Hello friends,

After disassembling my second printer, I'm realizing that there is a lot of junk in the world. While yes, I can harvest a lot of valuables from random broken electronics on the internet. The flipside is that 90% of what I'm taking apart is going right to the trash. I need to be smarter about it.

X-Ray Vision

Slowly but surely I'm trying to understand what the internals of an electronic will be based on the outside. For example a radio with a spinning dial probably has some type of encoder, or potentiometer inside. Additionally, any screens, lights, buttons, or speakers must be linked to some kind of circuit.

I think the better I can predict how something is made, the better I will get at collecting scrap parts.

For example children's toys with moving parts will often have some type of servo inside. Printers will almost always have a few motors. And radios speakers.

Now it becomes more a matter of thinking of what I actually need. Which requires me to think more so what I want to make- an overwhelming thought at the moment...