Useful parts You can Salvage from Old Electronics

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]I've been fascinated by radio components since I was a kid.

[00:00:04]Back then, my ultimate treasure was taking apart all black and white tube TVs packed with resistor and capacitors as thick as my finger.

[00:00:14]Nowadays, it's pretty common to see piles of high-tech electronics thrown into the trash.

[00:00:21]Of course, I can't just walk past a gold mine like that. So, I always grab it for teardown.

[00:00:28]And in this video, I'm going to show you what kind of useful components you can salvage from old tech for your DIY electronic projects. [music] What tools will you need for that? First up, a powerful soldering iron. I'm using the TS101 with a C4 tip.

[00:00:52]Also incredibly useful is a hot air rework station.

[00:00:56]A solder sucker, desoldering wick which also helps clean up excess solder.

[00:01:02]And for removing parts easily, a vacuum desoldering gun is super handy. But its biggest downside is definitely the price tag.

[00:01:12]Pretty much everywhere you look, you'll find all kinds of wires and ribbon cables. This is especially true for older gear where they actually used decent copper instead of some sketchy alloys.

[00:01:27]The most numerous electronic components of all are resistors and capacitors.

[00:01:36]Resistors are among the cheapest components out there. Honestly, you're better off just buying a kit of brand new resistors with various values.

[00:01:45]Still, there are so many different resistance values out there. And if you can't find the exact one you need, you might just spot it here, especially if it's a non-standard value or precision resistors like the ones found inside a multimeter.

[00:02:04]For capacitors, there are a few main types. Electrolytic caps in old gear can easily dry out and lose their capacitance over time. So, you absolutely must test them before reusing.

[00:02:17]Ceramic and film capacitors don't suffer from that kind of degradation. Plus, high-quality film caps are noticeably more expensive. So, desoldering them is definitely worth your time.

[00:02:30]Sometimes, you even run into interesting specimens like this.

[00:02:39]Tactile buttons pop up quite often in household appliances.

[00:02:45]They're a useful tool, but they're usually worn out from heavy use.

[00:02:50]Besides, it's not like they cost a fortune anyway.

[00:02:54]In some devices, you can find the power supply built as a completely separate module.

[00:03:00]When you find one, you can just pull it out and reuse it depending on his output voltage.

[00:03:06]Often, these power supplies can output multiple voltages.

[00:03:10]For example, an inkjet printer power supply usually puts out plus 30 volts to power the print head.

[00:03:17]I actually used the power supply to run a DIY 20-watt RGB lamp that required at least 24 volts. Paired it with a buck converter.

[00:03:28]But make sure to check if the power supply has galvanic isolation from the main voltage.

[00:03:34]The high-voltage side should be visually separated from the low-voltage side.

[00:03:38]To increase the clearance, manufacturers often mill slots into the PCB and put clear markings on the silk screen.

[00:03:47]Another cool component you can find in somewhat modern tech is an infrared receiver, like this one or this one for a remote control. The standard they run on hasn't changed for three decades now, so we can confidently desolder them and use them with almost any microcontroller from an Arduino all the way up to single board computers like a Raspberry Pi.

[00:04:12]Plus, if your smartphone has an IR blaster, you can even use it to control your custom circuit.

[00:04:20]CRT TV sets have one very distinctive component. It's a flyback transformer.

[00:04:25]You can spot it instantly by the thick heavy insulated high voltage wire little and straight to the picture tube.

[00:04:33]These transformers come with a built-in high voltage winding and a voltage multiplier, letting you hit voltage around 25 kilovolts.

[00:04:42]They are great for experiments if you like messing around with a high voltage.

[00:04:47]Older TVs and other vintage gear also contain low frequency power transformers. They are big and heavy, but they have massive power headroom.

[00:04:58]For example, from this 180 watt transformer, you could easily pull up to 300 watts.

[00:05:06]They are perfect for building a linear bench power supply, simple design and rock solid reliability.

[00:05:14]You can also easily rewind the transformer for custom voltage or current.

[00:05:20]Old TVs in general are packed with a ton of useful parts, all sort of capacitors, power diodes, TVS diodes, power bipolar transistors, especially on heat sinks.

[00:05:32]Simple components like this are incredibly useful for putting together basic circuits to understand how electronic works on the inside.

[00:05:42]Computer CRT monitors deserve a special shout out.

[00:05:46]On top of the standard TV components, I found a board in one of these monitors packed with a dozen logic gates and the pumps.

[00:05:55]You can use these chips for so many different things. And even though they are not super expensive, it's still a solid find.

