E Waste- How to use it

Another friend of mine sent me a mail on various ways we can use parts of a computer. Have fun

There is philosophy of "Re-purposing" in the electronics hacker world, it basically means using your ingenuty and createvity to use an old/broken electronic piece for a purpose that it was not intended for !

eg
- A dead Hard disk drive makes a nice wind turbine- the kind they show on discovery - you can use it to charge your moble phone, MP3 player, I-Pod with wind power. Just attach a small fan blade to the motor inside the drive, and when you point it towards wind coming in thru your window, you will get small amount of electricity out of the motor. Perfect for those re-chargable ni-cad cells, or recharging a moble phone, MP3 player, I-Pod etc. Needs very simple tools to build.

- The magnet inside a Hard disk makes a great 'anti-gravity' demo for kids [and the curious adult too] Just drop the magnet in a foot long copper tube and you will be amazed- it defies gravity- the magnet will fall thru a copper tube in 'slow motion'. it takes a l-o-n-g time to come out at the other end. Its very mysterious lookiing.

- A dead PC monitor is a great source of parts for building other electronic toys for kids ! Specially hi-voltage toys, that produce Deacula/Frankestine like lightning showers and sparks.

- A dead keyboard is a riddle - I am yet to figure out what to do with one :(

- a dead printer makes a nice toy to teach co-ordiante geometry to kids. Tye really 'get' the x-y stuff with a dead printer, because it becomes real when a printer shows it to them. Dead printers are also good source of parts for making kids toys.

-a dead scanner - humm.. there is a TON of stuff that one can do with a dead scanner - like a machine to recognise your cat/dog ; so the little door opens only when YOUR cat/dog is at the door etc - but it is a complcated endeavor. contact me if you are interested.

- there is lot of stuff one can make with old working motherboards. robots, light shows, and toys like that. As with the scanner thing above, this too needs a bit of technical know-how. not for ordnary mortals :)

peace to the world