It's a shame that we are becoming a throwaway society. I have a great satisfaction in repairing and rebuilding things. It feels good to say I fixed or made something. We can save the world with one motor or vacuum at a time.
I used to work on larger but similar equipment to this for a living and they are a wealth of goodies for tinkering. The glass in the scanner area is tempered glass and would make a good table top for a small end table. You can etch a design into the glass using a small sand blaster or an air "eraser". The feed roller metal shafts can be cleaned up and used to make turning mandrels for your lathe. Sometimes the roller shafts are stainless, check with a magnet. I use the shafts as lathe stock to make small parts on my metal lathe as well. Printer toner makes a good pigment for mixing up colored epoxy if you ever need any so you may want to save some for that! There are usually lasers and pretty cool prismatic reflectors in the scanner assembly.
Dang it Jeremey! I told you how fragile my marriage was and now you go and put out a video on taking apart office equipment. This is like crack for me and you know it. I gotta get in my truck now and drive through the "bad" parts of town looking for a fix on the curb.
@@Jeremy_Fielding Where do/can you get a hold of all the things you cannibalize???? Where do you get a broken copier??? Hooooooowwww???!?!!! I'm so jealous!!
All great stuff Jeremy ! I have taken apart A-LOT of stuff and also have my students in my middle school after school electronics club take things apart..lots of fun, great educational value and the kids get to use their hands...win,win,win. Then, you end up with millions of parts to repurpose into contraptions !
I'm a big fan of using magnets to keep certain tools handy around my bench. But, I've been told by a small handful of guys much wiser than myself, to keep magnets away from my digital caliper. Great content, as always. Thanks
I worked on copiers and printers from the early 70’s through the early 00’s. Some advice about the bronze bushings that you found: they are for relatively low speed applications, and never, ever oil or lubricate them. Just clean them with a dry rag. They are made by pressing thousands of tiny bronze beads together and are porous, like foam rubber. They are impregnated with oil during the high pressures and temperatures of the manufacturing process. No amount of oil added to them post-manufacturing will put any additional oil back into the pores of the bearing. The oil will only collect dust and dirt, causing the bearing to fail.
Can recommend Latex gloves for Both ink and laser printer Teardowns. And just a heads up some of the toners are carcinogenic in powder form so a respirator will go a long way! Sweet video. Unfortunately i only got "consumer" grade printers so far!
Also, toner is polyester, ground into a fine dust. Letting it fly in the wind and drop on the soil is a massive injection of micro plastics directly into the environment.
I work at a car dealership. We have two car brands spread across what used to be three stores. One slow day I went and explored the now unused parts warehouse in the middle. Among other treasures I found about ten old computers and at least a dozen old printers. I knew there were good shafts and stepper motors to use and circuit boards to scrap. I asked around until I got permission to haul them off. Fully three of the printers still work perfectly, including one with Wi-Fi, a duplexer, and a sheetfed scanner. There was also a Fuji ScanSnap high speed sheetfed scanner. It took me many days of "spare time" to break down the rest, but I now have hundreds of plastic gears, dozens of precision shafts, a box of fans of varying voltage and diameter, many boxes of top quality circuit board scrap, over two dozen stepper motors (including some strong enough to run a 3D printer or laser engraver), 8 or 10 solenoid of varying size, and lots and lots of wire. I posted the plastic and steel scrap on Craigslist and someone picked it up (wasn't enough to be worth it to me to cash it in, but enough that someone would). Haven't cashed in the circuit boards yet, but I'm looking forward to some cash there.
Jeremy your really a shinning light for people like me trying to learn electronics/motors. You have a great understanding about how all this stuff works. I started watching your videos about how 3 phase motors work and im constantly playing your videos. I can tell you're not only well skilled but have a great passion for what you do. Keep up the videos its a blessing you're willing to share your knowledge to help others in the field. Much love from northern California!!
There is a wealth of motors, bushings, shafts, etc. in one of those....I tackled one a couple years back...nice find Jeremy!! And not to mention the extra screws to re-up the supply!!!! Beautiful a do it yourselfers jackpot in my mind....