[00:06:03]By the way, one of these chips actually becomes the core of an upcoming super interesting project. I'll be showing it on the channel soon. So, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss it.

[00:06:18]Another widely available device is an electronic ballast from fluorescent lamps. You can use the whole thing as is without even taking apart.

[00:06:28]That's a topic for a whole separate video.

[00:06:33]Old motherboards.

[00:06:35]I've hoard it quite a few of them over time.

[00:06:39]The very first thing you can salvage from them are the powerful MOSFET transistors using the CPU power delivery circuit.

[00:06:47]They're incredibly useful for many DIY projects.

[00:06:54]CPUs and graphic cards also come with a cooling heat sink, sometimes with a fan attached. That's also a great item to have. Buying one standalone cost a decent amount of money.

[00:07:07]Speaking of electrolytic degradation, you can clearly see some bulging capacitors right here.

[00:07:13]And these ones have practically spilled their guts out.

[00:07:18]On older boards, you can find DIP switches. While newer ones replace them with jumpers.

[00:07:25]Both are always handy to have.

[00:07:28]Also, on vintage motherboards, you can find a seven-segment LED display. If I remember correctly, this one displayed post codes.

[00:07:37]This is definitely something worth desoldering.

[00:07:41]You might find some use the IO ports and connectors, though I don't recall ever using them myself.

[00:07:48]Keep in mind that motherboards have multiple layers. To desolder components from them, you'll need a powerful soldering iron, at least 60 watts, and good beefy tip. A tiny precision tip just won't cut it.

[00:08:04]Printers are another common find during teardowns.

[00:08:08]You can harvest a lot of great mechanical parts from them, like microswitches and solenoids.

[00:08:18]Also, every single printer has electric motors inside.

[00:08:22]Older printers have stepper motors.

[00:08:25]Modern inkjets usually have brushed DC motors.

[00:08:34]Often you can pull out an entire mechanical assembly with the motor attached.

[00:08:40]You can build tons of cool projects with these, especially if you own a 3D printer.

[00:08:53]Another fascinated part found in inkjet printers is a peristaltic pump. It's designed to pump precise volumes of liquid.

[00:09:02]I don't quite know for what, but I need it.

[00:09:07]Most printers feature some sort of display. Simple models use basic seven-segment indicators, but laser all-in-one printers, for example, come with character LCD displays.

[00:09:19]Some newer printers even have full color displays.

[00:09:23]Usually, they're pretty easy to hook up to a microcontroller like an Arduino or an ESP32.

[00:09:34]When it comes to computer hardware, old drives are very common score.

[00:09:44]The best thing you can grab from them is a powerful brushless motor.

[00:09:49]Sometimes you can spin it up using the onboard driver chip, but hooking up an external ESC is no problem, either.

[00:09:58]In ancient hard drives, you even might find a stepper motor. Though, I'd probably feel too guilty dismantling a relic like that.

[00:10:07]Another highly useful thing inside a hard drive is a set of powerful neodymium magnets.

[00:10:14]Floppy drives and compact disc drives also feature brushless motors, though they are much lower power.

[00:10:23]Additionally, DVD burners contain a very powerful laser diode. You can use it for various experiments, but please remember that this are extremely dangerous for your eyes.

[00:10:36]I frequently come across routers, switches, and other networking gear.

[00:10:41]Generally speaking, they don't have much to offer.

[00:10:45]These right here are isolated transformers for the ethernet interface.

[00:10:50]I honestly have no clue where you could reuse them. The only useful thing here might be desoldering these status LEDs.

[00:10:59]Wait. Hold on a second. What are these chips right next to them?

[00:11:04]Looks like the shift registers.

[00:11:07]Yep, exactly.

[00:11:09]This 74HC164 is just like the highly popular 74HC595 model, a super convenient for expanding the IO pins of a microcontroller in your DIY builds. Just a few pins from your microcontroller can control a massive number of LEDs.

[00:11:29]Let's try to power them up right here.

[00:11:32]Just let me figure out how it's connected.

[00:11:35]What surprised me is the data and control lines of these registers are connected to these header pads.

[00:11:42]So, I can easily hook up to this display.

[00:11:50]Oh, they are in wrong order. Let me just fix it.

[00:11:56]>> [music] [music] >> Another couple of parts you can salvage from a router are the power jack and the power regulator circuit.

[00:12:26]So, what do you do with your old electronics? Do you throw them out or do you desolder every single component you can get your hands on?

[00:12:35]Let me know in the comments below.

[00:12:38]Thanks for watching. See you next time and keep bringing your ideas to life.