Making Stuff Out Of Broken Computer Equipment?

Class Act Dynamo writes "Recently, my keyboard stopped working, so I bought a new one (nice cordless number, really excellent). I was about to throw the old keyboard out when I thought it would be interesting to take all the keys out of it and turn them into refrigerator magnets in order to have a simple 'megnetic poetry' type of thing going. As the fumes from the industrial strength glue went to my head during this project, I began to wonder what other types of craft-type projects people had undertaken with their unusable old perpherals and such. Then I began to wonder why there was a purple octopus on my couch. I decided to ask slashdot readers the first of these questions."

RAM Buddies...

[chrispyman]

I distinctly remember seeing someone selling "RAM Buddies" at a local art fair around here awhile ago. They basically took that really old ram chips (the one that used rectangular sockets), bent the pins outward, and stuck eyes on the front and a tail in the back so they kinda resembled little caterpillars.

Use everything!

[Neo's Nemesis]

I use my ex-speaker magnets for finding lost metal items.

My ex-cabinet houses 3 birds.

I use my earlier corrupted HD for slicing soft items after making some big changes in its circuitry.

I have mounted my CDROM's tray on wall, cut out a piece of plastic artistically and now it holds abt 10 pens, a cup of water, and upto 5 CDs, all separately in diff slots.

Re:Fridge Magnets

[xs650]

You could start with "uncopyrightable" but that wouldn't leave many useful letters for additional words.

Maybe you could write something in Welsh with DFJKQSWXYZ. Actually, that looks like the name of a town I drove through in Wales.

Re:Why is there a purple octopus on your couch?

[UserGoogol]

Uh... no. [reference.com]

Re:A Manual Keyboard

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever use a laptop? This feature is on just about every laptop keyboard I've ever seen. The Fn key used to access the virtual keypad is often just below the left shift key. Look closely at the pictures here [toshibakeyboards.com], for example. The virtual keypad is usually around the u-l keys.

The virtual keypad isn't on normal keyboards, for the simple reason that they're far more of a pain in the ass to use than just moving your right hand across to the arrow keys.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:My favorite use for old hardware...

[Sonic McTails]

PC Load Letter: Primary Castette Load Letter Sized Paper .... What, I actually read printer manuals (the HP LaserJet 4 has that same message)

Mame Control Panel

[wackysootroom]

You can wire up a joystick and a few buttons to be used to interface an old keyboard [arcadecontrols.com] into a MAME [mame.net] Machine's arcade control panel.

dead hard drive cases = fine stompbox chassis

[screeble]

Commonsound Collective [commonsound.com] (see 4MS section) has a line of DIY stompbox effects you can build in the privacy of your mad scientist laboratory.

4MS specifies electrical junction boxes as chassis since they are cheap and durable. I've always found them a bit too tall so I use dead hard drives for the chassis instead.

They do require a bit of grinding but the RF shielding seems to be far superior to junction boxes.

I recently pulled an old SCSI drive out of one of 3 dead DG Aviions I have (which make fantastic speaker stands, by the way) and have it all cleaned out to make a Noise Swash.

Noise Swash info [4mspedals.com]

Re:Rip apart the hard drives and take out the magn

[tylernt]

This subject has been visited on Slashdot before [slashdot.org].

Re:Hmmm

[Raptor CK]

The trick is to get the chip with the socket.

You unseat the chip, weave a bent paperclip around the pins, and reseat the chip. providing a loop for a key ring without excessive damage or hassle.

I had a 486 keychain thanks to this method for quite some time. It works even better if you're willing to epoxy the whole thing together, but that's not as much fun for some reason.

Re:Dead HDD magnets

[bigberk]

but it appears some 2003 and 2004 pennies are magnetic (this surprised me)

Based on empirical observations, it seems that Canadian pennies with the letter 'p' under the Queen of England's head are magnetic and other pennies are not. I have yet to find an exception to this!

Re:Why is there a purple octopus on your couch?

[Colonel Cholling]

Steven Pinker argues for "octopuses": "The -us in octopus is not a Latin noun ending that switches to -i in the plural, but the Greek pous (foot). The etymologically defensible octopodes is not an improvement." (Steven Pinker, Words And Rules: The Ingredients of Language, 55.)

Re:Re-use electronic components!

[sploxx]

Uhoh, I did that myself but stopped as I heard how toxic the substances are which will be generated by this process!

