HEY DONT THROW AWAY THOSE BROKEN PC's PSU TOO!

[m-theory]

I may be the oddball here, but with all due respect, how can this possibly be worth the effort?  In a best case scenario, it would probably take a good solid hour to completely desolder everything from that PSU board.  Then, probably another 30-60 minutes to clean them up, sort them, and make them useable.  So, you're looking at roughly 2 hours, which I would say would be a minimum, to gather up a handful of useable parts that would likely cost you no more than $5.00 total.  That means you've just "earned" a whopping $2.50/hour for your efforts. 

I don't mean to be negative about this, but this makes about as much sense to me as wasting 30-45 minutes building my own 9v battery connectors, when I can buy them for .50. 

[humptydumpty]

Because these are parts you already have.
No reason NOT to use them?

[edvard]

Not to mention the savings on your conscience when you realize you've "done your part" to keep another handful of good, reusable items out of some landfill.
That's what drives me to do it.
Some unstoppable urge from the dark corners of my childhood that makes me want to keep stuff that's "still good for something".
I REALLY have a hard time throwing out something when I know there's still useful goodies inside.

[earthtonesaudio]

I may be the oddball here, but with all due respect, how can this possibly be worth the effort?  In a best case scenario, it would probably take a good solid hour to completely desolder everything from that PSU board.  Then, probably another 30-60 minutes to clean them up, sort them, and make them useable.  So, you're looking at roughly 2 hours, which I would say would be a minimum, to gather up a handful of useable parts that would likely cost you no more than $5.00 total.  That means you've just "earned" a whopping $2.50/hour for your efforts. 

I don't mean to be negative about this, but this makes about as much sense to me as wasting 30-45 minutes building my own 9v battery connectors, when I can buy them for .50. 

Think bigger.

Those battery snaps you can buy for $0.50 were made in a factory somewhere, and real non-renewable materials went into the manufacture, transport, bookkeeping, advertising, etc. that transformed them from an idea in someone's head to your mailbox.  A similar amount of materials/energy went into the ones you already have lying around in some less convenient form (i.e. attached to a battery).  And as you've correctly noted, it takes real energy for you to personally extract these parts and put them in a more usable form.  However, by making your own battery snap out of a dead battery you already had, you not only keep those parts out of a landfill somewhere, but you also reduce the demand for one new-manufactured battery snap, and therefore the associated energy/material demands that go along with it.

Evaluating an item based solely on the cost to obtain it fundamentally ignores the entire "life" of that item.  

One more thing... you've recognized an important fact that it is indeed labor-intensive to safely salvage parts from a typical electronic gizmo.  This is a problem for recycling, at least in places like the U.S. because it's largely a profit-driven endeavor.  This makes it very attractive for electronics "recyclers" to discreetly ship millions of tons of junk electronics to the third world where no one is watching, or where no environmental protection laws exist.  Real human beings sit over molten pools of PVC, breathing in dioxins as they wait for the insulation to melt off of the wires.  Real people use the same pots for melting components off of circuit boards that they use for cooking.  And when it rains, the heavy metals and many other toxins are washed away into the same oceans and evaporated into the same air that we all breathe.  

So there is a cost associated with not salvaging what you can.  I don't have that figure in dollars, as it's rather difficult to estimate.

[WhenBoredomPeaks]

I have a pc PSU which was sitting under my bad for more than a year.

I heard somewhere that caps can store so much current that they could kill you.

Can i harm myself while i took apart that PSU?

[bbmonster]

One more thing... you've recognized an important fact that it is indeed labor-intensive to safely salvage parts from a typical electronic gizmo.  This is a problem for recycling, at least in places like the U.S. because it's largely a profit-driven endeavor.  This makes it very attractive for electronics "recyclers" to discreetly ship millions of tons of junk electronics to the third world where no one is watching, or where no environmental protection laws exist.  Real human beings sit over molten pools of PVC, breathing in dioxins as they wait for the insulation to melt off of the wires.  Real people use the same pots for melting components off of circuit boards that they use for cooking.  And when it rains, the heavy metals and many other toxins are washed away into the same oceans and evaporated into the same air that we all breathe.  

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4586903n

Reading your post reminded me of that video.

[Electron Tornado]

I may be the oddball here, but with all due respect, how can this possibly be worth the effort? 

