During my last move every electronic or computer(or bike or auto or furniture for that matter) items I put on the curb were picked up by individuals before trash day, not sure what they did with them. I got a kick out of the person who took one of my inkjet printers w/cords and returned it a few days later to the same spot without the cords after finding out it worked fine, but was out of $$ ink. Someone else took it later. Should have kept that one to use as one of the common $50 recycle/rebates towards a nice new unit. Not sure what they do with the returned printers either, though the local recycler they use on free days claims none sent over seas if that's better.

> Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:31:25 -0500
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] boom box
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> If you look closer at "recycling," it usually means toxic stuff like electronics get shipped to the
> third world and taken apart for the base metals. You can do minimal googling and find many reports
> by reliable media about parts of China, India and Bangladesh that are totally toxified by cheap junk
> thrown out after minimal use in western countries. People are free to choose, so I'm not telling
> anyone what to do. For my own personal space on the planet, I prefer to buy fewer pieces of higher
> quality electronic stuff and then use it forever or sell it used or give it away to someone who
> wants to use it (I prefer selling, both because it generates cash for me and also because putting
> out some cash is an incentive for a buyer not to just toss something when they don't need it
> anymore, because he has placed a value on it by paying for it). Cheap electro-junk sold at big-box
> stores is, by and large, neither reliable nor repairable. Bottom line, it's better not to generate
> the waste in the first place (and better not to waste the resources and energy making the cheap,
> useless, quickly obsolete stuff).
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "robert wasserman" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 5:14 PM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] boom box
>
>
> Well at least around here, municipalities charge for items now to insure correct recycling and then
> have free drop off days where they get paid for recycling or at least free, some of it going to
> reuse. The only problem with this is items are being dumped anonymously or being black bagged into
> land fills again to avoid being charged.
> Getting back to Boom Boxes, I still use the guts of the last boom box I bought new about 20 years
> ago, a JVC 3 piece, as amp controller of a relative's TV setup. The ones I still use are all from
> the curb or bought for no more than a dollar or 2. Same for clock radios. The tape or cd players are
> often the first part to go bad but the radio is the important part for me for most of them, I have
> found a few with working player mechanisms. A few trips to NY ago I did pass up on a nice old Sony
> large tape boom box with recording meters, looked like it might have worked, no power cord and took
> way too many batteries, was a little crusty on the edges, and too many small areas to check for
> bedbugs/cockroaches. Probably was worth hundreds in clean working shape, way too big and heavy to
> fit in my carry on... I did get a working small first model Mackie mixer and a patchbay in a
> cardboard box on a curb in NY late last year, those I was able to open up and clean and check and
> they fit in my carryon. The box looked half empty and on the same block I saw a street person with a
> large older Yamaha rack amp on the top of their shopping cart, must of grabbed the heavy expensive
> looking this off the top of the box!
>
> > Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:47:43 -0500
> > From: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] boom box
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> >
> > Hi Robert:
> >
> > I do the same thing! It's criminal what people throw into landfills. There was a time, now mostly
> > passed, when people were "upgrading" their PC's every couple of years. I had access to an empty
> > office in the building, so I would collect up anything put out for bulk pickup that looked of any
> > reasonably recent vintage. I could usually get parts from 3 or 4 boxes and make one work. I'd then
> > donate that one to any of the many local schools or libraries who were happy to have them.
> > Sometime
> > in this century, the federal government started pouring money down the pipe for schools and
> > libraries to get the very latest computers (whether they needed them or not), so it got to where
> > no
> > one wanted them anymore.
> >
> > I won't even get into CRT televisions, I just cringe when I think of all the lead and mercury
> > needlessly dumped into landfills just because someone thought they needed to have a mega-TV to
> > watch
> > hundreds of channels of nothing. Well, the credit card companies are very happy any time anyone
> > wastes money, so I guess it's good for commerce.
> >
> > -- Tom Fine
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "robert wasserman" <[log in to unmask]>
> > To: <[log in to unmask]>
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 2:48 PM
> > Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] boom box
> >
> >
> > Back in the day, most analog TV's and audio equipment I would find on the curb could be brought
> > back
> > to life, at least for awhile, by going in and changing out the soldered in fuse. Obviously
> > sometimes
> > the fuse blew because of internal problems, but often was caused only by AC surges from the
> > outside.
> > But yes, many times the transformer was blown and went back to the curb, labelled with the
> > problems
> > I found for the next curb shopper.
> >
> > > Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:42:52 -0500
> > > From: [log in to unmask]
> > > Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] boom box
> > > To: [log in to unmask]
> > >
> > > Hi, Frank,
> > >
> > > As I understand consumer safety regulations, if you provide an
> > > externally accessible fuse holder you still must have an internal,
> > > soldered-in fuse that is not user changeable. I believe it may be of
> > > higher value than what is in the user-accessible holder, but it still
> > > must provide protection against the unit burning up. In the past that
> > > was sometimes taken care of by installing a fusible link in the power
> > > transformer that would render the transformer inoperative and you'd have
> > > to replace the entire transformer. There have been different variations
> > > of this over time, and different scenarios are probably acceptable, but
> > > having a user-replaceable fuse as the only protection is not considered
> > > protection at all. Even if the codes did not require it, I would suspect
> > > the manufacturer's risk analyst/attorney would...unless the attorney was
> > > an outside one looking for more defence work <smile>.
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > >
> > > Richard
> > >
> > > On 2012-01-31 10:15 AM, Frank Strauss wrote:
> > > > I discovered that the fuse was
> > > > soldered in. It's toward the back left. It indeed was blown. I cut it
> > > > out and put in a fuse holder/fuse from Radio Shack. The radio has worked
> > > > well since then. I am puzzled why they would solder the fuse in. I guess
> > > > they want you to send it back for repair.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Richard L. Hess email: [log in to unmask]
> > > Aurora, Ontario, Canada (905) 713 6733 1-877-TAPE-FIX
> > > http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
> > > Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.
> >
>