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Old 25th Oct 2020, 1:24 am   #41
ben
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

Living in a city where most of the population live in blocks of flats means that a walk around of an evening or weekend usually yields goodies old and new.

Someone has cleared a flat in our building and as I write, downstairs on the pavement there are chairs, pieces of furniture, kitchen/ household goods like crockery... a 14" LG/Beko silver TV and a 25" Sony (BE3A by the look of it). I would normally have picked up the tellies, but they're nothing special or desirable and I simply have no more room! Though this afternoon some scrappy had had the scan coils out of the 14" set, so as it was already conveniently opened up, I picked up the chassis for parts!

Yesterday there was quite a substantial looking toaster in the recycling bin but couldn't be bothered fishing it out. I also have three nice silver electronic type microwave ovens awaiting attention. All street finds during the previous 18 months.

My last interesting find was a 4 year old Sony smart Tv which just needs a new tuner. Internet bit works brilliantly. Still haven't got round to opening it up!
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Old 25th Oct 2020, 8:47 am   #42
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I'm a compulsive dumpster diver, can't pass a skip without looking in it.
Remember going through the skips back in the 70's at the old Steepletone works and retrieving speakers and cabs.
I've had BBC B's from a couple of skips in the past and countless radios and at one point I used to work next door to a videogames store, the stuff they used to throw away in their rubbish was crazy!! Had many a console and games from it.
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Old 25th Oct 2020, 9:56 am   #43
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We've had quite a few skips down our road the past few months. Nearly all as part of refurbishments, often topped up with junk and rubbish. I did get out 10x 22" long 30mm new decking offcuts. Now on my garage floor laid out like pallets to keep cardboard boxes off the floor.
From same skip some very large plastic 50mm dia flower pots as well, all now in use.

At Pye Telecom depot back in the 80s, the business part (cctv, phones etc) moved out of the building. Being mates, they carefully placed everything in the skip with instructions not to touch until their boss had seen the entire move completed. We obeyed. Then we had a free for all!
My last job, it was eventually all controlled under the weee regs. No skip rummaging at all. However, the weee wheelie bins on the factory floor were sometimes worth a discreet browse at lunchtime! It eventually reached the ridiculous stage of the company paying the weee contractors to remove drums of copper wire that had to be put in their skip!!
Previously, at stocktake, most surplus components and materials were offered to employees as lots in a sealed bid tender, with all money going to the annual nominated local or national charity.
This was all stopped eventually as it was deemed unethical by the "non-uk" company's owners. The reason, i was told, was that an employee being able to buy cheap was seen as being advantageous compared with one who was not interested in bidding!

The RATS rally at Princethorpe usually has a skip overflowing. In the past, I have seen traders having a rake round and retrieving goodies.
Rob
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Old 25th Oct 2020, 10:23 am   #44
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Originally Posted by unitaudio View Post
In the 80's and 90's I used to find useful stuff in skips all the time but nowadays, not so much.
So true, I have saved countless things in the past, but it's rare to find anything interesting now, but it still doesn't stop me looking if a new skip appears. I did save a 1960's HMV reel to reel player/recorder that I was able to find a home for.
Most 1930's houses were I live have been modernised and cleared out by now and all the interesting old stuff long gone.
Not related to radio but I have saved some beautiful Art Deco stain glass windows and a fire place now reinstated into my house from local skips.
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Old 25th Oct 2020, 10:31 am   #45
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I used to work opposite Binatone’s small factory in Stonebridge Park. There was a skip outside permanently and we engineers would pop over there and have a fish round the skip on an almost daily basis. They obviously had the contract to repair some of the Sinclair range and the skip was often filled with items that had been returned under warranty. It seemed us that Binatone didn’t actually repair anything, lots of the items such as their programmable calculator range just had very simple faults like battery connectors etc. I ‘reclaimed’ quite a few and kept them for decades. One was absolutely complete, working and still in its box. I sold it on eBay a few years ago for about £75!

