On the radio

[Enzo]

I go over to the MSU surplus yard a couple times a week. Looking for odd test equipment for cheap or whatever. SOme grad student graduates and all the accumulated parts and things he collected and left behind go over there for disposal. SOmetimes it is a cardboard box of crap marked $3. Got me a bunch of film caps new in the bag that way the other day. And a fresh roll of Scotch 27 glass cloth tape - my favorite tape. Looks like someone used a few inches of it and was done.

27-1/2X66' 3M Electronic Specialty Tapes & Mastics

Been finding high voltage power supplies too - adjustable up to 500v. I wonder what that might be useful for... These things seem to have some dumb little thing wrong with them and are easily fixed. The lab guy doing electrophoresis knows nothing about fixing one. Cool things have a variac inside to adjust the B+. I'll spend some dough on these and fix them up for resale I think. SOmeone wanting to make one from scratch would have to buy a nice enclosure, meters, a variac, transformer, etc.

And I find little control boxes for god knows what. But a handy box with basic power suppy and knobs on the panel, good for building something in, worth $5 to me.

This last trip I found a little GE table radio from looks like the 1950s. Octal tubes, wooden cab, rotary dial, and the "racetrack" loop antenna on the rear masonite panel. $5, I think I'll make it work. Not really thinking about turning it into a Marshall.

[jbltwin1]

Oh come on, turn that radio into a high gain mesa something or other! Those places can be a gold mine if you know where to look, like you did. I wish there were guys junking stuff around here. They all think here everything is an antique and worth 3 times what it really is.

[txstrat]

Now that I read your posts I'm thinking of an old tube radio my wife got from her grandma. It didn't work and we put it in the basement. I really consider to have a look at it and make it work again.

[Enzo]

yep, bunch of caps, maybe a tube or two, and it ought to work.

Lots of universities have places just like this one. They don't throw stuff in the landfill. WHen a lab is cleared out or a project ends, all that stuff gets sent over to the surplus facility. They put it out for sale. WHen the dormitory gets new plates and glassware, the old stuff gets sold - and cheap. The generic paintings on the wall of the lobby? $5. Entire large bins of athletic shoes. When the teams get new uniforms, there will be racks of the old ones in there.

MSU has a very happening hockey program, we have a big fancy kockey ice arena. recently their Zamboni was replaced and the old one - nice looking piece too - was in there for bid. Think they wanted $25G. I must have sold, it's now gone.

Good deals on chairs - basic office chairs go for $3-5. They have a whole row of doors stacked. And one corner of the place is computers galore. Tons of file cabinets.

The bigger the university the more stuff it generates. COntact the various ones within reach and see if they have active surplus good disposal facilities.

Ours is open to public two days a week, they open 7:30AM. On those two days there is always a little line gathered at the door. There is a bunch of regulars and they all dash in, hoping to grab the cosmic deal before someone else does. Yes, me too. We have one guy who is into telephones, I assume he cleans them up and ebays them. He's not collecting, just gathering huge boxes of them. SInce so many kids now have cell phones, the university finally took all the room phones out of the dorms. Saves a ton of money not having to maintain all those phone lines from AT&T. Huge bins of phones at the surplus. For all I know, Guatemala now has a new phone system. They went somewhere.

I see restaurant people over there looking through kitchen stuff.

And the game is on. They start with a price on something, and if it doesn't move, then knock it down. The price keeps dropping until someone buys a thing. Right now there is a 6-foot tall equipment rack cabinet/ full of analytical gear, not sure what it does. Nice rack though, two of the pieces are some kind of specialized oscilloscopes, don;t know if they can be used for audio or not. Some other control stuff. Started out at $200. Not bad really for a nice full size rack cab, but way to steep for me. It is now down to $45, and it may be lowr tuesday, I'll make an offer if not.

I watched a TOA amplifier go from $100-80-60-40-20 and then gone. Some stuff junk, some stuff nice. And test gear? Everything from Heathkit to HP. You never know. I got a dead HP200 sine osc for $5. One plate on the tuning cap was bent and shorting. 10 seconds with a needlenose plier, and the unit works.

[Gtr_tech]

I haven't been over there in forever. Great place to pick up "outdated" computer stuff, but I've been having great luck locally with the the Salavatin' Army store over here. Picked up a Pentium D box with a 250g SATA hdd and dual layer DVD toaster for 25$ a couple weeks ago. Great cond, fresh OS install. The issue with it was the onboard video GPU was wasted. It would run for about a half hour, lines would start appearing in the pix, and the machine would reset. So with an outboard video card it runs great. I'd like to disable that bad GPU chip by removing pwr from it....it runs really hot. Eventually....

[Enzo]

You know they have a brand new facility over there now, they are not behind the Amtrak station any longer, very nice inside. Well lit, not the old dim warehouse. Right off Farm Lane on the south end of campus, nest to the powr plant.


They have quite a selection of computers, not just old 486 stiff. And monitors, not just CRTs, but the flat ones as well.

[Chuck H]

I'm pretty isolated now on an island in the PNW but I'm about two hours from Seattle (+ $20.00 US ferry and gas). I don't get onto mainland as much as I should but I'm sure there's some good stuff when I get around to researching it.

But when I lived in the Bay Area Ca. there were a few electronic "surplus" houses that pulled old rheostates, tubes, heat sinks, etc. Not too many transformer good for guitar amps but lots of power supplies and variacs. Prices started creeping up on these old parts in correlation with information technologies but still great hunting grounds. I found so many great old pull tubes that I didn't buy a single new tube from the time I discovered these placed until I moved out of the area. And I'm sure Seattle has similar prospecting gounds whenever I get to it.

Point is that you just have to look near any major city. The older the city the better. Get the population all bunched up and the ratio of people getting rid of what they think is crappy old junk goes way up because of both frequency of occurance and general mentality about stinky old boxes.

If a major city is within reasonable driving distance there's pickins' to be had.

Chuck

[Rhodesplyr]

I have two HP LaserJet 4 Printers I got for $5 each at North Carolina State University's surplus place, but I've never seen loose parts like electronic components. I did pick up a dead tube-regulated power supply, but it had serious problems. On the other hand, someone had put a new Stancor power transformer in it that would easily power a tube preamp or small power amp. I'm planning to use the sturdy chassis for another project. Recycle!

One of the first pieces of tube electronics I fixed was my mother's Zenith AM/FM table-top radio that she'd used ever since the 1960s. As I've learned more about tuner circuits, I've realized why it always sounded so good. The FM RF section is very similar to what you'd find in higher end gear from the same era. I've wondered how it would work if I hooked my FM MPX unit to it, but the fact that it's one of those radios with no power transformer means it would need to be retrofitted with an isolation transformer to make that sort of thing safe.

Then there's the V-M phono console in her attic with a two-6V6 amp and a Jensen P10 or P12 speaker....

[Enzo]

yeah, unlike surplus electronics companies, these university surplus places won;t be parting out stuff to generate parts inventories. If there is an oscilloscope, it will go on the shelf - working or not, complete or partial, and they get whatever they can for it. YOu want to buy it for parts, go ahead.

[Gibsonman63]

My neighborhood was built in the early sixties, so there are frequent estate sales. It is generally a good place to buy tools, but there are other gems. I picked up a working console stereo for $25. I couldn't resist. All tube and 60W per side. The tuner is starting to drift, though so I can see a future project.