What's the best thing you've pulled out of a skip?

MadsL

I ask because I tend to look inside skips and particularly inside scrapped cases (just in case horrible pun) usually nothing worthwhile to be had or they have already been stripped to death.

Anyway, I was recycling some bottles tonight at a local hotel and came across an old server case...hard drives gone, ram gone, processor NOT GONE!!!! Happy day...so I managed to pull out a PIII 500MHz to upgrade one of my old POS machines.

Anyone tell me how to get the machine to recognise the speed increase btw (yes I've flashed the BIOS!)

On another 'best find' myself and a friend were 'liberating' a few bits when the old Rover plant closed down in Oxford way back when. We met another couple of scavengers who'd found a brand new (still in the packaging) smoke machine!

Matt Simis

All in one skip\rubbish area: 20x Network cards, 15x sticks of ram, 10 unformatted although small harddrives, 10x motherboards, some printer accessories.. to a young lad back in the Pentium 1 era, this was quite the gold mine.



Matt

p.pete

Copies of playboy - the covers were removed because the shop was sending them back for refunds on unsold copies - other than that it was untouched.

Nothing technology related, sorry;)

Ronan|Raven

Not out of a skip as such but from stuff that was destined for the skip, several low end graphics cards, 700 odd megs of various memory modules, some 10/100 nics and some old 10 meg nics, a 10 meg hub, a 9.4 gig afaik scsi hdd which I gave away for free dont ask me why some 3 gig ide drives.

elexes

10 meg 3com superstack 24 port switch
10 nics
cat 5e 100m
playboys
p1's
17" hp monitors
ram sticks

Tazz T

The gf - she was a bit worse for wear that night

Samson

When I used to work in the Intel system plant (many, many years ago), there was a guy there, let's call him John, who used to raid the skip(s) on a regular basis and "found" many perfect hard drives and other assorted components.

I was sort of friendly with him and he let me in on his secret. Which was:
As he worked on pre-assembly inspection of components before they went out to the production line he was in a position whereby if he wanted a few drives all he had to do was mark them down as damaged, fill out a scrappage report and "throw" them in the skip.
He would leave work, go around the back and rescue said items and sell them.

This was going on for months and he was still at it when I left. However, I read all about his adventures some months later in the Evening Herald when he was caught!

Matt Simis

Originally posted by Samson
When I used to work in the Intel system plant (many, many years ago), there was a guy there, let's call him John, who used to raid the skip(s) on a regular basis and "found" many perfect hard drives and other assorted components.

I was sort of friendly with him and he let me in on his secret. Which was:
As he worked on pre-assembly inspection of components before they went out to the production line he was in a position whereby if he wanted a few drives all he had to do was mark them down as damaged, fill out a scrappage report and "throw" them in the skip.
He would leave work, go around the back and rescue said items and sell them.

This was going on for months and he was still at it when I left. However, I read all about his adventures some months later in the Evening Herald when he was caught!

Intel eh? I used to work there (once for the summer) and they were none too pleased when I (more) legitimately aquired some items from the garbage "round the back". They trace everything over and back via paperwork and cameras. They were throwing out perfectly good stuff because it was simply in the way. Id rather recycle it myself..


Matt

MadsL

More dumpster diving today...

Pulled out ~80m of 5e cable (another guy was doing likewise and got more like 400m - the skip was outside a govt department, typical - what's the etiquette btw - should I have waited until he finished as he was there first??)

Also spotted two fibre optic hubs - I didn't take them but if anyone has any ideas about what to do with them...

I think I'm becoming hooked on this again...

po0k

I've salvaged many a Pentium PC, a monitor or two, 40meg scsi hdd, power supply and fan from an Apple IIe (I think) in my neighbour's skip, a bubbles machine, several modems, lots of edo ram, motherboards, a few decent enough gfx cards (agp TNTs etc. - grand for workstations), and recently whilst walking home on a couple of evenings I came accross a few orange cone-shaped objects and a good few meters of perfectly good wire.
Thinking of getting a bulb and making some light fittings.
Hardcore.

Lemming

Printers, cables, old Pentium PCs, HDDs, NICs.

A lad I know found a wad of Dell licences n'stuff tossed out by a company working in the same building as himself. He then went through 30 or so DDR ram boxes. No. 29th was not empty and he now has a 256mb stick of DDR ram. B*stard.

elexes

Originally posted by MadsL
More dumpster diving today...

Pulled out ~80m of 5e cable (another guy was doing likewise and got more like 400m - the skip was outside a govt department, typical - what's the etiquette btw - should I have waited until he finished as he was there first??)

Also spotted two fibre optic hubs - I didn't take them but if anyone has any ideas about what to do with them...

I think I'm becoming hooked on this again...

where ?

patch

Heh heh....I now have the urge to run down and check out the dumpsters behind compustore!!

MadsL

elexes PM me

GRAHAM2002

I once managed to pull a complete marin mountain bike in three bin bags from a skip. Rebuilt it and it was perfect except a slight bend on the gear shift !!!!!

RRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSUUUUUUUUUULLLLlTTTTTTT
:cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool:

marauder

...and I thought I was the only skip diver



~500 eeproms
2 x surge suppressors
monitor
bookcase
pentium PC
hifi receiver
5disc multichanger DVD player- almost pwo.. I can fix it damn it

theciscokid

Originally posted by marauder
...and I thought I was the only skip diver

you have got to be kiddin' me

everyone dumpster dives in some way or another :ninja:

Gerry

Over the years, I've pulled out loads of pc's, sticks of ram, cpu's, harddrives. I normally try to look for good pci network cards.
Recently a good tactic has been to go to the intel recycling days, where people bring the stuff to you. I got 3 500mhz machines the last time, a load of cpu's, hard drives etc. I wished I could have stayed there all day, but was in the middle of exams.
The best thing I've pulled out has to be an APC 1400 watt UPS.

LoGiE

Originally posted by Gerry

..Recently a good tactic has been to go to the intel recycling days..

When and were are these held?

D-Generate

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.09/es_dumpster_pr.html

Enjoy dumpster divers, its a whole story about an american who makes loads off of it.

Capt'n Midnight

It an americanisation
the preferred term is Skip Hunt

Years ago I missed out on a clean out of a certain recording studio on lotts lane - loads of speakers all about 2 foot across - and me on the bike....

Had an old 21" cad monitor to get rid of when moving into an apartment in town - really heavy - two person lift - bnc connectors- synch on green - and only ran in 1024 x 768 at 60Hz.

So put it down on the ground and took all the stuff from the van to hallway. Then the van went off and we took the stuff up the the apartment. Looked out the window - the monitor must have sprouted legs - it was gone....

MadsL

not dumpster dives
It an americanisation
the preferred term is Skip Hunt

Err...my preferred spelling is americanization...

tomato...tomato
potato...potato

let's call the whole thing off!

po0k

No, lets not.

Then you'd have a monopoly over rubbish