Uses for old electronics?

[lalahsghost]

Do you have old electronics and are trying to justify keeping them or throwing them away? Don't know what to do with it even after asking the googles? I am in this predicament and I know some others may be also... Have this be the "Ask Mecha-Nancy:" section, and tell us what you have and we will tell you what you could do with it...

Me: I have an old VHS camcorder that the battery pack is gone, but is powered by cord only... I want to try to find something to do with it, even if it means taking parts from it or making it into some kinda-franken project... (NO NOT THAT KIND OF FRANKEN....)

Any suggestions?

[Yuusha Tokkyu Might Gaine]

I still have my old GBA SP kicking around somewhere, my old game cube too

[V2Buster]

Me: I have an old VHS camcorder that the battery pack is gone, but is powered by cord only... I want to try to find something to do with it, even if it means taking parts from it or making it into some kinda-franken project... (NO NOT THAT KIND OF FRANKEN....)

Any suggestions?

Well, I guess if you get a Composite Video to USB box you could set yourself up a low res video in feed.

[lalahsghost]

Me: I have an old VHS camcorder that the battery pack is gone, but is powered by cord only... I want to try to find something to do with it, even if it means taking parts from it or making it into some kinda-franken project... (NO NOT THAT KIND OF FRANKEN....)

Any suggestions?

Well, I guess if you get a Composite Video to USB box you could set yourself up a low res video in feed.

+1 I have a TV-in pc-mcia card for my laptop! Brilliant!

For the advance SP, + Gamecube - Donate to a youth center, or sell ands try to make a bit of cash out of it?
http://www.instructables.com/id/Charge- ... ve-it-plu/
Badass, but difficult - http://www.instructables.com/id/E9IWTXH39KEP286P4L/

[Yuusha Tokkyu Might Gaine]

Yeah, I thought of selling my gamecube, but I could only get a messly 15 bucks for it. 30 all together because I also got the Gameboy player thing *Sigh*

It really dose seem pointless in having it though, seeing as how I have my Wii.

[quasadra]

i still have a working PS1 and a sony discman stow away somewhere in my room...

i guess i will take lalahghost's advice and donate them somewhere. since i have a PS2, PS3 and PSP now. but man, 90% of my eletronic gear comes from Sony...

[Toxicity]

Sony electronics never cease to amaze me. I have a lot of their stuff as well, and i havent been dissapointed yet. My stereo is sony, and it stopped working after i spilled a drink on it a while back, so my sister and i pulled the thing apart to get a CD i had left in it. We half assed the rebuilding, and half of the screws that should be inside it somewhere are sitting in the groove of the casette deck buttons. It turns out that there was nothing wrong with the stereo itself, it was just the outlet it was plugged into, and the thing works better than ever.

I also have a working PS1, but i lost all the cords and controllers.

One more thing i have is an old pair of headphones. These things are indestructible. I found them in a ditch in a park a million years ago and claimed them. Since then, pretty much everything except the actual speakers and the the plastic rod that goes around the back of ur head has fallen off, but those things still have the best sound quality ive ever heard out of that type of headphone.

My parents have an old casette tape camcorder. I swear that thing is as old as i am, but it still works just as well as it did when it was new. The only problem we have is finding tapes for it.

[Sleepneeded127]

^^^ i agree with sony i still have a 1st gen sony walkman CD player and it still works. this thing was left out side in the middle of a bad thunder storm sitting on an air-conditioner. all i had to do to get it to work is let it dry out. but now i have little need for it

[Areku]

Wow, my experience with Sony products is the exact opposite, I avoid them like the plague now. It seems they always disintegrate 1 week after the warranty expires, and I'm unable to repair them. The only exception to this is my PS2; I've lost 2 shelf sound systems, 3 sets of headphones (this probably isn't Sony's fault, my headphones get used heavily), 3 TVs, 2 VCRs, 3 DVD players, 1 portable CD player, and 3 alarm clocks, and all but one TV broke permanently right after the warranty expired (that TV made it a solid 3 months after the warranty). I've repaired vacuums, TVs, DVD players, CD players, VCRs, computers and laptops, and I've only been able to save that TV I mentioned. Everything else was either gone or I couldn't even find an internal fault. My PS2 Slim has been alive and well for 4 years now, and I'm hoping it stays that way, but I stay away from Sony now.

