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What do you do with gear not worth fixing?

DesertRatt said:
When there's no more room at the casa, I WILL make room, one way or another. Selling stuff is getting more and more difficult everyday. When you have a heavy thing, that is broken, selling it for $25, or trying to give it away is near impossible. FB and CL are chock-a-block with goofballs, scam artists, and just garden variety flakes. Not many people give a damn even about WORKING stereo-junk - no matter how low the price. No one has any money anymore, or any interest.
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Yeah. I worry about Craigslist flakes scoping out the house. Arranging to meet people at a Starbucks parking lot or something can be a bit of a hassle.

Ultimately, I leave stuff out on trash days, and guys usually pick it up. If the junk has metal, they will take it. That's nice, as it saves me from having to go to the recyclers.
 
I went by Goodwill this afternoon and dropped off nine unused tuners, three audio timers, and a CD player... finally getting rid of excess stuff that is not worth spending the time to try and sell. I do have a few that are worth selling that I'm trying to decide if can can part with them or not (Marantz 2252B receiver, Marantz 2100 tuner with rare wood case, Onkyo TX-4500 MKII receiver, Onkyo TX-9090II tuner, Onkyo M-304 preamp, and a Parasound NC200 preamp).
 
Mr.Heatsink said:
I always keep what others have mentioned, screws ,IC's, STV diodes, pin connectors, certain types of wire harnesses & small heatsinks. I have found with all my restorations i needed something i stashed.
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That sounds sensible, I might do that.

RVT1K said:
First off I would have to question why pick it up at all? Was the allure of "free" simply too strong?
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When I started out in this hobby I'd pick up free or quasi-free gear for practice. Soldering, desoldering, taking switches and pots apart and back together without ruining them, all that.

Like that Onkyo receiver I mentioned, some free gear works just fine and doesn't need anything.
 
MFRD said:
When I started out in this hobby I'd pick up free or quasi-free gear for practice. Soldering, desoldering, taking switches and pots apart and back together without ruining them, all that.
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That is something I have suggested for other beginners...hone you skills on something you can't really mess up.
 
Harvest parts! The heat sink is very useful. I've pulled NLA transistors that were still good from boards to be used for repairs. Any usable hardware is also good to save for projects and repairs. Bad transistors, resistors, caps are all disposed of properly. The metal chassis can sometimes be re-purposed.

Gotta say though - I don't work on anything I can't repair or that isn't worth it in my view. The only things I've had to part out were completely trashed, or unfixable because various large chips were NLA, such as with a Music Hall top of the line CD player. Everything else I choose to work on becomes an obsession to fix.
 
I generally gut them, and sell the pieces that will be useful on other receivers that are worth fixing. The rest goes to the recyclers ..
 
I usually post for free on CL or FB with the caveat that the gear is not working and will be left outside for pickup. I also donate 'better' gear to a local non-profit thrift or GW.
 
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