Printers are pretty much worthless right?

Found a large lawn & leaf bag full of printers the other day so I grabbed it. Tore appart the first one (a low end Lexmark) and was surprized to see how little metal there was in it.



There were a couple of small cards and about half a pound of steel. I saved the cartridge of course since that's probably the most worthwhile part.

Are any of these worth fooling with? There are a couple of HPs in there.

If they have card slots, there will be a board in there that is pretty good. And of course the ink cartridges have their value. Probably a couple of small motors to toss on the pile as well as some brass pieces here and there.

Only takes a few minutes to smash it apart and get those items out. Oh, and the wires of course get tossed in the wire bin.

the connectors are usually gold, and they usually have a high grade board in there somewhere. They are indeed a PITA, i usually wait until i have several before I mess with them, and then I am not too delicate. Take the ink cartridges out, try to get the good boards out, and then apply a liberal dose of sledgehammer medicine.

the rods can be made into very handy tools , punches chisels etc.

Same with my yard rca. Just cut the cord and throw it in my gaylord for shred.

Yea, I would like to be able to sell the ABS, I get lots of it tearing stuff down but I don't have the space to keep it and haven't found a buyer yet (you'd think that would be easier, everything is made out of ABS). I did find out that the people contracting with my city are set up to handle ABS so I've been putting it in the recycle bin and letting them have it for now.

I did notice the big roller that feeds the paper is aluminum cover with some sort of gritty paint to grip the paper. No much wieght but it's going in the aluminum box.

I've posted this before but I'll do it again. You guys that are throwing printers in the shred pile are loosing alot of money. This is what I get out of printers, these are the small computer printers, fax machines and copiers will have more in them. I get at least 2 and sometimes 3 high grade boards (3.65#) 2-3 electric motors, wires, steel (some have more than others) Always breake down the print head (thats what I call it) it's the black thing that holds the ink cartreges, it has a high grade board and it also has a peice of mylar with gold dots.

Hey Burly, if you read the post I said these are the small computer printers not the larger ones. These only weigh 1 or 2 lbs each. The biger ones like your talking about have bigger high grade boards much more wires and some have tinned memory. I've done so many of these printers I can do one in about 3 or 4 minutes.