best cheap/free scores 1.1

[c_hegge]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I picked a pair of Genesis Physics II speakers from Craigslist ad on Wednesday night...

Nice. I don't often get free speakers which are half decent

My latest addition to this thread is a GA-Z77M-D3H-MVP, which I got absolutely free. All I had to do is remove the Ethernet controller IC as it got blown out by lightning. It has entirely OS-CON caps too, which is a nice bonus.

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I will gladly trade my speakers for that motherboard of yours . Just pay the shipping (although there's a chance you may go bankrupt, judging by their gross weight ).

Tomorrow, if it's not as balls-cold as it was in the last few days, I might go out with the bike around the neighborhood to see if anyone has thrown out some nice stuff. Call it "after Black Friday curb shopping" .

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Tomorrow, if it's not as balls-cold as it was in the last few days, I might go out with the bike around the neighborhood to see if anyone has thrown out some nice stuff.

I doubt it will be balls-cold tomorrow. The last few days felt like January! Probably the chilliest November since November, 2004!

[ratdude747]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Cyber monday'd myself a Autel MaxiScan MS300 OBDII scanner for $15 shipped on newegg... yay, no more going to the auto zone for a check engine light BS. It was like 78% off....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA0XA0851767

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

^ That's a pretty useful tool to have around. And for $15, it's quite a bargain!

Today was a good score for me, but it was stuff that was from the university's dumpster, so I'll post that in the dumpster thread in a bit.

I took some picture of those Genesis speakers. Man, they sure are in sad shape!

Yes, those cases are painted! And whoever did it did quite a careless job. Here you can get an idea of what they looked liked before being painted:


And here is a shot with the drivers removed

Looks like the original woofers burned out (or at least one of them did, as only 1 speaker has those scorch marks). Explains why there were replacement woofers in there. Speaking of which, here are the woofer drivers:


They seem quite beefy overall. The flexible wire that connects the cone with the case posts is kind of thin, though. Now why the manufacturer did that is beyond me.

And here is a shot of the rear of the inverted dome tweeter:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1386397733
Yes, they date back to 1978!!! Unfortunately, I think they are dead . When I was testing the speakers, I did not hear any sound come out of them, regardless of the switch position on the back of the speakers. I also tested the resistors and capacitors in the crossover network, and they are good, along with the switches. The inverted dome tweeters show open circuit on my multimeter. When I get time, I'll hook them to my test amp separately to see if they work at all. High chance they might have gotten burnt out too. One of the crossover networks seems to have been rebuilt with newer parts and new resistor (possibly due to the burning out of the tweeter).
And oh yeah, here is a shot of the label:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1386397733

With some restoration, I think these will make an okay set. I may end up either giving them to my friends to have something to play music on or test sound systems in his shop, or I might give them to my dad to have them as outside speakers for the back yard. Will see what I make of them. They aren't very efficient at all. And now I think it's very possible that the passive radiators have been re-conned. The grue holding the foam looks crappy.

[SuperDuty]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I won a lot of 16 non working video cards on eBay for a mere 22€ :
MSI GTX480 1536Mb GDDR5 : reflowed and works perfectly in my computer now The heatsink was filthy with the usual carpet between the fan and the fins.
MSI HD5450 512Mb GDDR3 : works
MSI HD2400 Pro 256Mb DDR2 : works
MSI GT220 1Gb GDDR3 : works
MSI 7900GT : reflowed and works perfectly
MSI 7650GS : reflowed and works perfectly
MSI Radeon 9550SE : works
MSI FX5200 : works but needs capacitors : awful Skywell caps
Gigabyte HD4670 : works
Gigabyte 8500GT 512Mb Passive : reflowed and works perfectly, if you have one of these, replace the thermal paste. They've used a thick and very hard chewing gum crap.
Asus X300SE 128Mb : works but the VGA connector is faulty or worn so no green signal, I have the push the cable up to get the green signal and a good image
Sapphire X1300 HM 512Mb : works, awful performance though

They've all been tested and benchmarked.

Here's the ones I haven't been able to repair so far :
8400GS : needs a MOSFET
8300GS : needs a reflow I guess
Sapphire HD4350 : same, though this one makes the motherboard beep
HD3450 : reflow as well


So it's the first time in over ten years that I go to the "green side" and use a GeForce in my main computer. I'm not seeing much of a difference compared to the HD5850 I had previously (and got in a 15€ lot of video cards) even though it should be 20-30% faster. But I'm not playing much with big budget demanding titles, apart from FarCry 3.

