Back to the dump # 3

Sorta quiet at the Transfer Station this week. And I can only pack rat away so many wall warts. I have more than enough. I am looking for the newer ones though, that are real light in weight, and spot on for voltage. They seem to be mainly with the better kids toys, like Fisher Price. If nothing else, I usually cut off the DIN connectors. They come in handy when making adapters for new projects. The electronic container had an older Dell PC , printer, and a flat panel in it. I always check the stickers, and have found in the past the PCs with newer CPUs and OS are sometimes worth powering up to see what is wrong with them. Many times there is nothing wrong, they work fine, and just need a reformat. The flat panel looked pretty clean, and I've seen many of them in the dump, and most were cracked or smashed. I brought this one home, found a power cord, and it works fine ! Now I can get rid of one of the larger monitors. Cost ? Zilch ! My Netduino arrived, finally, this morning, so I can start playing. I am amazed at the number , and diversity, of projects already on the boards, and many done, for such a new product. I've got a couple of small projects in the works, one to replace a large Allen Bradely SLC 100 that runs some lighting in the house and garage. And , of course, the usual temperature sensor . These should be fun ways to get my head wrapped around embedded again!

I never thought i'd thought reading the exploits of someone digging through trash so enthralling haha. Keep up the great work Frank. Btw, Printers are great! Take them apart for stepper motors, ball screws, belts, etc. They are basically ultra cheap CNC machines that are incredibly accurate. If you've ever wanted to do anything CNC grab some old printers - i never seem to be able to find any around here. Next time there is a verge collection i'm going on the hunt for the biggest oldest printers i can find (preferrably huge dot matrix printers).