Whoa! He wants that much for a RPi 3 in a Model III case?

[Keatah]

 

BTW I don't have an ion beam station to individually reposition transistors or rewire something on the chip. Nor will I likely ever. But it's amazing technology where they weld the tool tip to the part, then cut it free, reposition it, weld it back into the new position, then cut the tip off.

 

9 hours ago, bluejay said:

Well, I mean, like you can fix trashed motherboards you can fix trashed cases.

Of course.

 

9 hours ago, bluejay said:

Throwing them in the dumpster seems a bit harsh, doesn't it? 

Sounds harsh sure. But consider the economics of it all. (Whether its a one-man hobbyist or a full on e-waste recovery center or a much less common refurb shop.) There comes a point where something can be corroded or damaged too much to be anywhere near cost-effective to repair. And certainly not cost-effective enough to repair+sell even at inflated ebay prices. Sometimes not repairable ever - think active silicon MCM interfaces and substrates - present in newer Intel CPUs and automotive electronics since the late 1990's. Some pretty futuristic construction techniques when pitted against a through-the-hole VCS or Intellivision mainboard. Or any kind of general PC prior to about Intel's 8th gen laptop chips. More or less.

 

Or those videos where the parents shoot holes in the laptops or run the PlayStations over with their trucks. Yeh, I'm going to recover some screws and may some surface mount parts. The rest is trash. Yep. Seem hars now?

 

Consider a typical 5150 with a bent board. There may be cracked traces internal to the mobo. And they may work (or not) once a system warms up. Are you going to spend hours tracking it down for free?

 

Cases are different and so much easier to repaint or buff or fill in with plastic and fiberglass and all that. But economics still rears its ugly head. And again something can be worth more money for scrap than for repair + labor + materials + supplies. Pfft! Out to the dumpster it goes.

 

There have been times I thought about selling things online. Other than the odd one-off sale of some rare part or something; I found it to be not worth the trouble and risk. I'm not interested in the attitudes of some. So much easier to put curbside or for material recovery. Like it or not it is what it is.

[Turbo-Torch]

[Keatah]

I am super-awesome.

[jhd]

Personally, I lack the skills to repair hardware, but I also feel guilty about just tossing stuff in the dumpster, so I give it to Goodwill. They are able to generate revenue by selling it as "untested", and someone else then gets the opportunity to fix it.  

 

 

[Keatah]

I suspect that whoever comes by to snatch the curbside stuff is somewhat into old electronics. But those disposable printers can sit rotting for days or weeks.

[Omega-TI]

3 hours ago, Keatah said:

I suspect that whoever comes by to snatch the curbside stuff is somewhat into old electronics. But those disposable printers can sit rotting for days or weeks.

 

Ross, was a friend of my son who I had helped get into Amateur Radio, anyway he used to buy Lexmark printers cheap, use up the ink and then sell them on Ebay to buy a brand new printer that came with ink.  The kid was great at working the angles.