Why you should strip Power Supplies

I had about 40 power supplies and we stripped them all down. I'm not done yet but...



We stripped the wire, ICs, aluminum heat sinks, transistors, transformers, chokes and coils. I'd bought these for about 30 cents a pound WITH wire and it looks like I will make out pretty good on them. Break down weights on the forty when I turn it all in.

out of 40 power supplies you should average 25-30 good ones. 10-15 dollars ea on ebay is $250 +

ya at 30clb i am glad you are doing well cause it takes a lot to buy at that price. i pay 10cents each here and yes i agree with direct you should be saving and testing some or selling as is. i save about 25% unless they are special of what i get in and test a few for ebay but most i stack on a shelve and put ads on cl for untested $3each so people can come and look and buy even do 5 for $10 for those wanting to make some themselves

I don't list it on ebay unless it is at least 300w or unused. It's also good to have SATA connections. out of 50 power supplies I scrapped, 2 were what I consider sell-able. what kind of criteria are you going by for resale?

Sata and 400W, nothing else is worth keeping anymore. All you really have to do is look at the SOLD list on ebay to see what is actually worth keeping an inventory on. For some of us we have limited space and even more limited time so I will only hold on to aftermarket power supplies that test good. It's like IDE Hard drives...sure there are still 40 60 and even 120 gig drives out there...but I've YET to sell one for more than 3 bucks...so not worth it to me.

Anyways:

I started with 216lbs (40 power supplies ranging from cheap dells to decent but too old to use ATX/ITX units from K7 machines and Pentiums)
My cost $65
Break Down time: 70 minutes (probably could go faster but it was cold and I warmed up my hands a few times, if your doing it inside you should take no more than a minute per with a yellow handled tin snips, screwgun, flathead screwdriver and mechanics gloves)

Shred: 131lbs: $.12/lb $15.72
Copper Wire: 17lbs: $.78/lb $13.26
#2 Copper: 21lbs: $2.70/lb $56.70
Aluminum Extrusion: 19lbs: $.61/lb $11.59
Copper Back Transistors: 2.1lbs $1.75/lb $3.67
ICs: 1lb $2.50/lb $2.50
EPROMS: 1lb $4.00/lb $4.00
Low Grade Boards (Depop) 22lbs $ .12/lb $2.64

$110.08
- $65
- 1 hour labor@ 10-12hr

Still worth doing...even more so if you didn't pay for the power supplies. I could offer this price to a client with ALOT of them and beat the transformers price he MIGHT get at the yard, still worth my time. Plus on two old pentium units I got three copper heatsinks, unexpected bonus.

Thanks for the breakdown. I dont think i would go to the trouble to take apart mainly because my time is limited. I have not done any eBay sales yet but was curious what your test method was? Is it simply to plug them in and see if the fan spins? Or do you actually connect a device (like a hard drive or DVD) and see if it comes on?

Originally Posted by armygreywolf

I started with 216lbs (40 power supplies ranging from cheap dells to decent but too old to use ATX/ITX units from K7 machines and Pentiums)
My cost $65
Break Down time: 70 minutes (probably could go faster but it was cold and I warmed up my hands a few times, if your doing it inside you should take no more than a minute per with a yellow handled tin snips, screwgun, flathead screwdriver and mechanics gloves)

Shred: 131lbs: $.12/lb $15.72
Copper Wire: 17lbs: $.78/lb $13.26
#2 Copper: 21lbs: $2.70/lb $56.70
Aluminum Extrusion: 19lbs: $.61/lb $11.59
Copper Back Transistors: 2.1lbs $1.75/lb $3.67
ICs: 1lb $2.50/lb $2.50
EPROMS: 1lb $4.00/lb $4.00
Low Grade Boards (Depop) 22lbs $ .12/lb $2.64

$110.08
- $65
- 1 hour labor@ 10-12hr

I would love to know more of your methods. I broke down roughly 50 over the past two months as filler when I had nothing else to scrap. The case is easy to take off, but I would probably spend 5-10 minutes depopulating the board. Granted, I was watching TV at the time, but still I can't see myself doing a complete unit in 1 minute 45 seconds even with my full focus. Perhaps a factor slowing me down is that I do these in my living room, and don't want to break the boards inside my house. I'll probably be working these in as filler next winter.

My method is to use channel locks to pull off the transformers, and wire cutters to cut the wires. Usually the heat sinks have several transistors attached with a screw and a nut on the other side. Getting the needlenose to hold the nut sometimes requires popping off a big capacitor. Sometimes there's no other way to get a screwdriver to reach the head other than to break the board in half. Also, breaking down the transforming coils down to the bare copper takes time. Usually a tap with the sledge and pulling two ends with pliars does it - but probably 10 seconds per on those.

On your breakdown, My experience is 80% of the heatsinks I get are not extruded, they are the sheet of AL with several tabs cut and the tabs bent alternating ways. Also, how many transformers did you get out of this? Each one should have a few of the ones with yellow paper wrapping them, and those take forever to break down.

Link ain't working for me PTS.

Thanks for sharing Army. I got good amount sitting down in the shop taking up space. I usually just cut the wire, remove the fan an move on, but been entertaining the thought of a full break down on them. I think I'll give it a whirl later. Any difference folks found in L shaped, vs the Square/box type? I have about 30 or so of the L shaped ones as I call them. From a batch of gateways I got. Obviously older units. Will take some pictures if it'll help.

Thanks for the break down!

Sirscrapalot - Sex education may be a good idea in the schools, but I don't believe the kids should be given homework. - Bill Cosby

Power supply testers can be bought for under $15 on ebay. Great investment tool. I basically only sell Sata p/s's

Originally Posted by directrecycle

Power supply testers can be bought for under $15 on ebay. Great investment tool. I basically only sell Sata p/s's

You may find the pin outs at this link useful:

https://www.google.ca/search?q=compu...w=1016&bih=597

I test the pinouts since they're are only 4 BUS (voltages) you can test 12V/5V/2.2V and switched negative (proper voltage I dont know off the top of my head 12V-?) It takes all of twenty seconds and thats only for supplies that are 400W or better anyways, usually aftermarket. Why you'd waste time with handling used product that with fees and whatnot and the chance of bad reviews for DOAs...I won't sell anything I don't have a second one of without a disclosure.

with proper testing you can greatly minimize doa's.

p/s average $1 ea scrap. I average $8-$20 ea on ebay after fees. literally only takes minutes to post

Agree, When I get my machines I plug them in, fire them up, and if they start, I sell what is marketable on ebay, the rest goes to scrap. Once you have a template, if it take you more than a minuet to post a power supply you're goofing off. Compared to breakdown time, it's no contest; if it doesn't sell you can still scrap it.

Aftermarket supplies often have then, coolermasters, thermaltakes and so on, the lot I got had about ten of them but they were all dead. And I may be incorrectly labeling them but for the purpose they do look like eproms.

I'm wondering about your success rate with the power supplies on eBay. Looking at the completed listings for 400w units and the RED (unsold) items outmatch the GREEN (sold) listings 5-1, and the ones that did sell appear to be for specialty items mainly (Apple or Cisco). Just wondering how it has been working for you as I contemplate listing them but don't want to take up a lot of shelf space for months. Thanks in advance for your input.