Some components (especially older ones, and you're probably desoldering lots of *old* boards) are made flame resistant, and heating them produces really nasty stuff. You aren't heating them with a temperature-controlled soldering iron, you're using an uncontrolled heat gun, mine can melt glass!

I read it in several magazines here in germany. Maybe someone has a link? A quick google turned nothing up.

At least, I would take several precautions, such a doing this outside, wearing a gas mask etc.

Also there's much lead on older boards. 40% in the solder (Sb60Pb).

People already freak out about the lead and, at least here in the EU, lead containing solder will be, IMHO, phased out in 2006. I'm now using more and more lead free solder myself (for the hobby work), but more as a general precaution (it's available and not *too* much more expensive), and, of course, I also solder older boards without worrying too much.
But heating lead very much may produce lead fumes - I do not want to inhale them.

Re:Hard drive magnets a sore subject. Literally...

[MichaelCox_au]

The real danger with strong neodymium magnets is that they are both brittle and extremely magnetic--as a result if you accidently let two of them stick together, they can sometimes attract with such force that they shatter and send thousands of poisonous shards out at high speed. Hence the reason why you should always wear hand and eye protection when handling them. You should also avoid handling them if their protective coatings are broken as the rare-earth metals are extremely toxic and easily absorbed via mucus membranes.

Re:HD Magnets

[macgyvr64]

But aren't coins not affected by magnets?

Re:Wind Chimes

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried making one, but it got really tangled. Also, since the platters are all the same size, there isn't the musical variety I'd expect from a wind chime. Guess I need to salvage some 5.25" hard drives, and some 2.5"ers.

Re:Hmmm

[M. Silver]

I have a 486 keychain (somewhere), but it's a 486 embedded in clear acrylic, no holes drilled in the chip, no socket.

In fact, I used to have a whole box of "broken but pretty components," including a nifty little white IC with gold legs. No idea where it went, unfortunately, as it's been about fifteen years.

Re:My favorite use for old hardware...

[Seekerofknowledge]

Paper Carriage (paper tray) Load Letter (-size paper)

It wants Letter-size paper but maybe it's out or is loaded with legal size, etc.

Re:Why is there a purple octopus on your couch?

[dwillden]

Actually English is the most difficult major language for a non-native to learn on the planet. There are a couple obscure languages that you basically have to learn it as a kid, but of the major languages English is the most difficult.

The militaries Language school, the Defense Language Institute, Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) in Monterey CA uses a five level rating system for languages based on difficulty for a non native to learn. Spanish, French and the other latin based languages are category one. German, it's derivitives, and most of your nordic languages are cat two as well as several other smaller languages, Russian, and all the slavic cyrillic based languages are cat three as well as Korean and Japanese. Arabic, Persian Farsee, Pashtu(Afghanistan), and Chinese are the cat four languages. The school has tried to get whoever makes the decision, to upgrade chinese (both major dialects) to cat five, but laast I heard English is still the only cat five language.

The reason the school wants the upgrade is that it would allow a longer training period. Cat four courses are 1 1/2 years long, a cat five rating would give them a full two years.

Re:Hard drive magnets a sore subject. Literally...

[plover]

Nahh, you don't need a special screwdriver. There are lots of alternatives.

For one, you can take a moto-tool and cut a straight slot in the head of the screw, then use a flat screwdriver in your new slot to remove it. This is a lot of work but on a frozen screw it's effective.

For another, you can usually grab the sides of the screw head in a pair of needlenose pliers and rotate it out. This is especially true of the hard drive lids, and is my preferred method (since I carry a needlenose on my belt.)

For another, you can sometimes wedge a flat bladed screwdriver right in between the points of the star shaped head (tipped at the appropriate angle). If the screw isn't extremely tight, this is fastest, but you run the risk of damaging the screwdriver if it is tight.

I typically loosen all the screws with the pliers first, then spin them out with a flat blade.

Finally, remember that it's just a broken old IBM DeathStar drive. You don't have to be kind to all the pieces. Use a screwdriver as a pry bar and separate the sheet-metal lid from the aluminum drive housing. Make a hole big enough for a pair of pliers to grab it and the lid will tear out of the way fairly easily. But don't be too rough or you'll shatter the disc platters and then have lots of nasty glass shards to deal with.