I am new to Arduino, I find it fantastic and less frustrating than the Board I had to use at University last term.
I have found some printers and a Satelite decoder at a relives house, and I plan to canibaliste them, my obvious targets being the motors, resistance and push buttons.
Is there anything of value I could get from them ?
I lost my tinkerer mojo because my Electronics module was just a pain and I couldn't afford the material, but with Arduino I can actually do something on the cheap and I feel like Cannibal this week
Can probably grab the printer electronics too - should be a usable power supply, maybe optical sensors, who knows what else.
Satellide decoder - won't know until you open it.
I just scrapped a satellite receiver last week... Got about 30 electrolytics all of which measured ok, 3 crystals (One a VCO) a bunch of inductors for switchers and a whole gang of other parts including a separate Mains to 12Vdc switching PSU. Given a little patience and a good soldering iron and a free evening. Lots of really useful parts. Switching power supplies for Printers are really nice as a buck mode switching regulator will take that 24Vdc @ 500 mA output from an HP Printer and deliver 2.1 A @ 5Vdc out (the missing .3 A @ 5Vdc is the loss due to the efficiency of the switcher) and the nicest part is that it only requires a $1.95 switcher from Ebay. I always keep 3 or 4 of these parts on hand just for that purpose.
I got a little impatient because my new iron and my tools where taking long to arrive so I decided to go medieval on the Satellite Dish decoder with a knife.
I netted a 160GB HD, A motor (handy for my arduino learning, don't need to buy one from store), a transformer circuit with 2,5/3/12V output, USB mate and a IR sensor (which I also failed to buy in store)
I am going to open the rest only after I get my tools and my iron.
