How does your "teardown" process go? - Page 2

i attacked a large epson printer with a hammer last night and still have ink spots all over my arms and a few on my face lol...i took out the ink cartridges but this one had stainless steel tubing that carried the ink to the printhead, and these flung ink everywhere haha

Yeah, printer breakdowns are messy. And possibly toxic to breathe? I still like the breaking process!

I've had more than a few PMs asking about how we (I) operate.

Alright so lets get started. Breakdown starts at pickup. I have a process by which I mark every tower for contents and type ahead of time. (It's how I price them too)

At the shop (aka living room as some of you know)

Towers are dismantled into PSU, CPU, Motherboard, Memory, Finger Cards, Wires (not the PSU wires), ribbon cable, optical drives, magnetic (HDD/FDD) card readers if equipped. Heatsinks too. Empty tower is then discarded UNLESS it's an aftermarket ATX case like a aluminum thermaltake.

Next laptops are always tested for a good battery, failing that if they are P4 or older they are dismantled (even a refurb battery makes resale not worth the labor and listing effort) Either way with the dropping of XP support imminent only the high end computers of the day will be kept (linux).

Next, Optical drives are dismantled, I don't bother to sort them ahead of time, it's a waste of time. Instead I pull ALL of them for the day and sort out the DVD writers that im reasonably sure still work and recently the few BluRay players ive been coming across. The rest are dismantled for their board. After that they go in the shred.

FDD are next, the board is pulled then liberal use of a flat head screwdriver to yank out the copper wound motor. The rest to the shred (see where I'm going here?)

Now comes the interesting part...the order of precedence as far as TIME is concerned. Because regardless of the rate for labor, you always want to maximize based on end result value.

First HDDs. Break them ALL THE WAY DOWN. I'm a little different than most because I don't sell most boards (the old ones and the nonfunctioning) instead I keep a brand/model and revision catalog and sell them off to companies who recover data. I use an old filing cabinet and standard hanging folders for this purpose.

Next when ALL HDDs have been done I do power supplies. I do these since really, they are more than double the value to strip vs sell around here... When I strip them I remove the heatsinks, ICs, Transistors, chokes, transformers and wire.

After that the gold ends to ribbon cable and so forth are done.

And in no particular order, heatsinks are "cleaned" meaning copper gets heated and knocked off and so on, printers (my arch enemy) are smashed to bits for exercise. I'm sure im missing out on a little bit of this and that (don't forget to strip your low grades for ICs, CU backed Transistors and Ta Caps (And MLCCs but you should educate yourself on what is what) of and HINT HINT Ta Caps are a little bit magnetic.

Once I start on an item I won't stop till it's completely stripped. I hate leaving things unfinished. For the stubborn items I introduce them to a 3lb block splitter, which works wonders.

The process varies depending on the amount of time I currently have and the amount of material currently coming in. The amount of space I have to work with is fairly constant. I really really can have boom or bust times with my incoming material. First I try to cut cords, remove large steel parts, and remove most plastic from items. This usually results in reducing the space needed by 75% while not taking a whole lot of time. Then if I run out of room I determine if I am better turning in my 'breakage' pile without tearing it down further or using that space instead to get more fresh scrap. By doing that first partial teardown I have to make the second decision rarely, thus hopefully bringing max return for my stuff.

Originally Posted by NHscrapman

heck yeah
Hammer first ask questions later... usually "wonder what that was?"

You;ve herd the term "Poetry in Motion." For me its "Chaos in motion" lol.

Sirscrapalot - Enjoys a bit of chaos.

Originally Posted by Sirscrapalot

Knowing where to hits stops some of the excess cleanup. I aim for the screws or around them if busting into stuff. Some of that plastic is tough, so you'll break it it but not in pieces. I've found one can do a lot with just a chisel an a hammer. lol.

One day I'l have a bunch of tools, then I'll be bored.

Sirscrapalot - Fun thread!

Hey Scrappy, add a little air pressure to that hammer and chisel and it goes even quicker!! I finally bought an industrial grade air hammer and some good chisels and it makes stubborn stuff a thing of the past. If "Brutus" can't break it, about the only option left is the cutting torch. Working over a solid box with some cardboard walls keeps things from flying all over the shop.

PS - you will also need a good set of ear protection, preferably with a built in radio.

Enjoy the surf my friend.

I am loving this thread. Thanks everyone for all the details. More, if you got them, pls.

Originally Posted by newattitude

Monitors I can wait to do since I take them to Goodwill so those can go in a corner for later.

After a load is emptied from my truck I do an ''initial'' breakdown since I'm usually turning and burning.

I break down towers, electronics etc into outside steel coverings which go into the truck or a bin. I then put boards and/or say VCR mechanics into a bin to be further broken down later with wire going right into the wire bin (as much as I can pull off by hand for the bulk of it) and tower components also into the ''to be done later'' bin.

After the initial breakdown and garbage, plastic etc is cleaned up I then finish the second and final breakdown of the smaller components.

Some items I wait until I have a bucket full of like the Dish ''eyes'' as those are kinda time consuming as well as the aluminum motors from VCR guts. Those things I'd rather just save a bunch of and then break them down.

After I clean the boards I toss the boards into their respective bins and then finish breaking down any little stuff that came off of them like teh aluminum pieces with the little copper thingies on them.

What are dish eyes?