I recently discovered the wonderful arduino world and the awesome community. I am still a beginner in practical electronics and new to the world of arduino (even though I have studied a lot of physics and some electrodynamics).
With this said I have been wondering about some old electronics lying around in the house. For instance I have an Ipod Nano 6th generation and a Casio AQ 230 semi-digital watch which to my knowledge are undamaged but old and unused.
Basically what I'm wondering is if it's to much of a hassle to for instance salvage the touchscreen from the Ipod Nano? Will it be encrypted or usable for me without having to be a professional software engineer? Will I be able to send signals to it from an arduino?
Does anyone have any tips on how to move forward with this?
If You can find wirings and data sheet for the ojects You want to salvage, go ahead. Else You will face a mysteri object and lots of questions to find answers to.
Buying known components and using them will go much, much faster.
Thank you for taking time and replying. That sound reasonable and i guess apple is kind of secretive in regards to their components and how the wiring etc. works. I just thought that i Wanted to use the old gadgets for something:)
Paul_KD7HB:
In reality, the only practical use would be for you to use them to learn about soldering and unsoldering and use of a microscope while doing it.
Paul
Thank you for the reply! I am glad that some lessons can be learned from them anyways. I sure wish more stuff would be open source. Imagine the wonders it would do for recycling old electronics.
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I have a old ARC-5 radio receiver. Came out of an airplane. Date code 1943. I was 3 years old then. I can unsolder a few nice mica condensers (Excuse me: Capacitors).. For active devices, there are some really interesting vacuum tubes, and they actually just unplug without tools.
Maybe better one of my Grandchildren makes it into some Steampunk object, like he did with one of my old 4-400A transmitter tubes.
@pingi_j -Seriously, keep Taking Things apart and looking closely at them; you will always learn something!
pingi_j:
Thank you for the reply! I am glad that some lessons can be learned from them anyways. I sure wish more stuff would be open source. Imagine the wonders it would do for recycling old electronics.
I remember an electronic recycler back in the 1970's. He bought tons of the stuff and had old derilicks disassemble stuff so he could submerge the components in cyanide solutions to remove the gold plating and then sold the solution. He was also a chemist. That is where I got my first LEDs. Minus the gold plating. Same with lots of other stuff. The residue he could not sell to people like me, went into the landfill.
On the other side, I was in the electronic assembly business for 20 years. All components had to come from reputable distributors or if old design and not available anywhere, we bought old stock from around the world from a reputable gray market seller. They went so far as to open IC covers and verify the die was correct and from the OEM.
So, there is not and will never be a market for recycled components that were pulled from circuit boards. The best you can do is crush the boards and find the tiny amount of valuable minerals in the residue. Would not pay for the work of recycling and storage.
One other problem is the individual component of a given number and size would have to be manually placed into the pockets of tape and would into reels so they could be fed into automated pick-and-place machines. A costly process.
I started by being so curious that I took everything apart as a kid. Nothing was safe but I did get better at putting thing back together. My poor parents, I couldn’t wait to take things apart and see what made things tick. I encourage it... you mind end up with a pile of spare parts that maybe comes in handy in a project, sometimes complex things like screens are not really worth the effort and expense of reusing (mostly in time) unless it’s the challenge you enjoy.
I believe the value is in learning how things work or are put together.
Save anything you might think is interesting. If your pile of parts get bad throw it away or recycle it.
IR transmitters and receivers, 7 segment LEDs, switches, headers, and jacks/plugs can be good items to tear out for experimenting with and prototyping.
I modified an ARC5 to use as a VFO on my Gonset 6M transceiver.
But you're right- taking things apart is a great way to learn- even if you destroy the part in the process. You learn how to not do it the second time.
OP- parts aren't usually proprietary as much as purpose built, so there's no public specs for the pinouts. But, when you get an old device, google "xyz hack".
Thanks so much for the answers, this really inspires me! Reading your stories of what you have done with old technology and thoughts on why it's not feasible to reuse electronics in the way I initially thought.
Now I have begun to dismantle the iPod Nano and I must say that it really is a piece of engineering beauty, in my opinion at least. The form factor 1.48 x 1.61 x 0.35 (in) Is basically just a LCD touchscreen with an advanced media player (at the time at least).
I will continue with this and do it on other electronics and as I have learned from the community, gather stuff such as IR-sensors, LEDs, switches etc. which might be easier to integrate into new projects.
pingi_j:
Now I have begun to dismantle the iPod Nano and I must say that it really is a piece of engineering beauty,
Not expecting any less from Apple.
The touch screen will be quite useless without its driver IC - which is probably somewhere onto the main PCB. There may even be custom ICs on there, with display driver and mp3 player all in one.
Older equipment is much more useful to salvage parts from, simply as the parts are much bigger and often simpler. No tiny ICs with dozens of minuscule connections, designed to be put in place by robots and soldered by reflow.
wvmarle:
The touch screen will be quite useless without its driver IC - which is probably somewhere onto the main PCB. There may even be custom ICs on there, with display driver and mp3 player all in one.
And the driver IC useless without the main processor, and that useless without the support components.
In short, it is - and remains - a unit. It is useful if you can re-program it, but not otherwise (except for its original purpose).
forget anything apple. every chip is OTP and requires that the support chip serial numbers match.
watch some of the RIGHT TO REPAIR videos. and apple repair videos. make you never want to support such a company.
My suggestion is to get older, larger things. the newer things have massive IC's that do lots of work of smaller chips so is well beyond the hobby stage.
keyboards, mice, old VCR's, old floppy drives and CD drives. even old microwaves, toaster ovens, coffee pots, etc.
the modern stuff is not as easy to reverse engineer and not as easy to get parts from.
