I am about to start chucking old printers out the door, but I understand there are folks that like to salvage motors and what not. Many of these printers work, they are just old. It is a mix, old dot matrix and ink jets. Some with C64 interfaces, most with Centronics, a few USB.

Any interest or ideas what to do with them?

 

Salvage them for 3-D printing.

 

That is one thought, I just want them out my door though. I'll be posting around see if there are any takers.

 

Bill,

You can always donate them to goodwill or some other organization. Of course the C64 interface ones might be more valuable to a collector.

Post them on ebay and see what happens? I just googled "commodore 64 printer" and got about 1.5 million pages.

Who knows, you might have a bidding war ...

 

Goodwill and the Salvation Army have basically stopped accepting old computer hardware. Just the way it is.

 

Goodwill and BestBuy both recycle electronics. I have dropped a bunch of electronics off at Goodwill. Haven't tried BestBuy but I think small items they take for free.

 

Dallas has a strong robotics hobby club with a large web page (DPRG if i remember right), they would probably appreciate a donation of older printers which had the bigger motors and better quality rails and belt drives etc.

New lightweight bubblejets are not so useful but heavy old printers had some nice stuff inside.

 

those old dot matrix printers are a goldmine of parts for hobbyist....

 

An old printer could be converted into a winding coil machine.

Both main movements are there. Winding and transverse displacement back & forth.

I gutted one Epson 850 and after a careful reverse engineering I managed to do a "brains implant" and had them doing what I needed. New brains were in a 18F452.

Please do not leave them in the streets....

 

Dallas has a strong robotics hobby club with a large web page (DPRG if i remember right), they would probably appreciate a donation of older printers which had the bigger motors and better quality rails and belt drives etc.

New lightweight bubblejets are not so useful but heavy old printers had some nice stuff inside.

You have to remember where I live.

I know the guys in DPRG, they were the first I asked. They have enough junk, I am told. Apparently printers are not in short supply.

I was invited to a spinoff of DPRG last week, Maker Space. I'll be writing a review on it shortly, it will be a permanent part of my blog. They have a really cool CNC laser (40W CO2) that I took a training class on.

Part of the problem is I have strong packrat genes. It is hard to control sometimes, but I am working on it.

An old printer could be converted into a winding coil machine.

Both main movements are there. Winding and transverse displacement back & forth.

I gutted one Epson 850 and after a careful reverse engineering I managed to do a "brains implant" and had them doing what I needed. New brains were in a 18F452.

Please do not leave them in the streets....

Not so much in the streets, as in the land fill. It is what I'm trying to avoid, but it is looking more and more likely as time goes by.

 

You have to remember where I live.
...

Not remembered, but actually checked your location before I posted.

Shame they didn't want them. I've stripped some great parts including NEMA23 steppers and 3/4" linear bearing rails from the old 1980's 15" matrix printers, but as years went by they got smaller, lighter and nastier inside and the modern ones aren't really worth opening the cover.

 

3/4" linear bearing rails from the old 1980's 15"

Which when you want to buy are insanely expensive, provided you find who sells them...