We all have come across some curb side throw out audio visual equipment. I my self put a totally working rear projection tv on the curb and gone before I woke . Found and repurposed many audio visual stuff. Post your favorite free be. Michael
My whole system is made from dumpster finds, fleamarket scores and second hand items 🙂 Nothing bought new.
I once found a 1938 valve radio from the Dutch brand Waldorp (essentially Philips in a different enclosure) as waste on the street in Delft. I took it to work, then to home, then sort of fixed it. For some reason, it always stopped working after a while, though. Switching it off and on then started it again. As I didn't really have the space for it, in the end I gave it away to a collector.
Several years earlier, I found two loudspeaker boxes without drivers, took them home and used them for active loudspeaker experiments.
Ever since bicycle lights that are not permanently mounted on the bicycle were legalized in the Netherlands, I also regularly find small, damaged LED lights. The LEDs are usually still OK and are usually quite efficient, so I never buy LEDs anymore.
When I was still in school, I used to remove components from PCBs from broken down TVs. I still have a drawer with small jars with components from old TVs.
Several years earlier, I found two loudspeaker boxes without drivers, took them home and used them for active loudspeaker experiments.
Ever since bicycle lights that are not permanently mounted on the bicycle were legalized in the Netherlands, I also regularly find small, damaged LED lights. The LEDs are usually still OK and are usually quite efficient, so I never buy LEDs anymore.
When I was still in school, I used to remove components from PCBs from broken down TVs. I still have a drawer with small jars with components from old TVs.
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Your my kind of person. Dig in there without any shame or pride. Dive On! Michael
Nothing like giving your find to someone who really needs and appreciates it. Friend of mine repairs and collects antique radios and. Would have loved that valve radio. If only for impossible to find parts. Michael
So many free to me.... the best was probably a pair of WE amps, a 92 and a 124
I was happy I managed to save a pre-WWII Dutch radio. They are relatively rare because everyone had to hand over their radios to the nazis during the war (they didn't want anyone to listen to the BBC).
Well, I suppose that I don't fit into the dumpster diver catagory, and it isn't fair to mention that after decades of running a repair service shop I've had plenty of items left behind by customers, or donated to me by people.
The list of nice things that I've gotten or taken home is pretty long too.
Some are expensive, others just great quality products...
You name it, I've likely got or had it.
The list of nice things that I've gotten or taken home is pretty long too.
Some are expensive, others just great quality products...
You name it, I've likely got or had it.
At age 6 or 7 my parents gave me an electric guitar for my birthday, but no amplifier. The store told them that it would be quieter than a standard guitar and easier to play (true). Of course, this planted the seeds of frustration. A year or so later my father decided to ditch the old mono Magnavox record player for a new stereo console with a tuner. They set the old Maggie out for trash, but I dragged it into my room. A few minutes with a guitar cord, some masking tape and a pair of scissors allowed me to connect the guitar into the tone arm and I had "made" my first guitar amp. 60+ years later I'm a bit better at making them. A primary school mate friend had a real Fender guitar and Champ amp. His older brother was a ham radio guy. One afternoon the three of us dissected the Champ and created a schematic for the three tube amp. This was about 1960, so that was the only way to find out how something was made. Now, where does an 8 year old kid with no income get parts to DIY a guitar amp? He rides his bicycle about 4 miles to the local landfill trash dump where all the parts are free. I also snatched the chassis out of any dead TV, radio or HiFi set that was seen in the trash between my house and the school. Two TV repair shops were only blocks away from my house. Those seeds that were planted a couple years earlier had sprouted and began to grow. I had built my own guitar amps and HiFi sets all with trash rescue parts.
In high school a friend who had a car introduced me to real dumpster diving. The huge import warehouses for Pearce Simpson (CB radios) and Juliette (cheap consumer electronics) were next to each other about 5 miles north of my house. They threw the damaged goods into the dumpsters, and we dug them out. Take 3 or 4 broken HiFi's or CB sets and make 2 or more good ones, then sell them at school, cool easy money. Coulter Diagnostics in Hialeah made blood counter machines (they still do). Racal Milgo made huge plotters for the US military. Their dumpsters always had stuff that could be mined for brand new parts. After seeing an ELP concert in 1971, I set out to build a DIY digital music synthesizer. These hand wired perf boards are populated with RTL logic chips taken off of dumpster sourced Coulter boards with a propane torch.
