Favourite source to salvage parts?

[tommycataus]

I just gave up my Saturday to help a friend move house and it went well. In amidst the crunk floating around was a PSU for his PC that stopped working about a month or two ago, which he let me have for my trouble.

I got a bunch of stuff out of it including a transformer, a few transistors, some capacitors and some heat sink screws (the latter I was most pleased with). There was also a bunch of 18AWG wire which is slightly too wide for vero but might do for an etched PCB and other projects.

Where have you salvaged parts from before, and from what sort of devices do you recommend finding stuff suitable for stompbox building? Also, where have you found such items?

Everyone loves a freebee!

DISCLAIMER: For those new to electronics, I don't encourage poking around idly in old electronic items such as power supplies or televisions unless you know what you are doing, or if you fancy getting a shock that will at best be very painful, and at worst could be fatal.

[duck_arse]

yer psu shoulda turned up a fan, IEC mains socket, some fast diodes, at least one 3 term regulator, maybe an lm723 or lm234, a chunk of ferrite shaped like a transformer, and if it was old enough, a mains rated push-push quick-connect chassis-mount switch.

and a crappy tin box w/ lotsa holes in wrong places that will slice your fingers sooner than look at you. and screws! old hard-drives are a great place to find small sets of short screws, usually M3, all odd heads, and magnets, odd lumps of cast Al. the motherboard was standing on plastic or brass spacers, too.

old boom-boxes, cassette decks, cd players, fm tuners(!) will have good volts transformers, heatsinks, integrated power-amp chips and odd knobs and switches, if you can pull them out. printer cables for fine hookup wire, video monitor cables for slippy, thicker h/up and 3 colours of shielded.

after a while, you get known as the person interested in, and things come your way for first refusal. mostly, I find stuff left on the footpath, then later find the same stuff in our garage. youse gots to gets the stuff you might, one day have a use for now, so it's there when you do need it.

[J0K3RX]

CFL lamps
http://www.pavouk.org/hw/lamp/en_index.html

[Seljer]

I've got a box full of unsolderable aluminum wire out of those PC power supplys  


I've also just recently discovered that just blasting the entire PCB with the heat gun and then just whacking it on the table is a great way to get a lot of parts off very quickly 
I found some semi useful components on old PCI and ISA (!) sound cards and modems. Some low watter audio power amp chips even!

[J0K3RX]

I've also just recently discovered that just blasting the entire PCB with the heat gun and then just whacking it on the table is a great way to get a lot of parts off very quickly 

That's a good technique... I have done that myself quite a few times.

[disabled_shredder]

I hit up the oldest stereo repair shop in town and got 3-4 car loads of old tape decks tube amps for turn tables all kinds of stuff that had been in his shop for 30yrs he smiled and was happy to have me take it off his hands also tv repair shops are great you can always find boards they didn't want to fix laying in a pile so you don't have to take a million whole tvs home and carry them to the dump later! Small radio stations that have been around for a while are also great! I contacted the owner of a radio station that had been closed since the late 70s and ended up with a box of nos tubes a few boxes of caps and pots and 7 reel to reel recorders.! That was my luckiest find. Also if there are any guitar stores that do repairs or any techs that do full time repairs they always have amps and such lying around that they will gladly give to your or for a few bills. Great place to get transformers and cabs and such also chassis!

[tommycataus]

This is gold! Great information. And who knew that energy saving lightbulb have through hole components and a transformer? Evidently not me.

Duck I did get the fan and most of the components you listed, but I found the ICs hard to get off and also broke the other transformer trying to salvage it. The heat gun will be added to the shopping list.

[petemoore]

 A couple tube amps on the curb...hope to find a couple more.
Stuff with brass shaft pots or any pots, switches and...22 ga. tinned wire is rare but found from time to time.
I plan to try for a 50'' projection TV, we've got one, it's dull to look at but sounds great.
With a bit of "re-assembly"
If the clear type of freznell lens = super solar cooker [2000 degrees]
The speakers and maybe the baffle boards they're in...obvious there has to be an amp...questionable about whether it's worth rehousing it.
Other lenses [magnifying glass?].
Various other sundries and screws.
Old hospital computer monitor boards, old stereo...lots of film caps to be had and other.
Sometimes it takes years to figure out exactly why it was a good thing to save that, other times...not so much.