Laser Printer Destructive Tear-Down
localroger
Posts: 3,452
OK I had a Brother HL-2140 laser printer go out, and after replacing it did what any self-respecting hackerish first edition Robot Builder's Bonanza owning sort of person would do and I took it apart.
Anyone else did this sort of thing lately?
I was left with a truly impressive collection of useless un-repurposable molded parts. The thing had exactly one proper switch, the on-off switch. Everything else -- and there was a lot of this, it being a fairly complex mechanical device -- was accomplished with custom bent spring metal often twisting around weird paths embedded in the plastic understructure. There was exactly one motor, in a very weird form factor with a ribbon connector. There were a couple of solenoids whose plungers mated to unusably weird plastic pieces. There were a couple of opto devices with interesting lenses that I think were used to detect paper presence. And I think the power supply may be salvageable, with +5 and +24 outputs (the latter what the motors and solenoids seem to be rated for) and what I'm fairly sure is a logic-level switched mains output through a mechanical relay to power the heater element.
On the one hand kind of thin pickings for a thing that had so much mechanical stuff going on inside, but on the other hand I guess that's how they were able to make a brazilion of them and sell me one for $100.
Anyone else did this sort of thing lately?
I was left with a truly impressive collection of useless un-repurposable molded parts. The thing had exactly one proper switch, the on-off switch. Everything else -- and there was a lot of this, it being a fairly complex mechanical device -- was accomplished with custom bent spring metal often twisting around weird paths embedded in the plastic understructure. There was exactly one motor, in a very weird form factor with a ribbon connector. There were a couple of solenoids whose plungers mated to unusably weird plastic pieces. There were a couple of opto devices with interesting lenses that I think were used to detect paper presence. And I think the power supply may be salvageable, with +5 and +24 outputs (the latter what the motors and solenoids seem to be rated for) and what I'm fairly sure is a logic-level switched mains output through a mechanical relay to power the heater element.
On the one hand kind of thin pickings for a thing that had so much mechanical stuff going on inside, but on the other hand I guess that's how they were able to make a brazilion of them and sell me one for $100.
Comments
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/136508-Taking-Things-Apart.
It's a disease.
-Phil
Recently, as noted, if you tear down a product you find there is nothing in it.
Some I can get going again and donate those to people that need a printer or scanner. Others will be for parts. Want to build at the minum a 3D router to a 3D printer ( either filament or dust). Have enough small embedded processor to do the job from very accident 6800 to Raspberry Pi's/ Propeller chips.
The more modern the less generic parts and more custom designs and simplifications it has.
Not only do they have motors, but the printhead is moved with a worm-gear type mechanism, so there's other goodies, too.
I also have a big crate of 5.25" and 3.5" diskette drives that are destined for recycling...
(Mostly the head-positioning motor that's of interest)
Anyone want an oC
It all started with the oil gauge going whacko and I presumed that I had spun a main bearing. Nope, when I finally got the oil pan off, the bearings were fine. I just had a gunked up oil pressure sensor.....
I also had a lot of fun lift and moving big things.... whole houses, including a few log cabins.
The biggest hole I ever helped dig was the Moscone Center expansion in San Francisco.
The image of heater dumpster diving!
I want to recycle the plastic into filament for printing. It would certain open up a lot of space in the museum section of the lab.
Correction, I should have said "skip", not quite the same as a dumpster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skip_(container)
Luckily there are no such images:)
I can't find any recycling marks but it wouldn't surprise me if the plastic can be re-melted.
But the problem is that one pot just won't solve the problem. You need a separate one for each variety of plastic and a specific individual approach to melting.
Not all plastics are optimal for 3D printing. And a lot have toxic fumes if mishandled (vinyl is polyvinyl chloride, so you get hydrochloric acid as a gas. Others might even offer up cyanide gas).
Of course the other alternative is to just convert it all to fuel, but it is the same thing again with fumes --- nasty, nasty stuff in many cases.
I guess we should have an 'un-use-able parts ratio' created to index what you have when whatever turns to junk. It seems that there is this index has been moving further and further away from salvage by individuals and into recycle by experts.
I did manage to salvage a bit of an HP inkjet printer, but I'd have to say I got about 3% of it into being useful for another project -- just the linear slide. Not even the motors have found another application as of yet.