Now at nearly 70 years old, I no longer climb into dumpsters. I do shop the flea markets, hamfests, thrift stores and surplus outlets for deals where available. Would you believe I found a 1958 vintage Hammond M3 tonewheel organ for $39.99 at Goodwill in perfect working condition?
In high school a friend who had a car introduced me to real dumpster diving. The huge import warehouses for Pearce Simpson (CB radios) and Juliette (cheap consumer electronics) were next to each other about 5 miles north of my house. They threw the damaged goods into the dumpsters, and we dug them out. Take 3 or 4 broken HiFi's or CB sets and make 2 or more good ones, then sell them at school, cool easy money. Coulter Diagnostics in Hialeah made blood counter machines (they still do). Racal Milgo made huge plotters for the US military. Their dumpsters always had stuff that could be mined for brand new parts. After seeing an ELP concert in 1971, I set out to build a DIY digital music synthesizer. These hand wired perf boards are populated with RTL logic chips taken off of dumpster sourced Coulter boards with a propane torch.
Now at nearly 70 years old, I no longer climb into dumpsters. I do shop the flea markets, hamfests, thrift stores and surplus outlets for deals where available. Would you believe I found a 1958 vintage Hammond M3 tonewheel organ for $39.99 at Goodwill in perfect working condition?
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Wow nice memories. You probably learned alot in your endeavors. Organ sure was a killer deal. Got a sort of kids toy keyboard to rekindle some bad piano skills out of trash last week. Wife says I'm too old to dumpster dive. No way too much fun
In the 1980s I dived into one full of mid 1950s cinema amplifiers and spent several weeks giving them away.
I still have four of them.
They all needed coupling capacitors replaced and some of the values needed to be increased because many cinemas shared there walls with shop keepers flats. They used to cut the bass response a bit in the old days.
They have an extra pentode gain stage between the volume control and the input and active tone controls around most of the gain stages. A guitar cable with a variable gain preamp in it allows almost any effects pedal to be copied.
They certainly show up the difference between vinyl era music and the modern stuff that is mixed to play the same through a phone ringer or a real HiFi.
The chassis is cast alloy.
I have showed one as an avatar for some years.
I still have four of them.
They all needed coupling capacitors replaced and some of the values needed to be increased because many cinemas shared there walls with shop keepers flats. They used to cut the bass response a bit in the old days.
They have an extra pentode gain stage between the volume control and the input and active tone controls around most of the gain stages. A guitar cable with a variable gain preamp in it allows almost any effects pedal to be copied.
They certainly show up the difference between vinyl era music and the modern stuff that is mixed to play the same through a phone ringer or a real HiFi.
The chassis is cast alloy.
I have showed one as an avatar for some years.
Never quite had the curbside success as the legends I read here and elsewhere. I remember finding some Pioneer tube stuff discarded in the woods when walking the dogs; both gone now it's been so long, unsure if I just left it as it had been out in the PNW rain for who knows how long. A set of curbside Ohm speakers yielded a single working tweeter I sold to someone in a far off land. I once got an empty dual 12 W bin and a big Altec multicell w/o driver or pipe stem from a church parking lot ~40 years ago; apparently I didnt get there soon enough for the drivers...
Much over the years has been from Goodwill, yard sales and fleamarkets, eBay. No pair of quad 6550 Allen organ amps with a Goodwill price sticker on each one, but I have got a Fender Twin there for $100, an Altec 601 in original cab for $25, a Dynaco SCA-35 for $15; all years ago.
Dusting off the cobwebs a bit, I did score a Hammond A100 at a yard sale for $50, a pair of working Ohm Walsh's needing surrounds, a Music Man 112, DCM time windows, AR3as from a fleamarket, a Heathkit AA-111, Dynaco MKIIIs, Thorens TD124, Empire end tables, Pioneer SX-2000 etc. Most recent score? A set of 5 of RS 40-1354A auto speakers, NIB... Someone in another forum said those are amenable to dave's phase plugs.
Much over the years has been from Goodwill, yard sales and fleamarkets, eBay. No pair of quad 6550 Allen organ amps with a Goodwill price sticker on each one, but I have got a Fender Twin there for $100, an Altec 601 in original cab for $25, a Dynaco SCA-35 for $15; all years ago.