Yep, one thing about them "Corporate" size printers, you get a MESS of motors and gears outa'em. Whenever I happen upon discarded desk top ink-jet and laser printers and decide to salvage, I "harvest" just about all the junk inside - springs, rods, solenoids, motors, gears, screws (most screws), some electronics, inner parts of the housing, etc. Great source for esp. mechatronic "mad scientists" projects and "sputniks" And, to make another point, some of the components and elements salvaged can be extremely difficult and or costly to acquire by normal "mail-order" commercial means for one's personal unique purposes. Anyway, as always, good conscientious vid Jeremy. So Keep up the great stuff man. Cordially:)
I always enjoy taking apart a big laser printer or copier, but I do always get rid of any toner related part directly without opening them, and give a good vaccum cleaning inside the machine before I start the disassembly.
I know exactly how tearing those apart feel. I took 3 of them apart and took EVERY screw out all 14 trillion of em. All the same goodies. Wish i coild attach a pic to show you my shop when I got done lol plastic panels and metal EVERYWHERE. awesome vid
I don't have to space to take apart such beasts right now, but I do a lot of smaller salvage. If I don't want to get into shredding (again -- space is an issue) what's the responsible way to dispose of all of the structural hard plastic waste? E-waste recyclers won't take disassembled bits for obvious reasons...
I found 2 printers similar to that one - half of my garage was covered with the pieces for a month! Loads of solenoids, stepper motors opto-detectors, dc motors, 4 HV power supplies in each, plus lots of steel shafts and bearings. A gold mine of parts :)
I could not tell what phase those stepper motors are. You can pretty much only really use bipolar motors today. The drivers for the rest are too difficult to source. But unipolar and 5 phase motors are common in commercial equipment.
The oddball in copier motors is the scanner drive motor. Most that I work on (KM & Canon) use small 3 phase motors instead of steppers for smoother movement. Kinda hard to fabri-cobble a driver circuit for them.
Mr. Jeremy, nice to see the garbage can right there! best way to avoid massive "clean-up time!" great idea!!! "don't want stuff piled up everywhere." (we can all learn from that!) super, quality, videos. please keep up all the good work. best, walt
Hey Jeremy, I keep not only the HD magnets, but also the cast aluminium Harddrive housings, they make excellent material to meltdown for my aluminun casting projects.
I have a giant pile of them because I figured they must be high quality and I knew they were cast aluminum which is supposed to be a lot better for pouring into a mold than 6061 aircraft or just random bar stock aluminum.... Is that true? Do the hard drives really pour better?
HA recently found out ( from the install technician) the "old" unit one of my customer groups "traded in" has at least two boards that are/were worth ~ $2K or more since they are hard to come by. The salesperson's "trade in" value was a graciously $400. The customer look at me ( am the in-house tech guy ) and all I could say was " sorry you never called me to discuss" .
I been pulling parts out of discarded electronics all my life. Started with old valve or vacuum tube radio's. Began as a curiosity of how things worked and ended up building many useful things out of it all.
Jeremy, I do believe there will come a day you build an intelligent Robot from old parts and pieces, complete with a laser for cutting grass, LOL. Man you are a genius!
a pinball machine project would be cool with those solenoids since that is what the actual pinball machines we have (high speed, and monte carlo) use for the flippers.
I used to work for a company that rented out commercial printers. We would have to take them apart to fix and clean them before the printer went out to the customer. They are pretty interesting on the inside.
Just think of the people whom job it is to pull it apart, fix it, and put it all back together. Cool video...thank you. Get yourself some plastic clear containers and store your stuff in categories.
As an amateur machinist, I often see printer shafts mentioned as good candidates for standards--they are supposed to be ground to very good tolerances. Also, nice pile of stepper motors!
I recycle outdated nuclear submarines for a living. I LOVE taking things apart that I don't have to put back together! I would love to have all the stepper motors. I used some from an old floppy drive to power my telescope.
What pray tell is an outdated nuclear submarine? Those things don't even need to be refueled for 50 years. Though we do have an overstock of nuke subs. That's because if we ever stop making them we won't easily be able to start back up again. So every 4 years we make another. Well, we're making one all of the time, but going as slowly as possible we still crank one out in 4 years.
There are many reasons that a sub is recycled. After say 30 - 40 years of service the technology can only be updated so many times. Once it has outlived is usefulness it gets the big "D's". De-commissioned, De-fueled, De-energized, and Drained. Then it goes to floating storage for a minimum of 5.7 years. (half life of the radiation). It will drop to the point of background radiation. You get more from eating spinach or the sun then from whats left. Then the sub is ready for recycling. We can't build new ones until the old ones are gone. I'm not sure but I think it has something to do with nuclear reduction with the Russians too. Here is a good UA-cam link. ua-cam.com/video/cdjsRyXb_lY/v-deo.html
The 2.1V on stepper motors is the highest voltage you can apply to them without any controllers. It just means that if you apply 2.1V DC they will reach their maximum current and won't overheat even when stationary (0% efficiency so 100% goes into heat). Commercial stepper drivers usually apply very high voltage (for example 50V) to energize coils quickly, allowing more rapid movement and then lower it when maximum current is reached to avoid overheating. High frequency AC voltage will act similar since polarity will change before too much current builds up (you can use stepper speed calculator to test it).
