Trying to get into upcycling: Bring on the laptops
I've been looking forward to making a post like this for a while. A few months ago I saw a post by @steemmatt about him doing upcycling. I've seen reselling being done before in the past, but he seems really dedicated to it; more than most I'd say. After going through some of his posts I felt a bit inspired to try my hand at it in my area, but due to my situation at that time I really wasn't able to. That has since changed as I now have a method of transportation and some storage.
Our trash day is on Wednesday, so I plan on posting on those days if I ever find a good haul in a week or two. With that being said, here is what I have found so far:
A Honeywell HS-1655 fan:
This was actually my first find in my neighborhood. Normally this fan prices around $50 new, but for whatever reason they tossed everything out. I didn't see the remote that was supposedly supposed to come with it, so I left the box and just took the fan home. Once inside I plugged it in and everything is working. The only problem I saw was just some dust on the back of the fans. I'm not too sure about selling this yet as summer starts to hit and it pushes a lot more air than my ceiling fan. I'll have to think about it when it cools down.
These last few all come from the same neighbor:
Samsung np300e53:
This is a bit of a low end laptop. It came with the charger, a 500gb hdd, 4gb ram and an Intel i3-3227U cpu. The disc drive is broken off, but I don't plan on using this for cds or dvds anyway. I wiped the drive completely using dban and currently have Manjaro + i3 installed on it. Overall it's in pretty good condition; just needs to be cleaned up. This is another I'm not too sure on passing on. The reason why I'm back and forth on it is because I plan on moving into an IT position soon so I'd like a smaller laptop to take with me if I ever need it. If I ever needed to I could probably get about $100 for it and put it towards a thinkpad.
Fujitsu Lifebook N6420:
Oh man. This is the big one. I seriously don't doubt that you could kill someone outright just by throwing it in their general direction. This one did not come with a charger, so I'm unable to say what works and what doesn't on it other than the hard drive. It does feature two hard drive slots though, which would help explain a bit why it's so massive. I've considered tossing in an ssd and keeping the hard drive in the other slot, but I may not even bother. I've yet to see one of these go up on ebay as all that's available is replacement parts for them. I do want to sell this one, but either I'll keep my eyes open on ebay for one to see what a possible price could be or I'll strip it and sell it for replacement parts like everyone else.
Last, but not least, we have...
A Macbook Pro 13 inch MD101LL/A
This was probably the one that surprised me the most. From what I know, it is completely functional except she just couldn't find the charger for it. It needs a magsafe 1 charger and I've yet to get one for it as they cost about $80. Personally I'm not too fond of Apple anymore, but I figured it would make for a good learning platform if I wanted to use real hardware instead of a virtual machine. If anything, I can wipe the drive and probably get a couple hundred for it. As far as I can tell, this will be the one and only Macbook I'll ever own.
And that's it for my first haul. Nothing sold or listed to sell at the moment. I seem to be a magnet for electronics though from the looks of it. I looked around a neighborhood or two last night but there was either wood, empty boxes or nothing at all sitting out. I would take pictures of me getting/finding them, but it's really just a privacy concern. Along with that, I still need to develop more of an eye for good deals or items tossed. But I guess that comes with practice.
Anyway, that's all I have for now. I'll catch you all next time.
Can't believe people throw away perfectly usable things. My husband has been collecting old laptops for a while and converting them to Linux which extends their life for much longer. He doesn't sell them though, just enjoys playing around with laptops, says he will donate them to those in need when he collects a big enough batch.
And kudos to you and @steemmatt for this upcycling initiative, I think its great as its very environmentally friendly 👍👍👍
I do a bit of the same thing when it comes to desktops. I'll take what I need and throw a distro like lubuntu or Manjaro on them. I'd like to have a variety even though I probably wouldn't use them all. Just for collection.
But you'd be surprised at what people throw out for even the smallest things. 40+ inch tvs that only need to have a board replacement sitting out on the curb.
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This is a great start! Does your neighbor toss this out or did you ask them for anything before they did to save the step?
The fan is a nice usable find. If you want to sell it, when it's hot outside is the best time. If you keep it, you can probably get the remote for just a few bucks on eBay.
As for the laptops, don't get too attached to them. Pick one you may be able to use with solid battery life and sell the others on Craigslist perhaps for some easy cash and to avoid shipping costs. You can also find most power adapters on eBay. The laptops may not fetch much, but they're officially saved. Great job. Looking forward to your next batch.
For the computers they actually came up to me the other day. They were tired of looking at them so I had to accept.
I know not to get too attached to them. I might just keep the Samsung as a backup and sell off the other two.
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Hold on.. people throw laptops to trash? those looks like laptop in a good condition. You can sell those laptop parts if it's not fully functional or doesn't have a long lasting battery life.
People throw away literally everything! I've been recycling/upcycling for years. I won't steal his thunder since it's his blog, but if you can think it, I've found and taken it to sell or keep, or seen it and left it.
whoaa! That's interesting. I never thought of that because where I live, people don't throw away electronics like that especially if it's just missing a charger. They'd use it until it's completely unusable.
My advice...follow steemmatt's advice.
Will do. Haha
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