Dusting off the cobwebs a bit, I did score a Hammond A100 at a yard sale for $50, a pair of working Ohm Walsh's needing surrounds, a Music Man 112, DCM time windows, AR3as from a fleamarket, a Heathkit AA-111, Dynaco MKIIIs, Thorens TD124, Empire end tables, Pioneer SX-2000 etc. Most recent score? A set of 5 of RS 40-1354A auto speakers, NIB... Someone in another forum said those are amenable to dave's phase plugs.
I recently found an original pair of Acoustic Research AR-11 in a ditch. Too far gone for me,but a local record shop bought them. The proprietor says he can restore them.
Kenwood KA-36, amp, tuner, double deck, 7 x 2 equalizer, free from a Jesuit school, where it had been gifted.
Had to hose it down with soapy water, dirty from urine and excrement, wires eaten by rats, rebuild gnawed knobs.
Working....much later the STK blew, took a driver and the mains transformer.
i replaced and repaired those, now in storage.
Many Philips speakers and double deck / amp / tuner units, mostly $2 or so at flea markets.
One with speakers was about $8, awaits repair.
One Sony unit, about 10 kilos, double deck / CD / amp, display works, STK 403 not available, so an alternate to be done, maybe 7294.
No hurry, I have spare amps.
A neighbor bought a working VCR from a passing scrap merchant for about $3....and I let one system with speakers go, thinking I had too many already.
Had to hose it down with soapy water, dirty from urine and excrement, wires eaten by rats, rebuild gnawed knobs.
Working....much later the STK blew, took a driver and the mains transformer.
i replaced and repaired those, now in storage.
Many Philips speakers and double deck / amp / tuner units, mostly $2 or so at flea markets.
One with speakers was about $8, awaits repair.
One Sony unit, about 10 kilos, double deck / CD / amp, display works, STK 403 not available, so an alternate to be done, maybe 7294.
No hurry, I have spare amps.
A neighbor bought a working VCR from a passing scrap merchant for about $3....and I let one system with speakers go, thinking I had too many already.
Best dumpster find I've had was a TEK 2465B that I fished out of the surplus pile at work. It was destined for the dump because it didn't pass calibration. All it needed was new power supply caps. I spent about $15 and a few hours and had (and still have) a nice scope.
The home owner's association in the neighbourhood where I grew up rented two dumpsters every three weeks during the summer. I seem to recall this starting around the time I was in 2nd or 3rd grade and I spent many weekends diving in those dumpsters. I salvaged bicycles (including a BMX bike that I fixed and rode for a while), TV sets, console radios, etc. Most of it was gutted for the parts and the chassis put back in the dumpster. I spent hours de-soldering and sorting parts. Good times... 🙂
I also give away quite a bit of very usable stuff. I recently moved and the pair of Dali 3A speakers I'd had since college weren't going to move with me this time. I haven't used them since college, so it was time for them to go. I put them in the back alley with a FREE sign on them and announced them in a local Facebook group. They were gone within an hour. I gave my perfectly good 27" CRT TV away that way too when a friend of mine gave me her 42" flatscreen TV.
Tom
The home owner's association in the neighbourhood where I grew up rented two dumpsters every three weeks during the summer. I seem to recall this starting around the time I was in 2nd or 3rd grade and I spent many weekends diving in those dumpsters. I salvaged bicycles (including a BMX bike that I fixed and rode for a while), TV sets, console radios, etc. Most of it was gutted for the parts and the chassis put back in the dumpster. I spent hours de-soldering and sorting parts. Good times... 🙂
I also give away quite a bit of very usable stuff. I recently moved and the pair of Dali 3A speakers I'd had since college weren't going to move with me this time. I haven't used them since college, so it was time for them to go. I put them in the back alley with a FREE sign on them and announced them in a local Facebook group. They were gone within an hour. I gave my perfectly good 27" CRT TV away that way too when a friend of mine gave me her 42" flatscreen TV.
Tom
A friend of mine found a pair of Quad IIs in a cellar that were abandoned and needed some attention. He took them home with the intention of fixing them up, but then realized he didn’t have the time so gave them to me.