- Joined
- Oct 24, 2009
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Hopefully exchanging ideas we get can spark creativity in others. How many of you out there have torn apart an RC car to get the servo systems out? used a CPU heat sink to cool a laser? used a cell phone charger to power a laser? set your wife's cut crystal on a record player and shined a pointer at it? emptied out an old printer power supply just to use the plastic box? I'll start with a list of junk you should never ignore when available.
Broken copy machines = 5 mirrors, lenses, stepping motors, solid state relays, power supplies, etc..
broken computer scanners = mirrors
broken projection tv's - 90's vintage = huge first surface mirror, huge Fresnel lens
laser printers = scanning mirrors
BMX bicycles = Billet aluminum parts
broken gas lasers = a cool housing for your diode project. (broken HeNe lasers are cheap)
broken 12 volt power tools = Lithium battery and charger
So what clever ideas does everyone have??
Here I used a toy motor, a tripod bar for mounting photography flash boxes, an aluminum heat sink plate taken from an old computer power supply and a hard drive magnet harvested from a broken hard drive. the end result is quite nice, and (laser excluded) have under 20 bucks spent.... The plastic plate that the power supply is attached to was the bottom of an old Kodak printer, I jig sawed it off because it had a 1/4-20 journal (female thread) for tripod mounting. (free)
Broken copy machines = 5 mirrors, lenses, stepping motors, solid state relays, power supplies, etc..
broken computer scanners = mirrors
broken projection tv's - 90's vintage = huge first surface mirror, huge Fresnel lens
laser printers = scanning mirrors
BMX bicycles = Billet aluminum parts
broken gas lasers = a cool housing for your diode project. (broken HeNe lasers are cheap)
broken 12 volt power tools = Lithium battery and charger
So what clever ideas does everyone have??
Here I used a toy motor, a tripod bar for mounting photography flash boxes, an aluminum heat sink plate taken from an old computer power supply and a hard drive magnet harvested from a broken hard drive. the end result is quite nice, and (laser excluded) have under 20 bucks spent.... The plastic plate that the power supply is attached to was the bottom of an old Kodak printer, I jig sawed it off because it had a 1/4-20 journal (female thread) for tripod mounting. (free)