When my son was leaving Williams Sonoma for a new job he fished out perfectly good Le Creuset cookware from the bin. We have a huge pot for cassoulet! The tagine went to goodwill
I might have put tubes in a big slingshot and fired them against a concrete wall or used them for close range target practice......but they were 6AL5's and I had about 2000 of them, all used.
You might have the only dumpster dive certificate ever. Awsome tube find. Some of those old tubes are rare and expensive, ie. Russian Military. Pick On!
I loved music since I was a baby. My parents didn’t!!! so we only had an am radio to listen to the Detroit Tigers ONLY.
when I was walking home from 8th grade class I found a stand up console with a turn table and AM/FM radio. I dragged it home but It didn’t work.
there was a TV repair shop near school so after school the next day I went in and explained what I had.
the guy showed me what a tube looked like and told me to bring him all the tubes from the console.
I brought them all in the next day and two of them were bad. He gave me two tubes and didn’t charge me a dime.
I'm 66 years old now and last weekend I helped my daughter and her husband move into there new house and the next morning we sat around drinking coffee and listening to NPR on the console.
look to the left of this pan pic of my daughter’s new house.
when I was walking home from 8th grade class I found a stand up console with a turn table and AM/FM radio. I dragged it home but It didn’t work.
there was a TV repair shop near school so after school the next day I went in and explained what I had.
the guy showed me what a tube looked like and told me to bring him all the tubes from the console.
I brought them all in the next day and two of them were bad. He gave me two tubes and didn’t charge me a dime.
I'm 66 years old now and last weekend I helped my daughter and her husband move into there new house and the next morning we sat around drinking coffee and listening to NPR on the console.
look to the left of this pan pic of my daughter’s new house.
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Great memories I'm sure. Lucky to own such a nice home. They are getting out of reach for so many. Enjoy it!
If flea markets count, I should also mention the big box with second-hand valves that I once bought for only 1 euro. Mostly European television valves, but also some popular audio types: several EF86, EF80, ECC83 and even E88CC and E188CC valves. More than enough for a valve phono amplifier and a valve DAC, except its voltage reference. My turntable (Marantz TT4000 direct drive turntable) came from another flea market.
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Heh. For me it was an electronics/electrical kit that my uncle gave me at age 4 or so that started it. It had a battery, some switches, bells, buzzers, lights, etc. that I could do things with by flipping the switches and pushing a morse key. Then the paperclip met the outlet. Then my uncle gave me another kit. This one had a transistor controlling an incandescent bulb. The base of the transistor could be connected to various points either with a fixed resistor (4.7 kΩ, 1/2 W) or an LDR to make the bulb glow with varying intensity. I think this was around the time I was in 2nd grade.
My early experiments mostly revolved around exploring the power limitations of resistors (i.e., using a battery to let the magic smoke out). I quickly found this was a very fast way to drain batteries and I didn't have much money. So I started building power supplies from junk parts. This got me into circuit design. I was doing heat sink thermal math and chassis building before I entered 5th grade. Fun times.
Tom
Thanks. All found curbside, did not need to dive anywhere... 🙂
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Haven't had to dumpster dive but following the same principle, recuperated a lot of gear put away on the sidewalk near my place: audio amplifiers, TVs, Karaoke Machines, Microwave ovens, printers, speakers, etc...
I use the parts for experiments. Sometimes the chassis and transformers are good enough for re-use, connectors as well - plenty of motors, cables and wires, more components than I would buy.
Sometimes, some parts are good enough to put in a build that will last.
The neighbouring computer repair centre would never repair the PSUs nor the CD/DVD/Blu-Ray drives, nor the motherboards, so I have plenty of those for free. Unfortunately, they're now closed.
This sure came in handy when prices started to rocket sky-high.
I use the parts for experiments. Sometimes the chassis and transformers are good enough for re-use, connectors as well - plenty of motors, cables and wires, more components than I would buy.
Sometimes, some parts are good enough to put in a build that will last.
The neighbouring computer repair centre would never repair the PSUs nor the CD/DVD/Blu-Ray drives, nor the motherboards, so I have plenty of those for free. Unfortunately, they're now closed.
This sure came in handy when prices started to rocket sky-high.
Ha, interesting!
I was still on all fours when I recuperated a hairpin underneath the bed, crawled to the wall and found a perfect pair of holes to stick it into. I clearly remember my intention to 'repair the house'. Instant blackout of lights, my hands' skin turned black. It was like the house was doing a handshake. Saved by tripping fuses.