Last week I also got a lot of older cards for 5€ :
Gigabyte 8500GT 256Mb : works perfectly, the cooler, though rather small works surprisingly well.
Hercules Radeon 9000 PCI 64Mb : my very first video card, it's so cool to have one again. Back in 2002 I was stuck with the horrible performance of the i810e video chip and no AGP port, coupled with a Celeron 733 and 64Mb of PC100. My gaming experience wasn't great and I was limited to software mode in most games. This card allowed me to play pretty much anything I threw at it.
Creative Voodoo2 8Mb : works, I can make an SLI now with my other Voodoo2 8Mb
Diamond Monster 3D Voodoo 4Mb : works even though three small surface mount polymer capacitor are broken, I already had one of those
Leadtek MX440 64Mb : works but needs a capacitor, nothing really interesting
STB Velocity 4400 TNT 16Mb : works, even comes with the manual and the drivers CD
And a few other random cards and cables.

And to finish I also bought a small lot of cards for 20€, but I was mostly interested in ultra rare the ATi Rage Fury Maxx. The seller even added two DVI cables and two VGA cables, all brand new.

[kc8adu]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

recent acquisitions include,
radion hd4870 1gb all i did was wash in the sink.nasty!running in this machine now.
asus m4a79something.another wash job.wound up in my business partners work machine.
2 2tb wd blacks still in a gutted nas.board and power supply missing but drives are good despite being marked not seen in win7.duh! they were a striped set!

[kc8adu]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

i have one of those here somewhere.

but I was mostly interested in ultra rare the ATi Rage Fury Maxx. The seller even added two DVI cables and two VGA cables, all brand new.

[SuperDuty]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Those are very hard to come by, since I've started collecting video cards in 2011, I may have seen two or three for sale worldwide...I got really lucky on this one as it was just part of a lot and not advertised as such.
So yeah they weren't as good in real life as they were on paper, mostly because of poor drivers and no support past Win98/Me, but they're an interesting effort from ATi.

[momaka]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Got a few "interesting" stuff last Friday. Found them next to the dumpster designated for our engineering building at the university.

The stuff:

3 APC backup power supplies. None had batteries in them except for one unit, which I suppose wasn't removed because it's a little stuck (it's a 12 AH battery, too). The battery is also leaking, I think - it's got some kind of gray-white fluids on it. Is this what's inside sealed lead-acid batteries?

Not that I care much about the batteries, though. The only reason I saved these units is for the transformer inside. The one with the 12 AH battery had a HUGE transformer in there. Probably good for at least 20 or 30 Amps at 12V. I took apart all 3 because I wanted to check them for nasty "surprises" inside. The unit with the battery had what appeared to be a single hatched roach egg shell, so I left it outside in the cold. The other 2 unites were pretty clean, so I put them in my car (which was also cold). When I get time tomorrow, I will fully disassemble the unit with the battery and probably save the boards (traffo is already saved) and recycle the battery if it's leaking.

What I also found with these backup PSs was a heavily-beaten HP 6281A adjustable linear bench power supply. Unfortunately, it probably isn't fixable as someone removed the huge capacitor from it and the PCB is broken in some areas. But again, only reason I saved it is because it has an even BIGGER transformer than any of the UPSs. It will probably fetch at least $10 for the copper in it (although I probably won't use it for that). There's lots of old caps, transistors, and whatnot in that power supply, so if anyone needs anything specific for fixing one of these bench power supplies, send me a PM.

[TELVM]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

... The battery is also leaking, I think - it's got some kind of gray-white fluids on it. Is this what's inside sealed lead-acid batteries? ...

Yep. Don't eat or drink that stuff, it induces philia for Tiles 8 .

... The only reason I saved these units is for the transformer inside ....

Even after batteries and transformer are removed (no more back-up power or voltage regulation), most APC UPSes still work as (a bit oversized ) line filters/surge protectors if you plug into the 'SURGE ONLY' white headers:

The RS-800 for instance has passive filter/protection stuff inside that works even when the UPS remains switched off (these UPSes will not switch on without working batteries plugged).


EDIT - This will be more familiar to you :

[momaka]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Yep. Don't eat or drink that stuff, it induces philia for Tiles 8 .

I got it on my hand a little when I was opening the unit. Was kind of sticky too. I was expecting it to instantly melt my skin right to the bone, but instead nothing happened .

I'm starting to wonder if this is just dissolved silicone or something similar as hydrogen was released from the battery gassing (or do sealed batteries not gas?).
I was really hoping the battery was okay, so that I could always have 12V DC for my projects, even when there is no power in the house .

