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Post by CampKohler (Sacramento CA) on Jun 24, 2018 18:41:39 GMT -5
The last couple of days produced a couple of nice finds: A cigar-box-sized Sony AC/DC AM-FM radio, the cords—power and USB—for some printer, an Ethernet cable, an clone iPhone earbud set, a telephone modular cable, a 50' RG-59 cord, and two brand new GFCI receptacles with the screw-covering labels still stuck on. In attempting to get a brand new garage opener doc set back to the owner, I found that the house was sold in April and the former owners are moving to Germany, which explains why all the goodies were tossed from cleaning out their storage unit. There was also a little line-powered vac that has missing parts, so good for the cord, though.
From another depository, a 6-amp Schumaker battery charger (minus the AC and DC lead sets). It won't take too much to replace the lead sets, and there's not much that can't be fixed on a charger like that.
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Post by CampKohler (Sacramento CA) on Jun 27, 2018 20:33:12 GMT -5
After inspecting the Sony radio, I found that the whip antenna has all sections except the bottom one missing, i.e. it's only one section long. So I will have to find a replacement and change it out. The tuning dial has the same problem as another portable I have, namely, the dial cord slips and you can't reach the bottom 20& of the dial where PBS lives. I'll have to open it up and find out why.
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Today a depository held some commercial construction debris, including 1/2" conduit, some wires and three sets of 2-gang receptacles. You would think that receptacles in commercial use would wear out faster than residential, but I theorize that in business, once you plug in your stuff, it more or less stays put forever, whereas in residential, you are always moving appliances, etc. around.
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Post by picture this! on Jun 28, 2018 9:21:31 GMT -5
I've recently attained an insatiable need for RG58 or RG8. However I have piles and piles of RG59. Sigh.
It's weird that NPR tends to be on the lower half of the "3 meter band" - not sure why... PBS, however, could be on UHF...
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Post by CampKohler (Sacramento CA) on Aug 7, 2018 20:29:28 GMT -5
I stopped by the depository behind the vet's, and lying on the ground was a nice Emerson uwave, which I snagged.
There was also a ceiling fan with four out of the five blades intact, but at least all four of the glass lamp shades were OK. This is the first ceiling fan I have seen with plastic blades instead of wood or a wood product. The hanger that grabs the top support ball is missing, but as all of these fans are more or less alike, it shouldn't be too hard to run across that hardware in the future from some other banged-up fan. The steel motor housings on these fans typically have twice the volume of the motors themselves. I suspect that this is due to the fact that modern-day fan motors are half the size of the old ones of the '20s & '30s. I wonder if anyone has taken advantage of this to make a hiding place for money, drugs, etc.
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Post by CampKohler (Sacramento CA) on Aug 9, 2018 19:09:02 GMT -5
A couple of days ago I spied a stack on the curb in front of the house across the street from mine with a FREE sign on it. It was a Oster bread machine and a 14" RCA analog CRT TV. Luck was with me, because the bread machine had the removable stirring blade inside and the TV had taped to it the remote control. The remote's batt compartment door was missing, but I guess you can't have everything.
The door can be replaced by a spring bent out of music wire that will lock into the tab and latch holes of the remote's case. I have used the spring-instead-of-a-door trick before successfully; the spring can be bent so that it additionally pushes against each of the cells to keep them securely in place. The spring has a utilitarian look to it, but it works, costs nothing and is nowhere as ratty looking as a couple of turns of duct tape.
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Post by CampKohler (Sacramento CA) on Aug 30, 2018 19:15:32 GMT -5
My next door neighbor got in a clean-out mood yesterday and gave me a medium-widescreen LCD monitor and a humongus Apple iMac (built into a monitor). Probably neither of them work, but I didn't ask and just hustled them out of the place, after all, parts is parts. Luckily both have an IEC power connector, so there will be no searching for some oddball power supply to try them out.
He also was going to toss in the garbage several 3' lengths of wires raked up in his back yard. Oh, no! The length of thermostat wire, when the jacket was stripped off gave five lengths of #20 solid hookup wire. The Ethernet cable had paint all over it and was sun bleached, so I stripped it, yielding the fresh twisted pairs within. The latter, if nothing else, is good for tying up cables, etc. The last itme was a 2-stranded-conductor #18 alarm wire, which I kept as is. I never met a wire I didn't like. Put that on my tombstone.
