Taking Things Apart.
Martin_H
Posts: 4,051
As a kid I took things apart and it really annoyed my parents. Now I never broke this habit, but as an adult I don't get grief for it anymore. So I take apart printers, scanners, watches, vcr's and so forth. Often the parts just collect dust, but it is neat to see what is inside.
Tonight I took apart a CD ROM and floppy drive. There's some good small DC motors, gears, and rods. But there were some really small stepper motors that were weird. I'm used to seeing an even number of wires, but one of them had 11 wires coming out of it. So I have no idea what kind of a stepper it was.
Tonight I took apart a CD ROM and floppy drive. There's some good small DC motors, gears, and rods. But there were some really small stepper motors that were weird. I'm used to seeing an even number of wires, but one of them had 11 wires coming out of it. So I have no idea what kind of a stepper it was.
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Since then I have taken apart everything I can get my hands on.
And if something breaks and is beyond repair, I never just throw it away... It first goes to the "operating room" for a complete "autopsy"!
Me too!!!
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Nothing gets into the trash with out an autopsy first if it was electronic based.
I was quite surprised when a good Taiwanese friend and FAA certified mechanic had never considered taking much of anything apart. He was awed when I disassembled a small DC motor in front of him. This is an odd feature of Asian scholarship, the engineers know everything in the book, but are often unwilling to get involved in assembly and repair.
Of course this can be taken to what seems to be extremes.
I completely took apart a 1953 Chevy Pickup truck for the fun of it and sold the parts for more that the worth of the truck. I even cut the frame in half and put the bed over the front axle and had a trailer from what was left. The rear end was sold off and heavier anyway.
And I have taken a few houses completely apart - it is called demolition. But you do learn a lot about dry rot and termite repair. Eventually, I got into moving and lifting houses. You can do quite well by buying a small house on a bad foundation and lifting the house 8 feet into the air, then putting a good foundation under it and doubling the space.
It all starts with taking things apart. Tool rental agencies have been very empowering and made life a great adventure.
I do remember on Christmas morning where Santa had brought me a complete drum set, but sized down for a toddler. I was asked to take it outside as it was noisy. I played it for about 20 minutes and then took it completely apart. My dad was delighted and at the time I didn't really understand why. After all I had destroyed my Christmas present in less than 6 hours from receiving it.
I hate to think what they take apart...
I used to be afraid to disassemble things, because I didn't know if I'd break them, but now, my motto is, don't toss it until you've taken it apart, you just might find something useful, and maybe even manage to fix it instead.
I've managed to fix leapsters, vcrs, various external speech synthesizers, adaptive equipment for the blind (which is rediculously priced, so never toss that stuff), toaster ovens, and various other things that were set for tossing, have all made it back into working order, just because I felt it a waste to toss it, and actually managed to get them working again. Admittedly, most of the stuff was minor things, but still, it kept it out of the landfill for a bit longer, in my book, that's a win.
Since you already took the CDROM apart, this thread might interest you.
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?128271-My-New-Project-And-A-Quest-For-Sound
Now, that I'm 42 and almost fully grown....I still take apart many of my toys. A few years ago I bought a new sport bike. Within in the first two weeks I had it stripped down pretty much to the frame. It was a bit scary to have a $12,000 bike in about 500 pieces, but I managed to make the modifications I wanted and only had a few parts that were left over lol
When I was a kid, it was mostly just to see how things worked. Now its more fun to see how I can make them better, or change them to do what I want them to do, Not what some lawyer limits the company to let the thing do.
Are the hard drive platters worth saving? or would it be better to flake off the coating and keep it aside for recycle?
I recently have taken apart a hand crank generator flashlight and a CD drive. I figured out that I can make a generator from the gears and motor from the cd drive. The tough part was matching the gears together to step up the speed. having previously taken apart a servo, the hand crank generator can also be used for one of those with an H-Bridge
At that point, one begins to realize that go assembly takes patience and a lot more time that disassembly.
I do more than my fair share of repairs. If anyone breaks something it seems like the item is on my workbench in short order.
About 15 years ago a mainframe computer disk drive showed up at the local Goodwill store. Circa 1975, rated 80 megabytes with layer-cake platters (none of which came with it). The metal plate by the power hookup said it needed 220VAC at 35 amps. Priced to go at $250. It sat there for a whole year and then, just after New Year's, the $250 was crossed out and written in red was SALE: $15. I walked up to the front desk, plonked down my $15, and headed off to UHAUL to rent a trailer.
I spent the next two days taking it apart and I still have many treasures from that delightfully destructive romp. My electronics work table is made from the steel side panels. I have the massive voice coil magnet on display in my living room; it's an impressive 70 lb cylinder. I managed to pry the inner core / back end cap away from the outer cylinder with the magnets by dropping it onto a post, and inverted it so the copper-tipped inner cylinder thrusts upward from the silver base. Every tool I used to work on it is now magnetic.
I of course got dozens of mostly useless circuit boards populated with 7400 series logic, massive connectors for hooking up to the mainframe, a 4 square foot backplane that alas turned out to be filled gold rather than solid (drat!), a 100 lb transformer that would probably make a decent basis for a homemade welding machine, a 2 horsepower 3 phase motor which I traded a motor shop for a 110V single-phase job I could use for a lapidary project, and some electrolytic capacitors big enough to run small electric motors for minutes at a time on a charge.
The 3 inch diameter voice coil drove a rail-mounted head assembly 6 inches high with massive tweezer-like head mounts that would engage the multiple platters of the layer cake disk; this ran on ball bearings on a machined assembly of awesome mechanical precision. (I am still ticked that my wife got a mutual friend to help "clear the garage" and threw it out one day, but I can't honestly say I would have ever used it for anything.) In order to find the track there was an etched glass linear quadrature optical position sensor; I still have the glass mask which is a work of art.
And when it was all over I had a welded steel frame on massive rollers, which I used as the base for a flat lap project that didn't quite work out, but I still have it because I'll definitely use it for something eventually. That's something even my wife realizes is way too valuable to toss.
So far $15 plus $35 trailer rental, I got a couple of dozen hours of fantastic entertainment and some cool souvenirs. Money well spent, I say.
I second that. :-)
Those mainframe computer rooms would have computer operators. And certain programmers liked to sometimes play pranks on the late night computer operator who would be there all alone...
Those disk drives were the size of a dishwasher, were on wheels, and had long cords so they could be rolled out for servicing. I read a tale of a programmer who wrote a program to make the disk drive arm go back and forth with just the right timing to make the entire disk drive roll forward and into the back of the chair where the computer operator was sitting. I guess they had one spooked late night computer operator!
Also they had very fast line printers which had that wide continuous feed computer paper in them. I read where one programmer (picking on the late night computer operator again) would send a file of "form feeds" to that printer. Then paper would go flying into the air from that printer...
move around with diagnostic routines. You could also make the 9 track tape drives make a variety
Of sounds....imagine excited squirrels in a Star Wars battle.
All I can say is that when they get caught, they are strongly discouraged from continuing.
Not that I would know anything about it, or all those cats...
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/rp04.html
Souvenirs!