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I wish there was a way to sign up and say "I'll take your crap" for everything electronic. I just pick stuff up when I find it but it's pretty hard. If people

I wish there was a way to sign up and say "I'll take your crap" for everything electronic. I just pick stuff up when I find it but it's pretty hard. If people could just say "I'm throwing out a powersupply" I'd head over and pick it up. Just pulling caps out of that and selling them at hamfests could make you some nice pocket change.

vwcx 10y ago
In certain large US cities, posting on Freecycle and Craigslist have gotten people to my apartment to pick up free things within a few hours.
cdubzzz 10y ago
So you've got the caps taken care of. What about the remaining parts of the power supply? Say you do sign up and get 1,000 power supplies. What do you do with them?
- gravypod 10y ago
  Sell them for parts, sell them as working-refurbished, or build bench-top power supplies with them and sell those to hobbyists on the cheap? Also I don't need to take all of them and I'm surely not the only one interested. If 500 people take and use 2, that's all of the 1k saved.
dspillett 10y ago
I'd love to do that from the other side, and I've tried via freecycle, local facebook for sale or free groups, and so forth, but people are just irritating to deal with especially when you are giving things away for free: * They don't turn up when they say they will and don't bother to let you know that they can't make it * Arranging a time in the first place is a faf (they'll say they can collect any time, then reject the first few times you suggest * If I list things as "available to collect at <these times>" or "I can deliver by cycle to <this range of locations> at <these times>" the first few responses are are people asking if they can collect at a completely different time or if I can deliver to somewhere many miles further away * When you are having a clear out and getting rid of a lot of stuff and say "preference given to someone who wants to take it all in one go" (to save arranging several collections/drop-offs, without fail I get someone who says they want it all but when they turn up (or I travel out to drop-off) they've "changed their mind" and "can I just take <one specific item>?" * People ask questions that are already answered and get offended when you respond with "please read the original advert" or similar. * When you've updated the listing to indicate that the items are gone, for days I sometimes keep getting "do you still have this? Can I have it?" messages. And so on. As much as I hate sending things to landfill after the last few time I've tried to give spare parts or anything else away I've decided not to put up with the hassle in future, I just don't have the time to deal with people. > Just pulling caps out of that and selling them at hamfests could make you some nice pocket change. Would you really have the time to do that at enough scale to make it worth while (it would be quite a different matter to scavenging parts for your own projects) and nothing else you'd rather be doing with that time? Do you have enough space to store parts waiting to be processed? And a way to get rid of the unsalvageable left-overs (in many areas you'll need an appropriate commercial waste license, or should pay someone who has, as soon as you are disposing of anything beyond normal personal waste)?

vwcx 10y ago

In certain large US cities, posting on Freecycle and Craigslist have gotten people to my apartment to pick up free things within a few hours.

cdubzzz 10y ago

So you've got the caps taken care of. What about the remaining parts of the power supply? Say you do sign up and get 1,000 power supplies. What do you do with them?

gravypod 10y ago
Sell them for parts, sell them as working-refurbished, or build bench-top power supplies with them and sell those to hobbyists on the cheap? Also I don't need to take all of them and I'm surely not the only one interested. If 500 people take and use 2, that's all of the 1k saved.

dspillett 10y ago

I'd love to do that from the other side, and I've tried via freecycle, local facebook for sale or free groups, and so forth, but people are just irritating to deal with especially when you are giving things away for free: * They don't turn up when they say they will and don't bother to let you know that they can't make it * Arranging a time in the first place is a faf (they'll say they can collect any time, then reject the first few times you suggest * If I list things as "available to collect at <these times>" or "I can deliver by cycle to <this range of locations> at <these times>" the first few responses are are people asking if they can collect at a completely different time or if I can deliver to somewhere many miles further away * When you are having a clear out and getting rid of a lot of stuff and say "preference given to someone who wants to take it all in one go" (to save arranging several collections/drop-offs, without fail I get someone who says they want it all but when they turn up (or I travel out to drop-off) they've "changed their mind" and "can I just take <one specific item>?" * People ask questions that are already answered and get offended when you respond with "please read the original advert" or similar. * When you've updated the listing to indicate that the items are gone, for days I sometimes keep getting "do you still have this? Can I have it?" messages. And so on. As much as I hate sending things to landfill after the last few time I've tried to give spare parts or anything else away I've decided not to put up with the hassle in future, I just don't have the time to deal with people. > Just pulling caps out of that and selling them at hamfests could make you some nice pocket change. Would you really have the time to do that at enough scale to make it worth while (it would be quite a different matter to scavenging parts for your own projects) and nothing else you'd rather be doing with that time? Do you have enough space to store parts waiting to be processed? And a way to get rid of the unsalvageable left-overs (in many areas you'll need an appropriate commercial waste license, or should pay someone who has, as soon as you are disposing of anything beyond normal personal waste)?