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We have been talking about old times and old things here recently in various places around the forum, and I keep finding myself nostalgic for old times...
50 some plus years ago when I was learning electronics, I used to go down the road to the local TV repair place, look out back in the alley for TV chassis they were throwing away, and much to my mother's disapproval, I'd haul them home and strip them down for parts. "But MAAA, I NEED this stuff!!!"
It was of course all tube stuff then, it would be some years yet before transistors started making any inroads into consumer stuff. Hell, we hadn't even gotten to Nuvistors yet. I loved to save the old tuner assemblies - why I don;t know. I would drill out - by hand - the rivets to free the tube sockets, save the little 3x5" speakers, various odd controls, and of course the resistors and caps. Took a while to learn how to read color codes on caps.
ANd resistors. I tried to unsolder them, but TVs and things were all point to point, wired on terminal strips and to socket pins, and all neatly wrapped around each solder lug. MAny times all I could do was snip off the part leaving whatever lead length there was, and hope for the best.
I learned the color codes and sorted the parts, keeping them in little jars. Eventually I even got a little drawer unit. Dumped the jars in the drawers. Over time that little 12 drawer thing became a 60 drawer thing, and more 60 drawer brothers joined on the shelf. With each organizational expansion, we dumped the drawers into the larger units. Now I have a wall full of 60 drawer units.
You have to know what is in each drawer, so I put little labels on each - 10k, 220k, 470 ohm. They tend to dry up over time, let go and fall off. But in the sequence of drawers, I know what is what. But every so often, I put new stickers on when I use the drawer.
Today I was in the 470 ohm drawer, and there in amoong the flame proof metal films and cc types, is an old 2w resistor. It is from the old days - they used to be about the size of a 10 watt cement resistor. ANd wrapped around it is a small paper label that says 470 ohms. Then scotch tape wrapped around that to hold it on. The part is one I robbed from a TV set 55 years ago, the label because I was not confident in my color codes at the time.
I checked it, it is up to about 570 ohms these days. Who knows, will it stop? Or in another 50 years will it be up to 670 ohms? I'll never know. I'm tossing it, and a few other obvious relics. They have been fun remembrnces, but will mean nothing to whoever owns my parts when I am gone.
At some point I discovered Washington DC had several interesting surplus outlets. Ooooohhh. This was only 10-15 years after world war 2 ended, and there was a ton of military electronics being scrapped. I used to buy radar sets buy the pound. "Let me see, kid, 50 pounds at 10 cents per, that'll be $5."
I have dim recall of taking apart one set that had some small turret boards, and there were some very nice looking 5.1k resistors on them. They were shiny and were 5% instead of the more common 10-20%. They are still in that drawer. I recognize the bent leads.
50 some plus years ago when I was learning electronics, I used to go down the road to the local TV repair place, look out back in the alley for TV chassis they were throwing away, and much to my mother's disapproval, I'd haul them home and strip them down for parts. "But MAAA, I NEED this stuff!!!"
It was of course all tube stuff then, it would be some years yet before transistors started making any inroads into consumer stuff. Hell, we hadn't even gotten to Nuvistors yet. I loved to save the old tuner assemblies - why I don;t know. I would drill out - by hand - the rivets to free the tube sockets, save the little 3x5" speakers, various odd controls, and of course the resistors and caps. Took a while to learn how to read color codes on caps.
ANd resistors. I tried to unsolder them, but TVs and things were all point to point, wired on terminal strips and to socket pins, and all neatly wrapped around each solder lug. MAny times all I could do was snip off the part leaving whatever lead length there was, and hope for the best.
I learned the color codes and sorted the parts, keeping them in little jars. Eventually I even got a little drawer unit. Dumped the jars in the drawers. Over time that little 12 drawer thing became a 60 drawer thing, and more 60 drawer brothers joined on the shelf. With each organizational expansion, we dumped the drawers into the larger units. Now I have a wall full of 60 drawer units.
You have to know what is in each drawer, so I put little labels on each - 10k, 220k, 470 ohm. They tend to dry up over time, let go and fall off. But in the sequence of drawers, I know what is what. But every so often, I put new stickers on when I use the drawer.
Today I was in the 470 ohm drawer, and there in amoong the flame proof metal films and cc types, is an old 2w resistor. It is from the old days - they used to be about the size of a 10 watt cement resistor. ANd wrapped around it is a small paper label that says 470 ohms. Then scotch tape wrapped around that to hold it on. The part is one I robbed from a TV set 55 years ago, the label because I was not confident in my color codes at the time.
I checked it, it is up to about 570 ohms these days. Who knows, will it stop? Or in another 50 years will it be up to 670 ohms? I'll never know. I'm tossing it, and a few other obvious relics. They have been fun remembrnces, but will mean nothing to whoever owns my parts when I am gone.
At some point I discovered Washington DC had several interesting surplus outlets. Ooooohhh. This was only 10-15 years after world war 2 ended, and there was a ton of military electronics being scrapped. I used to buy radar sets buy the pound. "Let me see, kid, 50 pounds at 10 cents per, that'll be $5."
I have dim recall of taking apart one set that had some small turret boards, and there were some very nice looking 5.1k resistors on them. They were shiny and were 5% instead of the more common 10-20%. They are still in that drawer. I recognize the bent leads.
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