Anyone seen clever alternative uses for CRT computer monitor cases or other uses for e-waste stuff, converted to completely different functional and saleable stuff?
I was impressed with this recent UK TV documentary
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Interesting mixture of engineers , designers and artists. My favourites were the bird-boxes, amazing what people paid for them. I'll have to research the meltable plastic waste , via shredding , to 3D printer feedstock. Whether viewable off-internet , I've no idea. But if its anything like my ISP / Google recently. Try to go to google.com and get redirected, via reading my IP, to google.co.uk, recently has been redirecting to google.be and google.ie and won't let you go to google.uk
On the 3D printer feedstock front. Are plastic "milk jugs" in the USA what you carry milk home from a supermarket to home in, rather than in the UK we would call them milk bottles.
For a long time I was intrigued to convert one of those big, honkin' IBM 3270 display units to a back-lit fish tank. But, having a Black Belt in Procrastination, I never got around to it -- even tho' there was a time in the late 80's when I could get a number of them for free.
A fish tank made from a flat panel thingy would not be a good choice, I suppose....
Jonesy
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My sister's dog does. He doesn't sit there and watch it for hours, but every so often he'll notice something and bark. I suspect it works better now that tv sets are generally bigger. I think he was barking at an elephant last week, but it's generally dogs. The odd thing is, he doesn't bark that much generally, seems to miss many dogs walking by outside.
Yes, in the US we call them 'milk jugs'. Usually from type 2 (high density polyethylene) plastic. While milk bottles wold also be correct, many people would thing that you are talking about the reusable glass ones, though I've heard those called jugs as well.
But the bigger the bottle, the more likely it needs a handle to carry it.
Certainly 1l bottles of juice will tend to not have a handle, while 2l might, and a larger size would. Same plastic used in each.
There was one project in Popular Electronics in the sixties where someone put speakers in a pair of "milk jugs". Not really great, but useful for a utilitarian speaker, protect the speaker and improve the sound a tad.
On Sat, 26 Apr 2014 17:41:04 +0100, N_Cook waxed lyrical:
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CRTs usually have a whole bunch of easily accessible magnet wire (high purity copper, emaneled) taped up in a loop around the frame.
Microwave ovens have MOT transformers and high-voltage caps. CV^2, so they pack a lot of punch. The MOT high-voltage part is grounded to the chassis, so it's totally lethal if not handled with great mindfulness. They can be made into high-current transformers with an angle grinder. The magnetrons have highly toxic parts, so breaking those up with an angle grinder will make you die of cancer in a week.
Refrigerators and air conditioners have compressors which put out up towards 30 bar, compared to the 8 bar of your normal shop air. They are filled with gaseous refrigerant which needs to be burned at high temperature (e.g. arc furnance made from a MOT) or brought to an AC service shop. When burned, hydrogen flouride (HF) is usually formed. This is lethal too. These compressors also make good roughing vacuum pumps. Reportedly two in series will bring the pressure down to 1 torr. This may or may not be enough for sputtering. It's more than enough for CO2 lasers.
T5 fluorescent tubes can be reporposed too. The white coating scrapes off but doesn't dissolve. They contain mercury so use disposable latex gloves and don't touch your face while handling them.
Laptop batteries contain rechargable cells. These can usually be reconditioned through a variety of ways.
I'm currently educating myself in these arts further. It seems like time well spent.
Yes anyone can recycle copper or aluminium , but finding an alternative repurposed use for the other subparts that otherwise gets burnt or dumped is a bit more clever
On Mon, 28 Apr 2014 10:16:43 +0100, N_Cook waxed lyrical:
Is that what the program is about? Because that IS clever. =)
Some of my ideas are to for example turn old fridge housings into housings for 3D printers. With a CO2 laser it could be a LAM; laser additive manufacturing. - High-tech made out of scrap! Standard sizes too.
If you pulverize glass you could quite possibly melt it into new, high- performance parts with LAM. They are very versatile and able to consume a wide array of recycled materials.
For this to have a real impact though there needs to be a local demand for recycled goods like this. Ideally this would be like an RTS game and to get the stuff you ordered from your local maker-bot you need to bring it the resurces that it demands. I think kids would like it. - New toys in exchange for a bit of scavenging. It would teach kids so much!
I think making on-demand designs like this should be a Real Job (tm). A great first step in this direction is the excllent website locted at
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But, and a big but, is that really few people have the time to be creative like this in most Western societies. There is such social pressure to flaunt status by how much money you make that the actual money is devaluated.
Making visually and olifactory attractive housing with localized recycling would without a shadow of a doubt be valable beyond words, provided you get the land for cheap. You would need to found new cities in the wildreness and build municipal infrastucture for them for real estate prices to allow for this.
Perhaps virtual reality-enabled telepresence would allow for such a phenomena!
No one can accuse me of not being idealistic enough.
Yes it was more like conversion than salvaging. All that was left was some subpanelling for cockpit switchgear, all else had found a new home with the minimum of processing. A large section of the cabin , fitted with end panels , went for garden-office , complete with part of Airbus A320 script on the side, new owners over the moon about their new 7000 GBP addition to their garden. Impressive looking desk lamps , I think went for 350 GBP each made out of one of the pierced cast/machined seat supports plus a bend up seat panel, with lamp socket and cable added. Kids bedroom combined bench-seat/storage boxes went like hot cakes, marginally converted overhead lockers. But my favourites were the incredible variety of birdboxes made from otherwise impossible brown composite tubes with impossible angles and diameters and manifolds, for the recycled air ducting that were visible to the fliers would make them question long distance flying breathing in other people's exhalations multiple times.
I'm not surprised they are all out of stock, even at those prices. I somhow doubt all that piping from scrapped airbuses will be going to landfill anymore
That's some of the problem. There are now plenty of programs to collect "e-waste", but I'm not sure I trust them. Something is more valuable as is, or with minimal destruction, but I fear a lot of these collections are about skimming off the most valuable (ie things that can easily be identified like recent computers), and then crushing the rest for their metal value.
I suspect the groups don't have the skills to notice that Radio Shack model 200 as something that a collector might want. Or that that "old" computer still has value to some of us.
In other words, I bet there is lots going to "e-waste" that I could find use for, either outright, or with a bit of repair. I don't need the latest and greatest. And of course, every time I've found something in the garbage and stripped useful parts, what remained is in a much more potent state, scrap metal in that pile, plastic in that pile, and it goes to recycling rather than garbage.
When this came up before, someone pointed out that it may really be about keeping things out of the used market. That would certainly explain why some pizza chain here is offering a free slice of pizza if you bring in a tablet or cellphone or digital camera. I find it hard to believe that tablets are already scrap, but sold on the used marekt, those things could get more than the price of a slice of pizza.
On the other hand, that change is also accepting inkjet cartridges, and AC adapters, things that have less value. It's easy to fined both, one might as well trade those in for the pizza slice.
I wouldn't have a GPS except people decided what they had was no longer useful. But instead off sending them to "e-waste recycling", they sold them at garage sales (a nice Garmin that doesn't do maps, only five dollars) or gave to the Rotary Club to sell at their "garage sale" last year (a TomTom One that doesn't seem to have anything wrong with it, unless the battery was supposed to have long life, only ten dollars). I got a blu-ray player because someone tossed it, I have LCD monitors because people tossed them (the first one worked fine as is, later finds needed some new electrolytic capacitors). It seems a shame that I, someone who can make use of such things, find it harder to find such things while a ll kinds of neat stuff goes to "e-waste recycling" where it likely doesn't see a second life.
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