Last time I spoke to my father he said I must have been less than a year and a half.
He doesn't remember the physical trashing he gave me right after that. In fact, he doesn't even remember being there that day.
I do. Could have died twice that same day, within 5 minutes, as a baby. Mains were 240V at that place and time.
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I got a pair of Rogers at a Friday yard sale for ... I'm sure it was <$50. Tag on them said "Old but sound great". I thought, "I bet they do". An hour late to work that day!
They're in Australia now.
Sounds very familiar. I got an electronics kit from an uncle when I was nine. It was a Philips kit from the EE2000 series. It had a BC238 and a BC158 if I remember well, and a lamp, switches, an LDR, resistors, capacitors and two 4.5 V batteries. It came with an instruction manual in which electrons were represented as little circular objects with a face that could roll through a wire.
I must have been 10 or 11 when I intentionally connected myself to the 220 V mains because I was curious what an electric shock would feel like. At first I only contacted the live wire and hardly felt anything, but that changed when I also contacted the neutral. It was one of the stupidest things I've ever done.
It was almost certainly an EE2040 kit. My parents later gave me an EE2003, with which you could make radios! The medium wave radio (straight receiver with a reflex circuit) worked fine, but I never got the FM radio to work, probably because I didn't realize you had to exactly follow the recommended wiring pattern because of the relatively high frequencies.
I had a similar electronics learning lab as a kid. Each component was on a paper carrier, with little studs that plugged into perforations in a pnenolic board and screw terminals. When the batteries ran short, I thought Dad's 6V car battery charger would certainly power it. All that did was make one of the transistor leads glow red hot... At the time, I didnt grasp any of it, particularly current.
That was my motivation, methodology, and experience exactly, except I was maybe 6-7 years old. On 220 V mains as well. And it was definitely one of those, "Wow! That hurt. That was dumb." types of experiences.
On the kit side, I also had the Gakken kit. I didn't find it particularly useful for learning but some of the experiments were pretty neat.
Tom
Yeah
Makes you wonder .. some people just don’t know what they’ve got.
These days it’s not hard to google..
I’m sure to some ears they sound pretty ordinary or they don’t have the equipment to do than justice.
mine sounded odd for a while.. but free a few days improved.
I wonder if ls3/5a’s need to be re run in if they’ve been sitting for a while.
Cheers
G
One of our condo complex dumpsters is near my parking space, so I find things once in a while, such as:
Dynaco A10 speakers with black ash wood cabinets, screw terminals, and wall hanger hardware on the back. One minor scratch. The Dynacos are smooth and warm, but do not have not enough high end for my ears. They were powered by another dumpster find: a Sony 920 AV receiver. The Dynacos and Sony were used as my computer sound system.
My previous computer monitor, a twelve year old 32 inch 1080p Samsung TV, was also from the dumpster. It just died after five years of faithful service. Previously, I had a 23” monitor. What a difference a big monitor makes.
My Pioneer Elite 50” plasma TV was found sitting next to the dumpster. Too heavy, at 95 pounds, to be thrown in. Next to it was an Onkyo 608 receiver. Both were in excellent condition, and are now used in my living room system.
Infinity Reference 2 two-way speakers, which I found in the dumpster, had rotted foam surrounds on the 10 inch woofers. I replaced them, but they still have weak bass below 50 hertz.
A rescued pair of slim Cambridge Soundworks Ensemble 1 woofer boxes (8” woofers with rubber surrounds in slim cabinets) sit under my desk. They are wired in parallel with JBL ES 30 speakers, which I now use as computer speakers. Since the Ensembles are much less efficient than the JBLs, the Ensembles do not dominate the sound. The Ensembles fill in the low end very nicely. The brightness of the JBLs sounds toned down now. Being under the desk, the Ensemble woofers do not mess up the imaging of the JBLs. Everything sounds bigger.
A Cambridge Soundworks CD radio with a woofer in the bottom sits by my bedside. Another dumpster find. Good reception. Very enjoyable sound.
A couple of nice Yamaha receivers were found in the dumpster, but they did not have HDMI. Friends took them.
One pair of 30” metal speaker stands and one set of 24” wood speaker stands came from the dumpster. Rescued wood stools also served as speaker stands for a while. The stands allowed me to experiment with speaker height.
A Sony CD changer, which was thrown out, has been very reliable for six years. A Dual 1229 turntable was found in the dumpster. It works.
