Nikarus:
Plenty of goodwill stores around, haven't gotten enough into a project yet that I didn't have the stuff on hand already. Though I have gotten some Wii motion plus addons from there (BS that they don't sell them at stores anymore. Trying to get gyros out of a motion plus remote sucks).
It'd be awesome if any of them around here would have Erector sets in them (I remember those from back in the day).
I grab stuff even if I don't have an immediate use, in the event I need it later (bad habit, I admit!) - I rarely find toy construction kits, but when I do and if they are Erector or something similar (Lego and Knex, for instance), I'll grab them. One time not too long ago I found a couple of bags of potentiometers, all "brand new" and fairly high-quality - paid a few dollars for all of them (some had switches, too). A couple of weeks ago, I managed to score 6 complete X-10 wireless camera systems, one with pan/tilt and remotes - for $40.00 (half-price day, too!). Another recent find was a Nerf Vulcan dart shooter - got that for a few dollars (worked fine once I got a belt and some darts for it).
Nikarus:
And even if theres no electronics recycler, a regular scrapyard (we have one) tends to gather electronics anyways (also lots of other stuff, I got a pair of 10ton hydraulic pistons a few months ago including the jack to control them with. Those were probably a few grand each new) For building projects like robots its pretty easy to find aluminum and steel frames (or extruded aluminum) at the scrapheap, and for heftier projects, theres a good share of electric motors that are "broken". Actually, its really not that hard to walk into a junkyard one morning and come out with several thousand dollars in prefectly good stuff, electrical or otherwise. Maybe I'll start logging all the stuff I can get my hands on.
We have tons of scrap yards around here, too - but I've never tried to buy anything from them; I'm not sure if they sell to the public or not. Apache Reclamation has a separate yard for "large stuff" of similar nature; that yard shares space with another, and you could probably buy anything from them on a per-pound basis. Another thing we have tons of is "pick-yer-part" auto wrecking yards; you just have to be willing to pony up the "entrance fee" and pull the parts yourself (a wagon or cart with your tools needed, of course). I've done that a few times for auto parts I needed for repair work on my trucks, but not for any other project (I keep it in the back of my mind, though!)...
Nikarus:
Post it, see if anyone needs stuff.
Id say to an extent, the fun I've had with my projects since learning of this has been worth paying the forums back in some way.
Perhaps it might be good to add an exchange forum to the arduino site here. I know lots of airsoft forums have them... kind of a pay it forward system.
That sounds like an interesting idea; I do know that someone a long while back created an electronics trading/for-sale board (kinda like CL, but for electronics components and such) and posted it on the forum (might've been the old site). I'm not sure if it is still around or not...