Canabalising old computers

[frozenthunderbolt]

Heya,

Our local council was haivng an E-Waste days recently so before we dumped the 5 dead computers that our family has, me and my sister took them appart - i stripped 8 brushless fans out of them and 4 speakers for the magnets.
Fans work in reverse to produce current if blown into. figured out a total of 9.3 watts if i put all 5 of the large ones togeather and got em spinning at the same speed (from 12 Volt input) with wind.

hoping to get plans for a home wired generator to use the speaker magnets in at some later date.

Anyone want to jump in an tell me that i missed some lovely magnets in the hard drive (a vague rumor in the back of my mind) - didnt get a chance to google it b4 they went. Also any other parts i should thiefed outa them or other ideas what i can use my bits for?

Also though the little fans would be good for making Active Solar food dryers - with solar panneling.

[mrsflibble]

personally I'd have gone for all the wires and IDE cables and such 'cos the plastic can be stripped, then you've got a fab selection of wire for xmas decorations etc.

Also, my hubby likes computer power supply thingummies...

he's made two of these so far for family members.



(mp3 player not included)

[Muddypause]

Anyone want to jump in an tell me that i missed some lovely magnets in the hard drive (a vague rumor in the back of my mind)

I'm afraid you did. HDDs have extremely powerful 'rare earth' magnets in them. I've read stuff on the web about people making generators using the magnets out of disk drives. Apparently they are strong enough to cause injury if you get your fingers between two of them.

But I'm interested to hear your plans for the fans. Keep us posted if you get some decent results.

[frozenthunderbolt]

arrrrrrghhh - gutted - strangely enough they dont make the hard drives easy to access, and i had limited time to strip them. damn damn doubble damn. oh well just wait for the next comp to crash i guess
Will keep you posted with plans. am gonna make the active dryer in a coupple of moonths time when i finish uni - will use fan/s in it.
and did strip out some wire - just cos copper is usefull to have - particularly if i make my forge/foundry anytime in the forseeable future . . .

[Thomzo]

I was kicking myself for a while, until I noticed where you are. We got rid of loads at work when I closed it down. All the working ones were sold off but there were some defunct ones that we sent for recycling.

Do you have Freecycle in NZ? If not how about asking around local offices? It's pretty expensive nowadays in the UK to find a home for unusable computers as they have to go to special recycling centres. I'm sure there will be offices over there that have old computers they need to get rid off and would be happy for you to take them off their hands.

Zoe

[mybarnconversion]

Heya,
hoping to get plans for a home wired generator to use the speaker magnets in at some later date.

Also though the little fans would be good for making Active Solar food dryers - with solar panneling.

Would love to see plans / more details of how to implement either of those ... more details please

[frozenthunderbolt]

Not sure if we have freecycle in NZ or not Zoe - i'll look into it. I dont realy want to get stuck with another load of Computer shells once ive got what i need - i was talking to a friend the other day and she said her dad might be able to get me the dead harddrives only wich would be wonderfull - am keeping fingers X'd!
- will post plans if i can find them - pm/email me and i'll send you the basic guide i found for the active dryers MyBarn