Even after batteries and transformer are removed (no more back-up power or voltage regulation), most APC UPSes still work as (a bit oversized ) line filters/surge protectors if you plug into the 'SURGE ONLY' white headers:

Yep. I already have a APC 500 back-UPS that I am using for this very same purpose since I am always short on surge protectors .

That's for the quick reply. By the way, isn't it like very early morning right now in Spain?

[TELVM]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

... I was really hoping the battery was okay ...

It's easier to find an honest politician inside a parliament than a working battery inside a dumpsted UPS.

[momaka]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

In the case, I guess it will join the group of Li-Ion laptop batteries I'm recycling tomorrow. I have about 3 Dell C-series, 1 Dell D-series, 3 IBM Thinkpad T-21, and a few even older batteries (from Pentium I Dell laptops). I would have really liked to save the cases on some of these batteries so the laptops don't have any "holes" in them, but quite honestly I am a little uncomfortable with opening lithium batteries. So unless someone wants them or knows what I can use them for, they are going tomorrow.

[domas]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

In the case, I guess it will join the group of Li-Ion laptop batteries I'm recycling tomorrow. I have about 3 Dell C-series, 1 Dell D-series, 3 IBM Thinkpad T-21, and a few even older batteries (from Pentium I Dell laptops). I would have really liked to save the cases on some of these batteries so the laptops don't have any "holes" in them, but quite honestly I am a little uncomfortable with opening lithium batteries. So unless someone wants them or knows what I can use them for, they are going tomorrow.

Oh come on, whats the big deal with opening a li-ion battery casing? I know videos on youtube are trying to scare people off about shortening li-ion cells and letting it burn, i have numerous of open packs around my house I mean it is more for "i do not understand shit about electronics" people. Yes it can end up in a disaster. Just as well as working on hot side of PSU (oh no an electric shock!!) "no serviceable components inside"

I mean it takes some effort to tear it apart, but thats about it.

Do you by any chance have any dead GD761 batteries that you want to trash? Please let me know before you do so. I need one. Or at least it's controller

[momaka]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Oh come on, whats the big deal with opening a li-ion battery casing? I know videos on youtube are trying to scare people off about shortening li-ion cells and letting it burn, i have numerous of open packs around my house

Because, in the US, most houses are built out of wood and so are very fire-friendly. And I guess I got a little scared after noticing last summer, that a box of cheap Chinese lithium batteries I had in storage had started to bulge so badly that they cracked their cases open. Around the same time, my friend had his RC car catch fire and burn him pretty badly (nearly burnt down his repair shop too), again, due to lithium batteries (not sure if because of bad quality or bad wiring). So all in all, I just don't like lithium batteries. Yeah, I know it sounds stupid.

I mean it is more for "i do not understand shit about electronics" people. Yes it can end up in a disaster. Just as well as working on hot side of PSU (oh no an electric shock!!) "no serviceable components inside"

I guess if you know what you're doing, it's fine to open them and do whatever you want with them. But personally, I feel more comfortable with working with HV at multiple amps than with lithium batteries. Have worked on plenty of PSUs with their cover open and even got shocked by few that didn't discharge their caps. But I don't mind. Again, for some stupid reason, I'm not as afraid of dieing as I am of burning down my house .

Do you by any chance have any dead GD761 batteries that you want to trash?

No, nothing this new. All of the batteries are Pentium-III era and older (except for the one single Dell D-series). I've pealed the stickers on a few, and IIRC all of them have 18650 cells inside, either made by Panasonic, Sanyo, Sony, or some other well-known Japanese company. But none of them have been charged in over 3 years now, so the cells are probably dormant.

[momaka]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Just a small O/T update:

Yes, that APC battery was indeed bad - bulging quite a bit on one side. It's top was visibly cracked, too. However, I was right for one thing - that sticky white-gray liquid I saw inside the housing of the APC was not from the battery. It was from two rubber pads that were suppose to be glued to the PCB. I guess they melted from the battery gassing? Who knows.

As for the laptop batteries - they are gone, now. I recycled them, as well as the battery from the APC backup supply.

[goodpsusearch]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I got a vintage oscilloscope for free! It is a ci-112a, a russian unit made in 1992. There is info about it here:

http://oldradio.tesla.hu/szetszedtem...2a/c1-112a.htm

It is mono channel 20MHZ or 10MHZ I am not sure about that.

What do you think?

[Heihachi_73]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

MSI Radeon 9550SE : works

The suckers' card. Those who may have heard of soft-modding a 9500 to a more powerful 9700, and ended up with a 9550 instead. Like me.

[SuperDuty]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

That's weird as the 9550 is a budget 9600 (same GPU), and the 9500 is the lower end 9700. Did GPU-Z give you this name for you "upgraded" 9500 ?