Thermal fax machine- "lamp drive unit"

Broke down an old non-working thermal fax machine- found a small heavy part labeled "lamp drive unit." Any idea what this is and if it should be disposed of in any special way?



Also, for general information, if anyone is considering breaking down one of these, this one took forever, very heavy duty with an amazing amount of metal, screws and insulated wires (aluminum?). Some small brass pieces and even a strip with some gold contacts, lots and lots of copper bearing transformers, several small motors, lots of aluminum heat sinks.

post a picture please.

Similar to that, not sure if I have picture posting privileges yet. I guess what I was worried about was there is some type of fluorescent bulb in the machine, and this may be some type of ballast? It does not have a "No pcb's" statement on the label. I'm not going to take it apart necessarily, just wanted to dispose of it properly if it is hazardous.

Oh, and I forgot to say, there was a very long spool of some type of carbon paper with copies of the last several hundred faxes sent. Destroyed it of course, looked like the docs were over 10 years old anyway.

The wires are not aluminum, they are tin plated copper.

If what you were scrapping was a "Thermofax 3M" don't break any more if you find them intact. They are still valuable to screen printing artists and tatooists. I found one the other day and sold it on for much more than scrap (and I could have got more!) to an artist only 24 hours later!!

Throw it in with your transformers I bet it's got copper in it.

So what do we do with the "light bars" in fax machines? I've accumulated several.