Hi Nerdkits, Thank you for reading this post. I am wondering if anyone in the community has ever gotten any benefit from pulling apart their old household appliances and re-using any of the electrical components they find inside. Is it possible to re-use things like capacitors and inductors? What about the MCU I found in my old microwave? Cheers!

I've gleaned parts from all kinds of old electronics. Coffee makers can have realays, displays, and various other parts. I'm sure there are parts that are usable in microwave's .. As for the mcu, if it is a programmable device that you can get a datasheet for, you may be able to use it. Often though you'll either find a part number that either isn't there or can't be recognized. I did source a couple of old at90s2313's from old Tivo boards. I've gotten many voltage regulators, capacitors, 7400 series ic's etc. Old computer motherboards have many re-purposeable parts.

Rick

Any decent home inventor, has at least a box full of parts from old appliances. Old microwave ovens have high voltage power supplies, digital counting and timing circuits, switches and all kinds of cool junk. It's amazing what you can dig out of old broken things. It brings a new meaning to recycling.

Hey thanks Mongo, I've kept all the bits for when my knowledge of electronics is sufficient. Destroyed the magnetron, though. Don't want to mess with that thing. Cheers!

Yeah... Ya don't want to mess with the magnetron. At least not powering it up anyway. They make cool paperweights though.