Society of Robots - Robot Forum

Electronics => Electronics => Topic started by: polar bear6 on December 24, 2006, 04:55:57 PM

Title: Scavengable circutry
Post by: polar bear6 on December 24, 2006, 04:55:57 PM
does anyone know of any good scavengable circuits that are good for a hobby robot builder?
the only i know of is motor controlling, RC toys and camera flash circuit...
another one is probably computer mice, for wheel encoding, but i dont know what kind of signals a PC mouse makes.
I'm bascially thinking of circuits thats easily found in electronic junk.
 

Title: Re: Scavengable circutry
Post by: Admin on December 24, 2006, 06:00:22 PM
computer floppy drives, tape players, cd players

anything with moving parts generally has good useful stuff . . .
Title: Re: Scavengable circutry
Post by: Militoy on December 25, 2006, 01:07:58 PM
Don't forget the power supply from an old PC for bench testing circuits. For bigger robots, I've picked up toy electric cars (the kind kids ride in), and even an old electric wheelchair. I'm lucky to have a big electronic surplus shop near my work, and I've picked up Opto-22 industrial controllers there, as well as stepper motors, sensors, cameras, etc. I even picked up a batch of take-out Rabbit 2000 microprocessor boards there about a year and a half ago (needed 2 - bought 20 for $40 or so).
Title: Re: Scavengable circutry
Post by: trigger on December 28, 2006, 06:15:03 PM
vcr's are great. just stay away from tv's and monitors unless you want to get zapped  ;D
Title: Re: Scavengable circutry
Post by: polar bear6 on December 28, 2006, 07:30:04 PM
okey i think explain what i meant, what im thinking of is a piece of a bigger curcuit that you can remove or cut out with a dremel or something, and then solder wires on the different inputs or outputs, then use that piece of curcuit as a module for something.
Title: Re: Scavengable circutry
Post by: Admin on December 28, 2006, 10:04:49 PM
tv remote controls have IR transmitter stuff, and the tv has a reciever . . . maybe hack that for a bot?

'poor' robot builders collect all the electronics they can find and just store it in a closet. when they need something, they open up the closet to look for it . . .
Title: Re: Scavengable circutry
Post by: Militoy on December 29, 2006, 12:41:03 PM
Quote
'poor' robot builders collect all the electronics they can find and just store it in a closet.

I don't fit into the "poor" category anymore, but I guess I kind of got into the habit of scrounging electronics junk, from the time I was in Junior High and High School. I still hate to see "good" parts tossed out - so my wife made me buy a steel ocean container, to clear my stack of parts and equipment out of the garage!
Title: Re: Scavengable circutry
Post by: Dosbomber on February 01, 2007, 05:03:45 PM
I used to work for an ATM repair company (they fixed money machines), and one of the parts they'd go through pretty often were off-the-shelf USR modems (PC-card internal type).  They had an Omron 5V relay on them that retails (still) for about $2 USD, which worked fine (the problems were in the modem firmware, apparently).  Anyway, they desoldered nicely and now I have a junk parts bin full of those relays, and a bunch of other parts I scavenged off "dead" boards.  DIP switches, relays, switches, and lots more... all easily found and desoldered from boards other people would throw out.
Title: Re: Scavengable circutry
Post by: Hal9000 on February 02, 2007, 05:55:41 AM
I'd say cassette players. If I had a box of them, I'd go nuts.
Title: Re: Scavengable circutry
Post by: Cybran on February 11, 2010, 04:44:48 PM
One of the best goldmines of wiring I still use is an old set of Christmas lights. Several hundred feet of thin-ish wire and bulbs for all sorts of wiring and projects. You can find these (of course) after Christmas when people toss them out. Also, the plastic coating the wire supposedly has lead in it, so make sure you use wire strippers and not your teeth.
Title: Re: Scavengable circutry
Post by: little-c on February 11, 2010, 04:56:42 PM
anything with a circuit board?


rc stuff always has something scavengable.
printers are good.
old low memory harddrives of ebay for 4 quid are good, a few little bits of the board, and a uber cool stepper motor, and the reader head thing is sometimes useful.
old optical mice, for switches, trackerball mice for switches and encoders, wires ect.


just short any capacitors you see, better safe then shocked ;)