Salvaging Useful Parts from Printers

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Salvaging Useful Parts from Printers

Home Forums The Tea Room Salvaging Useful Parts from Printers

Viewing 16 posts - 1 through 16 (of 16 total)
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  • #412839
    Blue Heeler
    Participant
      @blueheeler

      There's a lot of handy things to salvage from inside the common printer.

       

       

      Edited By Blue Heeler on 05/06/2019 23:39:11

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      #35503
      Blue Heeler
      Participant
        @blueheeler
        #412846
        Enough!
        Participant
          @enough

          They look like all the handy things I've had stashed away for 40-odd years.

          Some day real soon now ….

          #412849
          Blue Heeler
          Participant
            @blueheeler

            And the day you have a shed clean out and throw anything out, the next day you'll need it

            #412851
            Hopper
            Participant
              @hopper

              If you ever want to build a printer from scratch you'll have a good supply of parts.

              The ground/polished stainless steel rods and bars are the only parts I have ever found another use for. Very handy indeed.

              #412852
              Blue Heeler
              Participant
                @blueheeler

                Love the ground rods, I've used so many of them over the years for different things (the older the printer the thicker the rods seem to be).

                The motors I use for small gennys run off steam engines, but how many does a bloke need!

                #412855
                not done it yet
                Participant
                  @notdoneityet

                  Posted by Blue Heeler on 06/06/2019 04:17:04:

                  …..

                  The motors I use for small gennys run off steam engines, but how many does a bloke need!

                  But how many do you need? How many steam engines do you make per week/month/year?

                  #412868
                  Speedy Builder5
                  Participant
                    @speedybuilder5

                    Although 3D printers are getting cheaper all the time, I would have thought that with a bit of electronic knowledge (That I haven't got) an old printer or two would make the basis of a 3D printer. Or use the encoders etc for some other positional device.

                    #412886
                    John Haine
                    Participant
                      @johnhaine32865

                      Forget the electronics for making a 3D printer. The only parts useful would be the rods I think, and modern printers don't really have those. They used to use stepper motors which could be useful, but now have DC motors and encoders, much less useful because you need quite tricky real-time software for accurate control. The life of an ink-jet printer is so short that they have to engineer out every cent of surplus cost.

                      #412922
                      Ian S C
                      Participant
                        @iansc

                        There has been a bit on the media over the last day or so asking why can you buy a printer with ink for about half the price of new ink cartridges. I got a number of rods etc., from old flat bed scanners, from the days before they were combinded with the printer.

                        Ian S C

                        #412925
                        Hopper
                        Participant
                          @hopper
                          Posted by Ian S C on 06/06/2019 12:56:07:

                          There has been a bit on the media over the last day or so asking why can you buy a printer with ink for about half the price of new ink cartridges. I got a number of rods etc., from old flat bed scanners, from the days before they were combinded with the printer.

                          Ian S C

                          Because of two things.

                          1. The 400 per cent retail mark-up on ink cartridges.

                          2. The new printer comes with a cartridge that is about 20 per cent full.

                          This from my son who worked in a computer supply shop.

                          #412938
                          Blue Heeler
                          Participant
                            @blueheeler

                            "Vintage" as in 10 year old + printers have the best pickings IMO.

                            Every new generation of printer they have worked out how to put in less metal and more plastic.

                            #412946
                            duncan webster 1
                            Participant
                              @duncanwebster1

                              My first inkjet you could fit an enormous black cartridge instead of the 4 colours, and you could refill it with a syringe, and when the jets got irretrievably bunged up you bough a new cartridge as the jets were in it. I only need black and white, so colour cartridges just dried out. The next one included a chip on the cartridge which says 'no this cartridge is empty' so you have to buy a chip resetter. One inkjet I saw had a rubber pipe going to a bottle of ink mounted at the side of the printer. That's my sort of technology. Gave up eventually and bought a laser printer. By the time you've bought 2 or 3 sets of cartridges it's actually cheaper.

                              #415573
                              Vic
                              Participant
                                @vic
                                Posted by Ian S C on 06/06/2019 12:56:07:

                                There has been a bit on the media over the last day or so asking why can you buy a printer with ink for about half the price of new ink cartridges. I got a number of rods etc., from old flat bed scanners, from the days before they were combinded with the printer.

                                Ian S C

                                When I bought our last Laser printer I checked out:

                                Toner Refills

                                And found out that the toner cartridges that come with the printer have several parts missing that would indicate when it’s empty. Instead the printer decides for itself when they’re empty by the print count. Luckily you can buy the missing parts from the above link and fit them yourself. This also means you can “reset” the cartridges and use them until they are really empty.

                                #476831
                                Hacksaw
                                Participant
                                  @hacksaw

                                  That lovely bar of free cutting steel in the dead printer you always have to prise out before throwing it away ? It's now just a thin wall tube…. angry 2 2 motors was all i " saved " .

                                  However , the smaller one , hooked up to a solar panel battery maintainer , gives amazing torque ! I was then thinking what could it power in the garden this summer ? A water pump for the water butt ? A fan in the pergola ? A RTP aeroplane ? A RTP car on the patio ? A fake beam engine in the middle of the lawn ? Watch this space !!wink

                                   

                                  Any other ideas ?

                                  Edited By Hacksaw on 01/06/2020 22:37:12

                                  #477061
                                  mark costello 1
                                  Participant
                                    @markcostello1

                                    I am just cleaning up the Mother lode. 1 cabinet size compo printer weighs about 150 lbs. 4 regular printers. Net result? About 100 lbs of steel scrap, about 5 pounds of copper, about 5 pounds of steel shafts. About 100 "C" clips to put with the other couple of hundred. Couple of dozen small shafts. And a few hours of cheap entertainment. The motors are all stripped whilst watching the Telly at night. What ever it brings is all profit. Wifey knows I've lost it years ago, so no surprises there.

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