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Today I visited the back of the library property where the homeless sometimes abandon stuff. I found an inexpensive 14"-wide radio/CD player. The telescoping antenna had most of its length broken off, but otherwise looked in good shape once the leaves were blown out of the CD compartment. In the past I have found laptops, PC parts and other electronic/mechanical bits and pieces, so I always check it out, because you never can tell, and who can't use the walking around exercise?
I was policing up trash in the front of the library the other day and came upon a very old auto starter solenoid. One of the starter terminals was busted off and the Bakelite case was cracked from being out in the weather. Obviously it is no longer viable as a solenoid, and I have no idea if the coil inside is any good. I wonder how long it had been out there forlornly unappreciated through the years of heat and cold, poor thing. If nothing else, it is a source of magnet wire once I grind off the four very rusty rivets holding the steel base plate to the case.
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Post by CampKohler (Sacramento CA) on Sept 5, 2018 19:50:33 GMT -5
My next door neighbor gave me a nice little palm-sized scanner receiver that he bought once upon a time, but either it failed or never worked. His first step is to tear it apart, although he has no chance to fix it and has no interest/patience in learning enough to have a chance. He gave me the pieces minus the back of the case and all the itsy-bits screws that held everything together. I hate that. It's like, "Here, this didn't work, and I wanted to make sure it would never work again before I gave it to you." Grrr!
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Post by CampKohler (Sacramento CA) on Sept 18, 2018 20:44:29 GMT -5
I was driving out a different path* from my storage yard when I spied a Hoover bagless power-drive vacuum cleaner between two depositories. It was complete in that the upholstery attachment was stowed in it's compartment, the tool hose is intact, and the power cord had not yet been sliced off by the homeless looking for their next fix, uh... I mean stamps to write home to mother with. I haven't had time to test it yet, but I have yet to find a vac whose motor fails to work (unless it had been submerged to the point of rusting). Usually somebody breaks some plastic doohicky that presents a problem, such as the upright portion of the vac won't lock in the upright position any more. Or maybe the beater bar is missing. Or one of the wheels is missing. But this one looks like it has a real chance of being a keeper.
Once I found a modern bagless Hoover that was in excellent shape, except for one fatal flaw. So I scrapped it. Not two days later, I found another identical model that had the part I would have needed to fix the first one if I hadn't scrapped it. Of course the second one had paint splattered all over it and looked like the dickens, so that's the one I got stuck with. You never can never predict the future, so you never can tell what to do with a something that almost works if you only had that one part. Dang!
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*Looking for a nearby recently-opened Thai restaurant's 1.5'-on-a-side bottled tea boxes, which are made from 1/2"-thick cardboard for some reason. I never saw small boxes made from such thick cardboard before, so I keep an eye peeled at their back door. They will come in handy for storing my gold bar collection (after I get one).
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Post by CampKohler (Sacramento CA) on Oct 9, 2018 18:34:50 GMT -5
Today on the way to the library, depository out back the vet's yielded a Supersonic wide-screen TV with built-in DVD player and the RC crossover remnants removed from some really cheapo speaker. Last week I found along the road a low-end 3-way Kenwood 12" bookshelf speaker with a Goodwill price of $10 on it. The cones were ripped out of the woofer and squawker and the tweeter was missing (but otherwise OK  ). It had the same aforementioned RC crossover components, but instead of being assembled by stringing parts together with crimp splices, they were mounted on a small PCB soldered to the binding post block. The thin HD particle-board enclosure looked pretty good visually from the outside when it was new, but it was just crap on the inside. Even the thin steel speaker frames were stamped to mimic the shape of cast aluminum frames. It seems every cent spent was used to make it look good, vs. sounding good. I remember when the name Kenwood meant something in hi-fi. ---- My next door neighbor was cleaning out his garage and handed me a 1'-diameter fur ball of cables, wires and switching power supplies (to things long since gone). Also a 120VAC air mattress blower. I have several air mattresses with like blowers installed permanently in them. They have directional valves that allow the blower to inflate or deflate fully in a matter of minutes. It's amazing how until they are fully inflated, they won't support your weight, letting you sink down to the floor, but when sufficient air is in there, they suddenly hold you up with no problem. |
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). It had the same aforementioned RC crossover components, but instead of being assembled by stringing parts together with crimp splices, they were mounted on a small PCB soldered to the binding post block. The thin HD particle-board enclosure looked pretty good visually from the outside when it was new, but it was just crap on the inside. Even the thin steel speaker frames were stamped to mimic the shape of cast aluminum frames. It seems every cent spent was used to make it look good, vs. sounding good. I remember when the name Kenwood meant something in hi-fi.