I could get hold of some PC monitors, either broken or not. Since some electronic parts can be hard to find in shops nowadays (toroids, transformers, power resistors, ...), I always unsolder useful components from any electronic device whose destination is the trash can.
Let's see what a bulk 15 inches PC monitor can provide... Furher electronic devices were dismantled afterwards, so they were added here.
- Ferrite Beads. These almost-impossible-to-buy ferrite cylinders are very useful if you want to filter out R.F. on a conductor. As example, take the need for filtering the DC line powering a local oscillator for a receiver/transmitter: you don't want that signal to walk around your whole circuit through the +Vcc line, do you?!
- Toroidal Cores. I found two on a monitor. I assume these had the same purpose of the ferrite beads, but on the main 220V AC power cord. They might be no good for RF/HF applications!
- Power Resistors. Altough I doubt they might work at high frequencies (above 1-2 MHz), you can use them to build a discharger for your NiCd rechargeable batteries. Some measurements have shown that these "inductive" resistors might be used in the HF range for QRP applications.
- High Voltage Capacitors. They are not the silver-mica ones, but might serve in some power applications, such as a loud audio amplifier, or some 137 kHz transmitter.
- Inductors and Transformers. A monitor has a built-in switching power supply. It requires transformers and high-voltage capacitors. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find any information on my transformers and inductors...
- Heat sinks. A monitor has 4 or more power transistors, which need to dissipate heat. You can certainly get some heat sinks of various sizes.
- Oscillator or XTAL. Video signals are synchronous, so there must be some sort of signal generator inside the monitor. I found a 3.58 MHz ceramic resonator and a 14.318 MHz XTAL.
- Voltage Stabilizers. Diodes for AC to DC rectification and a 12Vdc stabilizer (7812) were unsoldered.
- Transistors. There are plenty in a TV but... I cound't find any meaning of the code printed on their case :-( If you have a clue, just take them! :-)
- Cable! How could I forget this? Yes, the VGA cable that connects the video-card to the monitor. It carries some 10 wires, and you can reuse it for another application: you already have a robust connector and 1.5 metre cable!
- Knobs. Older screens had analog control of luminosity, contrast, ..., so they carried some nice knobs (I got 7 identical in a row!)
- Rubber feet. Used with an anti-skid purpose, I could finally glue 4 rubber feet under my CW key, so it wouldn't slide all around.
Here is part 2 of this sequel :-)
Disassembling a CD-ROM drive is a thrilling experience. I had 4, all with a different problem, all non-working, all pretty old (max was 4x).
Why someone would ever want to disassemble a laptop?! That's right. I first tried to repair it :-) It's always a valuable piece of hardware afterall!
Computer motherboards are starting to be cheap and readily available. Not much can be scrounged from them, mainly digital components, and you certainly need a good method to desolder SMD components (or solder points on both sides of the PCB)
A Smard Card Reader is not a common device you might find in the trash can down the corner, and offers few useful parts:
Printers nowadays are very cheap and probably mechanically weak. Very few things are useful:
A VCR is another video-related device, so you shouldn't expect to find many different
components, if compared with a monitor.
There might be more useful stuff inside, but it's all SMD...
All the rest is SMD, even on older laptops (i386). I found some LEDs and collected a lot of screws :-)
back home
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