I tend to stick to Toshiba, Sharp, and Nintendo. My primary laptop, a Toshiba Satellite, is 3.5 years old and has been running nearly-constantly from day one and has had zero problems. I've even been able to keep it up to date with new RAM and processors. And I swear, Nintendo builds maintenance nano-machines into all their products. My room-mate once dropped his DS on it's side into a puddle on a rainy day; the shoulder button popped out, water got into the outer edges of the screen and into the game slot, and he was certain it was trashed. I popped the button back into place, and it worked just like new. When my room-mate went to play it the next morning, the water marks on the inside of the screen were gone, and the only evidence of the previous day were a few small scratches near the shoulder button. I've had similar successes with my GameCube, which took a tumble down a flight of concrete stairs, and my brother spilled orange juice inside a running N64's game slot. Heck, my NES still works perfectly, I rarely even have to blow on the cartridges.

[Zeonic Glory]

Nintendos are indeed invincible. My friend threw his in a lake and it worked fine after drying off.

[Wedge14]

Me and my father are avid junk collectors.

I recently cleaned out my bedroom, and the pure amount of junk i found is insane. Let me just give you a list of the crap i threw out and pawned off my friends.

2X Betamax recorders
1 Betamax VTR
2x VHS Camcorders
2x VCD players (one was a karaoke machine)
1 S-Video Camcorder
mountains of speakers.
3 busted turntables
1 Apple G3
1 Imac
A bunch of 90s and 80s home entertainment crap, like cassette players old recievers and what not, which would be pointless in listing, but there was around 16 of them, and all stacked together they were over 8 feet tall.
A buttload of speakers.

I must admit, it pained me dearly to toss this stuff away and give it to my friends. But I really need to get my closet back. Plus if there was ever and earthquake I would've surely died.

[Zeonic Glory]

Me and my father are avid junk collectors.

I recently cleaned out my bedroom, and the pure amount of junk i found is insane. Let me just give you a list of the crap i threw out and pawned off my friends.

2X Betamax recorders
1 Betamax VTR
2x VHS Camcorders
2x VCD players (one was a karaoke machine)
1 S-Video Camcorder
mountains of speakers.
3 busted turntables
1 Apple G3
1 Imac
A bunch of 90s and 80s home entertainment crap, like cassette players old recievers and what not, which would be pointless in listing, but there was around 16 of them, and all stacked together they were over 8 feet tall.
A buttload of speakers.

I must admit, it pained me dearly to toss this stuff away and give it to my friends. But I really need to get my closet back. Plus if there was ever and earthquake I would've surely died.

How much did you make for all of that?

[Wedge14]

Not a single penny. Gave most of it away and what i couldn't give away i simply threw away.

Alot of it was from a hospital i used to work at. They were just tossing the stuff too. So i acquired it for free.

Also I don't know why I put S-Video camcorder I meant VHS-C camcorder :S

[lalahsghost]

Is going "Office Space" on old appliances an option, or are people too green these days? (NO ONE on my fucking campus has seen office space and it dearly pisses me off...)

[ShadowCell]

Think of it in ancient military terms. You could just kill all your prisoners and the women and children of the conquered lands, but why do that when you can sell them into slavery and score some cash?

[teslashark]

I'd rather sell my old 286 computer to a museum or a colloectror. My famaly alsiob have a blact-white TV and an 20-old fridge(we use it as a closet now)ALL IN FULLY USEABLE CONDITIONS!

[Wedge14]

Is going "Office Space" on old appliances an option, or are people too green these days? (NO ONE on my ZOINKS campus has seen office space and it dearly pisses me off...)

Too bad it isn't more 'politically correct' to go "Office Space" on lackluster employees.

Think of it in ancient military terms. You could just kill all your prisoners and the women and children of the conquered lands, but why do that when you can sell them into slavery and score some cash?

“The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears, and to gather into your bosom his wives and daughters.”

[G.Squirrel]

(NO ONE on my ZOINKS campus has seen office space and it dearly pisses me off...)

Are you really that angry over it? It's still a cult film, it shouldn't be too surprising that very few people have seen it.


Anyway, what one of my friends is doing with all of his old computers is to install and run Folding@home until he can find a buyer.

[Areku]

“The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears, and to gather into your bosom his wives and daughters.”

Sun Tzu disagrees with this, and would probably begrudgingly agree with ShadowCell.

[G-Slayer]

I've got a SNES that I don't play with anymore; I plan to sell it on eBay somewhere down the road. I even have a game in it's original box! I've also got a Wilson cassette player (the guys that make sports gear); a Sony recorder and CD Player that I almost never use; a Fujifilm digital camera that I haven't used since its data card filled up; a cordless phone that stopped working but is still hooked up; the remote for my Zenith and Sony color TV (I've got Time Warner so I don't use those); a kid's caculator that's been lying around for ages; and 3 pocket games from cereal boxes, which I played with until I bought my DS.