A very nice Asus router was found next to the dumpster. It was missing 2 of its 4 antennas. $10 for 2 antennas, and now I have a stronger wi-fi signal and a much faster router than before.
My Blu-Ray players with streaming apps were found in the dumpster. One had a cut AC cord, so I spliced one onto it, and it worked.
A rescued 46” Samsung smart TV kept turning off every couple of hours after I brought it inside. That is probably why it was thrown out. After hours of internet research, I read that it repeatedly turned off without warning when it was time for a firmware update for that model. Insane. There was nothing else wrong with it.
Unplugging the W-Fi circuit board in the back, and using an ethernet cable, made it work just fine. It serves as a bedroom TV.
Half of the electronics I found did not have remote controls with them. Thank goodness for programmable Harmony remote controls.
I have given friends various computers, DVD players, speakers, and monitors which I found in the dumpster.
When the city banned smoking inside the building where I lived, the smoking crowd started hanging out in a reserved area near the dumpster. They noticed me, and two other residents, dumpster diving all the time. Then the smokers started dumpster diving. Then new residents joined in because of the good furniture that appeared occasionally.
So now there is not as much good stuff in the dumpster.
But since I am retired and living on Social Security, I am happy with and really appreciate my finds.
Dynaco A10 speakers with black ash wood cabinets, screw terminals, and wall hanger hardware on the back. One minor scratch. The Dynacos are smooth and warm, but do not have not enough high end for my ears. They were powered by another dumpster find: a Sony 920 AV receiver. The Dynacos and Sony were used as my computer sound system.
My previous computer monitor, a twelve year old 32 inch 1080p Samsung TV, was also from the dumpster. It just died after five years of faithful service. Previously, I had a 23” monitor. What a difference a big monitor makes.
My Pioneer Elite 50” plasma TV was found sitting next to the dumpster. Too heavy, at 95 pounds, to be thrown in. Next to it was an Onkyo 608 receiver. Both were in excellent condition, and are now used in my living room system.
Infinity Reference 2 two-way speakers, which I found in the dumpster, had rotted foam surrounds on the 10 inch woofers. I replaced them, but they still have weak bass below 50 hertz.
A rescued pair of slim Cambridge Soundworks Ensemble 1 woofer boxes (8” woofers with rubber surrounds in slim cabinets) sit under my desk. They are wired in parallel with JBL ES 30 speakers, which I now use as computer speakers. Since the Ensembles are much less efficient than the JBLs, the Ensembles do not dominate the sound. The Ensembles fill in the low end very nicely. The brightness of the JBLs sounds toned down now. Being under the desk, the Ensemble woofers do not mess up the imaging of the JBLs. Everything sounds bigger.
A Cambridge Soundworks CD radio with a woofer in the bottom sits by my bedside. Another dumpster find. Good reception. Very enjoyable sound.
A couple of nice Yamaha receivers were found in the dumpster, but they did not have HDMI. Friends took them.
One pair of 30” metal speaker stands and one set of 24” wood speaker stands came from the dumpster. Rescued wood stools also served as speaker stands for a while. The stands allowed me to experiment with speaker height.
A Sony CD changer, which was thrown out, has been very reliable for six years. A Dual 1229 turntable was found in the dumpster. It works.
A very nice Asus router was found next to the dumpster. It was missing 2 of its 4 antennas. $10 for 2 antennas, and now I have a stronger wi-fi signal and a much faster router than before.
My Blu-Ray players with streaming apps were found in the dumpster. One had a cut AC cord, so I spliced one onto it, and it worked.
A rescued 46” Samsung smart TV kept turning off every couple of hours after I brought it inside. That is probably why it was thrown out. After hours of internet research, I read that it repeatedly turned off without warning when it was time for a firmware update for that model. Insane. There was nothing else wrong with it.
Unplugging the W-Fi circuit board in the back, and using an ethernet cable, made it work just fine. It serves as a bedroom TV.
Half of the electronics I found did not have remote controls with them. Thank goodness for programmable Harmony remote controls.
I have given friends various computers, DVD players, speakers, and monitors which I found in the dumpster.
When the city banned smoking inside the building where I lived, the smoking crowd started hanging out in a reserved area near the dumpster. They noticed me, and two other residents, dumpster diving all the time. Then the smokers started dumpster diving. Then new residents joined in because of the good furniture that appeared occasionally.
So now there is not as much good stuff in the dumpster.
But since I am retired and living on Social Security, I am happy with and really appreciate my finds.
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