It's worth the effort because those are parts I have on hand, I just have to remove them from their PCBs. I don't spend hours removing parts. Sometimes I decide to remove a bunch of components at a time but usually I just take them as I need them. I have also managed to come with parts that I needed and was able to save the time and $ of ordering them and waiting for them to arrive.

There is a lot to be said for recycling parts. There is also sooo much more mojo than most people realize in building a pedal (or anything) out of spares and salvaged parts. 

[bluesdevil]

There is a lot to be said for recycling parts. There is also sooo much more mojo than most people realize in building a pedal (or anything) out of spares and salvaged parts.  icon_exclaim

Mojo or karma?

[Electron Tornado]

There is a lot to be said for recycling parts. There is also sooo much more mojo than most people realize in building a pedal (or anything) out of spares and salvaged parts.  icon_exclaim

Mojo or karma?

Karmic Mojo            

[SpencerPedals]

I just built the circuit for a Rust Driver using entirely recycled components.  I had no idea Karmic Mojo was involved, but I'm damned excited to get it boxed up and hear it!  I bet it will melt my recording mic from pure sonic pleasure, should I be daring enough to try.   

And yeah we're not doing it for monetary gain; the "dude just throw that out and BUY it because it's cheap" attitude doesn't fit here anywhere.

Also, I don't bother with desoldering braid except for transistors and IC's and big multi-legged stuff.  For caps, just lightly pull one side of the cap with your finger and then touch the iron to the leg of that side, popping that side of the cap out.  Then lightly pull on it and touch the other leg with the iron and it's free.  For resistors I do the same thing only I clip an alligator clip to the leg and tug, since there's nothing to get a grip on.  I'm not sure if that's the norm, but it works well for me. 

[edvard]

There is a lot to be said for recycling parts. There is also sooo much more mojo than most people realize in building a pedal (or anything) out of spares and salvaged parts. 

Exactly.
How many times has it been mentioned that some of the most sought-after vintage pedals were slopped together with whatever parts were cheapest and most available?
How many articles have been written on the differences between the exact same model pedals that had many different parts substitutions for the same reasons?
May one of us go down in history with a Wikipedia article that says "... one of the factors contributing to the mystique about the [your name here] pedals is the fact that most of the parts they used were salvaged from burnt-out PSU's and flourescent-bulb lights. Consequently, trash heaps all across the country have been raided in recent years by diy enthusiasts..."

So there it is... If you're going to recycle for a reason, let that reason be... Mojo.

[Scruffie]

I think I have more parts from salvaging than I do from buying extras to build my stock up and i've only removed stuff from a few boards... good stuff (I normally go for the cheaper capacitors, salvaging got me good ones for those special builds) I don't buy into the tube screamer thing but I have 70s JRC4558 for those that insist on having them even when I tell them otherwise, but hey it's there money.

And I certainly wouldn't have an baggy full of all un leaky vintage Mullards (man just thinking about it makes me smile, putting some 81D's from it in my tone bender tommorow) let alone mustard caps and carbon comps etc if I hadn't salvaged from broken radios destined for anyone elses scrap heap.

Recycling is fun (hey I get some satisfaction from prying those parts from the board, like scratching an good itch & as you say, building a board from salvaged parts is great) good for the enviroment (Gotta do something to make up for all the soldering iron electricity I use) and an good way to save some cash later down the line that I wouldn't want to have to pay for no reason when I could have it for free.

[tempus]

I've used recycled parts for almost everything I've ever built, although I usually need to order stuff too. I'm concerned though that things like electros may be on their last legs, as may be other parts. It's a bitch when you're trying to debug something and you can't find the problem because there's a dead part in there.

Also for you guys talking about scrapping TVs - there are lethal (>10 thousand volts) so make sure you know how to do it safely. Here's a couple articles:

http://www.fixyourowntv.com/safety.php
http://www.bvws.org.uk/405alive/tech/safety.html
http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/captest.htm

[tempus]

Oh I should also recommend, for those who are into stripping old electronics for parts - the garbage. I've picked lots of stuff that yields good working parts - ICs, transformers, tons of wire, you name it. Coolest thing I ever nabbed out of the garbage was a MicroMoog. It needed some work, but I got it up and running.

