy things to salvage from inside the common printer.


    Cheers Jim
    My Youtube Channel -
    Blue Heeler's Model & Toy Steam Engine Room

  2. #2
    BobL is online now Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    The other day I pulled apart a 3 year old electrical heater that my son was chucking out and I was surprised how much good stuff there was in there.

    The heater element was burnt out but there was still
    3 mains rocker switches
    Themostat,
    Thermal cut out fuse
    Small fan,
    Fan speed controller
    Several meters of Silicone covered wire (I use these on motors mods)
    Two tempered glass plates - one from the outside and another metallicised reflector type on the inside
    A sort of mirror ball effect defector thing - might be fun to set up for the Grandies?
    Two small screw type lamp fittings
    A couple of nice flat pieces of sheet metal
    A nice thin flat sheet of mirror polished Stainless steel
    HD 3 pin plug and cable.

    The other useful thing to pull apart are old large photocopiers.
    The rollers are especially useful around a shed.
    Even more interesting are old X-ray machines as they typically contain HD electrics.electronics.


  3. #3
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    Default

    They must be big printer's. The last 3 I did not much at all in them these were basic basic home type.

    Office copiers have far more

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by BobL View Post
    The other day I pulled apart a 3 year old electrical heater that my son was chucking out and I was surprised how much good stuff there was in there.

    The heater element was burnt out but there was still
    3 mains rocker switches
    Themostat,
    Thermal cut out fuse
    Small fan,
    Fan speed controller
    Several meters of Silicone covered wire (I use these on motors mods)
    Two tempered glass plates - one from the outside and another metallicised reflector type on the inside
    A sort of mirror ball effect defector thing - might be fun to set up for the Grandies?
    Two small screw type lamp fittings
    A couple of nice flat pieces of sheet metal
    A nice thin flat sheet of mirror polished Stainless steel

    Yhe other useful thing to pull apart are old large photocopiers.
    The rollers are especially useful around a shed.
    Even more interesting are old X-ray machines as they typically contain HD electrics.electronics.

    Bob its amazing what you can salvage.

    Just think how much a 3 pin plug and 1.8m of cable costs at Bunnings!
    Cheers Jim
    My Youtube Channel -
    Blue Heeler's Model & Toy Steam Engine Room

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by wheelinround View Post
    They must be big printer's. The last 3 I did not much at all in them these were basic basic home type.

    Office copiers have far more
    Yep I always try and go for the older ones.

    Each new generation of printer has less and less inside of them.
    Cheers Jim
    My Youtube Channel -
    Blue Heeler's Model & Toy Steam Engine Room

  6. #6
    BobL is online now Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Ferrous View Post
    Bob its amazing what you can salvage.
    Just think how much a 3 pin plug and 1.8m of cable costs at Bunnings!
    Yeah didn't even list the cord and plug which are a nice HD one.
    I often find its its cheaper to buy an extension cord and cut the female end of.

    About 5 years ago when my son was working as a server admin at a uni he stumbled across a cupboard full of kettle cords formerly used to power PCs. It turns out that instead of testing and tagging all the gear in their department every year it was cheaper to buy new cords and the old ones were chucked into this cupboard. Anyway he asked me if I wanted some and of course I said yes and a few days later he delivered a full green garbage bag of various cords. Since then I have used around 3/4 of them. Unfortunately he doesn't work there any more.

    I do selectively pick up stuff from kerbside rubbish collection and take them apart for bits and pieces. As usual the problem is where to put it all. The space underneath my house is almost choke.

  7. #7
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    Default

    I get on really friendly with my long time dentist.

    He keeps all the dental burrs etc that are too blunt for him to use but are still sharp enough for my Dremel.
    Cheers Jim
    My Youtube Channel -
    Blue Heeler's Model & Toy Steam Engine Room

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Ferrous View Post
    Bob its amazing what you can salvage.

    Just think how much a 3 pin plug and 1.8m of cable costs at Bunnings!
    I'm thinking $28.30

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Ferrous View Post
    Yep I always try and go for the older ones.

    Each new generation of printer has less and less inside of them.
    Just think in the years to come we may just have to think print and it's done, or hope that printer generation is illuminated.

  10. #10
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    Townsville, Tropical Nth Qld.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Ferrous View Post
    Yep I always try and go for the older ones.

    Each new generation of printer has less and less inside of them.
    They were dumping a huge, really old printer at work, it was in storage, came off the Ark. Every one thought I was stupid as we needed the forklift to put it on my truck. Well after finally stripping it down I had heaps of metal gears, lots of Gilmer drive cogs and belts and heaps of metal rollers and shafts. One bit of warning with using old gear, all the rollers and shafts are induction hardened so quite hard to machine. Good value to repurpose it all.
    Rgds,
    Crocy.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Old Croc View Post
    They were dumping a huge, really old printer at work, it was in storage, came off the Ark. Every one thought I was stupid as we needed the forklift to put it on my truck. Well after finally stripping it down I had heaps of metal gears, lots of Gilmer drive cogs and belts and heaps of metal rollers and shafts. One bit of warning with using old gear, all the rollers and shafts are induction hardened so quite hard to machine. Good value to repurpose it all.
    Rgds,
    Crocy.
    Yep, the more vintage the printer the better the salvage. The newer generation ones have less and less inside them.

    The DC motors hooked up to a model steam engine will run a lot of LED bulbs, the stepper motors take a bit more to get going. I have a mate that does the small bit
    of electronics work for me that's needed to get them to work.
    Cheers Jim
    My Youtube Channel -
    Blue Heeler's Model & Toy Steam Engine Room

  12. #12
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    Hi Jim, next time you're speaking to your mate, could you find out what he does to the stepper motors please? I have quite a few that came out of printers and other stuff.
    Kryn
    To grow old is mandatory, growing up is optional.

  13. #13
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    Hi KB

    My mate and his wife are on long service leave in the US and UK for the next 3-4 months.


    This is like what I end up with using a stepper motor, volt meter and light post.













    Compared this, just a hobby generator







    And here are some photos of what my mate adds to the four (4) wires that comes out of
    the stepper motors. I hope the photos are of some help.




















    Cheers Jim
    My Youtube Channel -
    Blue Heeler's Model & Toy Steam Engine Room

  14. #14
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    Thumbs up Motor Generator.

    Hi Guys,

    A motor generator is a simple straight forward circuit. Almost any motor can be used ! An exception would be what is called a brushless or BLDC motor which often has electronic circuitry inside to drive it.

    Motor generator.png

    The circuit is simple. Basically the motor winding is connected to a rectifier to change the AC output into DC, then smoothed by a capacitor and then fed to the circuit that you want to power. You can use a voltage regulator as done in the previous post to prevent excessively high voltages being fed to your circuit. The smoothing capacitor can be almost any 20 or 30 volt electrolytic capacitor that you can also salvage from the circuit board of the printer. Just make sure to connect it the right way round. Positive to positive output from the rectifier.

    A stepper motor may have two or more windings and some have center tapped ones. These can be wired in various ways to give higher voltages or more current.
    Best Regards:
    Baron J.

  15. #15
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    Default

    Thank you very much Baron.
    Cheers Jim
    My Youtube Channel -
    Blue Heeler's Model & Toy Steam Engine Room

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