Found laptops on the street fully abused and often smashed to bits. Recently pulled a 160gb SSD out of one. That’s worth keeping, as well as the RAM, often.

TV tuners/media players: they sometimes have internal hard drives. I recently pulled a 320gb 2½″ HDD out of one. Even though that’s likely too small to serve as someone’s laptop system, anything bigger than 120gb is big enough to store a copy of the whole Debian system including all apps (5 blu-rays merged these days).

All DC powered electronics: it’s useful to cannabalize the female barrel connector. There are many universal PSUs with a collection of male tips, but never female tips. The female tips are useful for making your own barrel adapters, instead of cutting and soldering your OEM PSUs.

120GB can also hold a whole library full of music and/or books, so that's nothing to scoff at!

SSDs, even 120gb ones, are definitely useful in this day and age. A year ago you could just buy a brand name 120 or 500 gb SSD for cheap for throwing into an old PC. Now a days a new 500gb SATA Samsung SSD is $274 CAD.

disposable vapes have a lithium ion battery and usb c port for charging… it’s not hard to turn one into a battery pack for something else that took batteries, like a flashlight

Just to add:

Various cheap LCD panels can be repurposed using a $10-20 driver from Ali or eBay.

Red LED 8-segment displays from old alarm clocks - fun to use for any other purpose using a microcontroller.

I think it was an old toaster I got a nice slide variable resistor from.

Precise (but weak) stepper assembly from old CD/DVD drives.

Standard cords from any appliance. Nice high-current switches.

Some old keyboards (especially programmable ones) have a DIP chip, if you are into building keyboards.

I recently pulled a color LCD from a vape. I can't believe ppl throw this stuff in landfill.

However, having trouble driving it in the sense that I have no idea how. I have an esp8266 and started looking at arduino but if you have any advice lmk.

LCD has a FPC 10-pin cable and I know the original MCU that drove it, but thats it

TBH I don't know that much. If it is a wider ribbon (40-50 pins), it is parallel RGB (5 or 6 bits per color, clock, power, etc). But for 10 pin cable, it probably uses some protocol to communicate.

Since it's from a vape, it has to be widely available. I would find the model number (even look for similar LCDs on ali or ebay), then find the specs/datasheet/documentation - it should specify which pin is which and what voltages and signals they expect.

Do you think you could put together a guide on what to look for in these parts for someone who doesn't really know anything about tech? I'd really love to learn and I feel like ripping open a busted laptop would be a great way to start, but I don't even know what "female barrel connector" or "OEM PSU" means.
"160gb SSD" though, I know that one. That's so many damn photos. My partner always shoots JPGs because storage is expensive but I always shoot RAW if I can...

Yeah, you can buy a cheap USB-to-SATA boards/cables (or enclosure) and use them as USB drives. I have an rPi booting off an old SATA-HDD (more durable than micro-sd in my experience). Unraid supports arrays with mixed sized disks too, so you could make a NAS.

Various cheap LCD panels can be repurposed using a $10-20 driver from Ali or eBay.

When a Thinkad is disassembled, there are like 20—40 fragile pins on the connector. I always just assumed it was custom and proprietary. Although it probably would not make sense for IBM to be in the LCD business, so I guess the pins must be standard (probably not the connector though). From there, can I trust the wire colors?

I ask because sometimes I find a destroyed laptop like a keyboard and base busted in half, where the LCD could be salvagable.

The most recent trashed laptop turns out to be purely the display, which was torn off, scratched up, and hanging by a wire. The power connector was smashed. But I got a Thinkpad docking station which supported an external display and a new power input, and it works just fine. It is now the fastest “desktop” in my house.

Precise (but weak) stepper assembly from old CD/DVD drives.

I had to look into how that’s useful. Apparently printers, engravers, and laser cutters are made with them. Requires a lot of ambition but if I really need one of those things and I hate what is in the enshitified marketplace, it might be interesting. I imagine the difficulty is in all the other components needed for those things.

Some old keyboards (especially programmable ones) have a DIP chip, if you are into building keyboards.

I did not know that was a thing. I have lots of spare keyboards and thought of using the linux app keyb to map chars like ½, “, ”, etc. to it. Thanks for the suggestion, b/c I think my plan of having two keyboards in front of me is a bit wasteful of desk space.

When a Thinkad is disassembled, there are like 20—40 fragile pins on the connector

AFAIK high-resolution screens (laptops, tablets) often use LVDS interface and connector, thin wires in twisted pairs. Like this one

@activistPnk It's great that you're interested in the environment! Every small action counts, and making a few changes can have a significant impact when combined with the efforts of others. Did you know that recycling just one plastic bottle can save enough energy to power a computer for 25 minutes? It's amazing how much we can make a difference by being more mindful of our daily habits and choices!

@activistPnk E-waste can hold valuable materials for recycling and sustainable development 🌿.