The skip often had a lot of car radio aerials, the electrically operated up and down telescopic ones. Nothing wrong with any of them. We liberated so many that we gave one away to everyone coming through the doors into our technical area!

We were really disappointed when Binatone moved on after a short while.
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Old 25th Oct 2020, 10:53 am   #46
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Back around 1980 the place I worked at had a skip at the back that got picked at all day with a crowd at lunch break.
I had loads of Paramount cinema amplifiers out of it one day. I still have 4 of them.
I was giving them away at the time.
There was a lot of two on sale a few years ago for £1600.
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Old 25th Oct 2020, 12:46 pm   #47
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At the last company I worked for we had an area where equipment and other items to be scrapped were stored. If I spotted anything useful a quick word with the facilities manager and it was mine although he did say send out an email so if anyone else wanted it they had a chance, but usually by the time the email was sent out I was down there picking it up! Some of the items did need some work to bring them back to working order. I got many items of test equipment some of which have been passed on to forum members. Having scrap equipment and other items removed like this saved money as we were being charged about £170 per cubic metre to dispose of electronic scrap.

At a previous company we we using an old signal generator in our EMC test set up while our main generator was away being serviced or calibrated. It developed a fault and was put aside to be scrapped until I enquired about relieving them of it. I was told go see accounts who checked the records and as it was over 10 years old it was written off. All i had to do was get a note saying I was permitted to take it. It came with an HPIB interface and the manuals. Took me about an hour to find and cure the fault.

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Old 25th Oct 2020, 12:52 pm   #48
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

3 AVO valve testers, LCR bridge, several Tektronix 545B type scopes with various plugins, countless other things from the skip at Thorn EMI Automation / Ultra Electronics in Rugeley where I used to work.

A compressor, numerous magnifier lamps, loads of components from the skip where I work now.

Mark

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Old 25th Oct 2020, 2:03 pm   #49
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

I remember Mark Pirate finding two 1980s sets in a skip a few years ago.

The only ones I've seen near me in recent years are too modern & broken looking to salvage.
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Old 25th Oct 2020, 3:04 pm   #50
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Some of the older test gear disposed of at work doesn't go for a repair quote. If it is old and below a certain value it is cheaper (in terms of overall company costs) to write it off on the spot. This means that some gear has a very simple fault or sometimes no fault at all. Perhaps the most amusing fault report was for an old 500MHz 4channel HP/Agilent Infinium scope. The person who condemned it said that the scope fails to boot and hangs during power up. This was enough for a manager to write it off. If they had bothered to read the on screen diagnostics (admittedly there was a whole screen of text to read) they would have seen that it just wanted to have a keyboard prompt.

The keyboard, mouse and all 4 probes were in a pouch on top of the scope! This scope actually made it to the outdoor skip and spent some time there before a colleague spotted it for me. It turned out to have had a complete internal refurb at Agilent with a faster motherboard, processor and other goodies. I now use it as my main digital scope.

Some items of RF test gear I've saved have been very nice indeed. 10-15 years ago the various analysers and signal generators I've saved would have been state of the art. My main spectrum analyser here at home was arguably the very best of its kind on the planet 15 years ago. The repair quote from Keysight was into 5 figures and luckily I was allowed to have it as a BER writeoff a few days before it was transferred from the WEEE cage to the skip.
I did manage to fix it and luckily it didn't need any expensive parts. Just a few poor connections inside!
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Old 25th Oct 2020, 3:57 pm   #51
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

Due to the general use of ebay, I suspect.
Years ago, an old electrical or electronic appliance that the owner no longer wanted was put in a skip if no friend or relative wanted it. Only a small minority of the more valuable items warranted selling perhaps via an advert in the local paper.

These days it is simple to advertise on ebay or similar sites. And of course ebay reaches the entire nation, and even overseas.