[Scruffie]

Who throws out a moog, fool, lucky find for you though and nice you got it up and running but garbage raiding isn't really possible here in the U.K... Skip raiding occasionaly though although I dunno why it would have any electronics or effects in it.

As for the TV yeah I knew about the Caps being not so fun but those articles had some interesting other stuff in them, I didn't know that the cathode ray tubes liked to explode... i'l probably leave the set for 6 months anyways.

I don't tend to re use electrolytics admittedly.. unless the thing that failed wasn't too old.

[culturejam]

I like to use the CPU, personally. 

[m-theory]

Because these are parts you already have.
No reason NOT to use them?

Actually, there are a couple of reasons that I can think of.  One is the fact that my time is worth more than a few pennies per hour.  Another is that salvaged parts don't have the lead length to make them universally viable to re-use.  It's also highly possible that many of these components are of less-than-stellar quality to begin with, which only makes it seem less logical to go through the effort to salvage them in the first place.  Finally, I've already got more than enough junk lying around my house, and have no desire to add to that pile with components that I may well never make use of. 

I also am aware of the "bigger picture" of manufacturing, and the argument for recycling in general.  I haven't advocated throwing this stuff into the trash.  I just don't feel it worth my time to mess around with the recycling myself, that's all.  I've got better things to do with my limited avaiable time. 

That said, I don't have anything against anybody else doing this, if they feel that they benefit from it. 

the "dude just throw that out and BUY it because it's cheap" attitude doesn't fit here anywhere.

We could just respectfully agree to disagree. 

In my humble opinion, it's simply not worth my time and effort to painstakingly remove and clean up previously-assembled components from existing, unuseable products on hand.  That's all.  I'm not an earth-hater, a slave-labor proponent, a mojo/karma-killer, or utterly foolish because I have this opinion.  I just happen to hold a different opinion than some, that's all.  This seems like a "big tent" matter, to me. 

[humptydumpty]

so is your time better spent laboring to pay ridiculous prices for some of the components you may find?
sorry if i sound hostile

[petemoore]

I may be the oddball here, but with all due respect, how can this possibly be worth the effort?
 Endless supply...on hand...totally worth it for my terms.
In a best case scenario, it would probably take a good solid hour to completely desolder everything from that PSU board.
 I don't desolder everything, just what I need at the time.
 It is time consuming, but when I think about having to order [and have ordered/waited, recieved the 'can't use this' item]...20 seconds per component is fine.
  Then, probably another 30-60 minutes to clean them up, sort them, and make them useable.
 When you get good at spotting them and desoldering them, they can mostly be 'auto-cleaned', just have to know how to pull 'em, clean-ups and straightening is quick and easy...once you get good at it.
  So, you're looking at roughly 2 hours, which I would say would be a minimum, to gather up a handful of useable parts that would likely cost you no more than $5.00 total.
 I've timed it, less than 20 seconds per part.
 That means you've just "earned" a whopping $2.50/hour for your efforts.  
 At least that much, for the pleasure it brings, it is good.
I don't mean to be negative about this, but this makes about as much sense to me as wasting 30-45 minutes building my own 9v battery connectors, when I can buy them for .50.
 Yeah, I've done that too, totally worth the ''50/50 for gas'', huge time saver even though RS is only 1 mile down the street...I could have 10 made by the time RS had been shopped...free...suppliers just can't beat free, 'right now' holds a very strong  allure for me.

[m-theory]

so is your time better spent laboring to pay ridiculous prices for some of the components you may find?

I can't say that I've really "labored" to spend a few pennies for new parts, and frankly, my time is better spent rehearsing, playing golf, writing and recording music, cleaning my garage, spending time with my family, creating and re-arranging set lists, clipping my toenails, doing necessary yard work, etc.  I've got LOTS of things to do with my time that I consider FAR more important than scavaging for a few pennies worth of electronic parts from non-working devices!  That said, I'm very much aware that others hold a different opinion.

sorry if i sound hostile

No need for apology.  I didn't take it as hostile, and to be honest, even if it was, I have no personal stake in this, other than my own personal opinion, so I can't imagine getting upset about anyone turning hostile over it.  Like I said, this is a "big tent issue" as far as I'm concerned.  

It's a win-win, the way I see it.  I win by not spending my time sorting through things to salvage when I can find more productive uses for that time, and you win by salvaging for parts that you can make use of.