Years ago it is likely that someone in Glasgow wanted some obscure article that someone else in London was dumping.
These days it might be listed and sold.
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Old 25th Oct 2020, 4:15 pm   #52
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I did manage to fix it and luckily it didn't need any expensive parts. Just a few poor connections inside!
The biggest and baddest and most expensive pieces of kit get brought down by the smallest and cheapest of parts.

The cost of the item and the standard repair charges (just for looking) intimidates everyone from even thinking of trying themselves.

It leaves the field wide open for anyone prepared to have a go.

David
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Old 25th Oct 2020, 4:39 pm   #53
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

I have also been known to do a bit of skip and bin diving in the past. I try to avoid it these days, although I am in the habit of looking into the electrical recycling skip at our local dumpit site. I thoroughly recommend it if you like trips down memory lane. Loads of stuff that I remember repairing in the past and also the "that's too good to throw away, what were they thinking!". These days I really need to move some stuff onwards to new homes and preferably not to the local recycle skip.
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Old 25th Oct 2020, 5:19 pm   #54
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The WEEE policy at where I work is "take what you like, it costs us to get it removed" and it is part of the "green" agenda, I wonder which one came first?
 
Old 25th Oct 2020, 5:54 pm   #55
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I'm just glad I don't work at a recycling centre or drive a skip truck, the house isn't big enough.
One trip to the recycling centre last year, I was throwing stuff from my trailer into the general waste skip and I spotted a trailer board with good lights.
Mine were very faded, I asked a guy who worked there and he got a long pole and fished it out for me, I was surprised I thought he'd say he wasn't allowed
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Old 25th Oct 2020, 5:55 pm   #56
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I asked a guy who worked there and he got a long pole and fished it out for me
How sensible, 10/10 to him.
 
Old 25th Oct 2020, 6:56 pm   #57
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Years ago as a student in the Midlands I would visit my local recycling centre and come away with piles of VCRs. Loads of Fergusons, Sharps, a few saisho/orions, things like that.
They'd often put them aside, newer ones were available for a fiver and the others at 3 notes. I learned a huge amount working on them, and after belts idlers pinch rollers mode switches etc. were dealt with and a tape path setup, most were fully serviceable and I'd sell them to students (no internet in them days!) at 25 notes a pop. Even had to install one at a rather, erm, insalubrious massage place one time, and they gave me the old top loader it was replacing!

I also picked up the odd portable TV, one long wicker laundry basket full of soul and funk albums for a tenner was another real find!
I always thought it was a shame so few recycling places had a sort of shop like that. None of those near us on Wirral used to, no idea these days.
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Old 25th Oct 2020, 7:00 pm   #58
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

Interesting skippage has certainly declined, for the reasons already cited. You generally don't find fluorescent battens and tubes now, the blanket of 'hazardous waste' fell over them some years ago (micro amounts of mercury obviously, and older capacitors containing PCB's.)

As regards a skip outside B&Q with WEEE lamps in, trust me, you are not missing out on anything by not scavenging them. If the staff have turned them down, they won't be much good!

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Old 25th Oct 2020, 7:19 pm   #59
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I recently rescued an 80's 12" B&W portable Ferguson from being skipped, thought it might be interesting to "play" with.
Put a fuse in the plug switched it on and it works ok, the loop aerial is missing though. I fed it with a tv modulator and a video source.
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Old 25th Oct 2020, 7:45 pm   #60
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When a _company_ is disposing of 'stuff' it gets complex: in times-past I developed a 2-40MHz RF linear-amp on a contract basis - and my client was able to offset pretty-much all the costs of the development work against their corporate taxes.
This was contingent on none of the prototypes/development-units being sold (if a single one of them was sold then the entire R&D tax-offset thing imploded).
I personally 'rendered unusable with a lump-hammer' the first ten prototype amplifiers, with zero regrets.
That seems severe overkill for the purpose, and is still practiced - but for some reason the scrap can actually be sold for recycling, apparently without problems.
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