While you're saying go, go, go the motor is replying no, no, no! So we developed high voltage constant current drives to persuade more performance out of recalcitrant stepper motors. Technically it is due to inductive reluctance, and decreased step times at higher speeds. As you speed the step rate up the period between pulses has to decrease. We can't dilate time. But we can increase the voltage. Which has the effect of shoving more electrons through a coil for a given space of time. Volts times amps (the flow of electrons) is power. So it stands to reason that increasing both increases power output too. It is still funny to watch a stepper motor current starve as you run it faster.
Have you built a plastic shreader? All that plastic e-waste can be converted into feed for a homemade injection molder. Save the aluminum for a homemade foundry. Linear rods for cnc/ 3D printers. Likewise the stepper motors.
Yes (health first) the Toner you could have collected for refilling printer cartridges generally works. The color ones are expensive. At least you did it outside.
LOL, Reminds me of when I picked through peoples “throw away” piles to rescue “parts”, screws and sometime refurbish entire item which it looked great and worked well until I sold it yrs later.
The easiest way to run a stepper motor is with another stepper motor.... if you have two that match, twist like colors together and then simply turn one by hand and the other should spin the same direction. Once you know they work, then you can even use those motors to figure out the windings of other steppers. I have even used a large stepper motor to run smaller ones on my cnc projects to make sure my axis are all set up correctly and its a great way to make sure everything is moving smoothly before I put power to the machine. I suppose you could also build a poor mans cnc machine by wiring a large rotary switch to a couple axis and use one motor to run a couple others manually if you want.....
Christopher Leveck actually that gives me a great idea . I will set up a dc motor linked to a shaft of a stepper that wired to another stepper motor . This will allow me to get simple metrics on position increments or on a seperate note you could use a lower power dc motor coupled to a small stepper motor to create higher power steps in a bigger stepper motors output. A test I shall do soon 😮
Nice video! ... like a kid in a candy-store. - I know the feeling: a few years ago I was given a very large Canon photocopier. It weighed 120Kgs, and it was crammed full with lenses, steppers, a universal motor, etc. etc. (For your info: Be careful with the toner-dust. Apparently it is quite unhealthy when inhaled!)
No prob! If you find anything else weird I might be able to help. With the clutches, basically the main motor powers all those shafts, but the shafts don't turn until the clutch engages. So everything is timed to feed the paper through different stages. You could use them in the same way and use an arduino to control them. Another cool thing is the rollers that pick up the paper from the tray - it's called a feed and reverse roller. Kind of hard to explain, but the lower roller has a spring clutch inside that is being driven in reverse, but the top roller is forcing it to feed forward. If two sheets of paper get between the rollers, the lack of friction between the pieces of paper let the lower roller go backwards and kick the bottom piece of paper back so only one sheet gets picked up. Really clever system! This shows it pretty well - ua-cam.com/video/Qs6tPLBi-6s/v-deo.html
If I recall correctly, the part you were unsure of with all the gears is likely the auto stapler for the unit. I've taken two of them apart now myself, as I had to dispose of them from work and a) didn't want to lift them into my car by myself, and b) wanted to keep all the goodies inside just like you did...
Its not always my neighborhood. I just leave early for work everyday and keep my eyes open. I don't change my route or anything. But over the course of a year you would be surprised how many things we drive by, but are in a hurry or just simply not paying attention. You will start to see different things now that we have had this discussion. I use to think the same as you.
Before touch those capacitors, be sure they are empty! Once i salvage old digital camera, opened it after testing it wasnt working and touched the circuitboard for the flash. I getted 300V electrical shock from it, the camera fly from my hands very fast, then i throw it away and had always be carefully with capacitors ewer since. These days i Allways remove the capacity by short circuiting it before touch.
I took one of these apart 1 year ago and got 28 stepper motors. Most of them nema 23 but about 9 nema 17’s. Im going to run out of steppers soon so I’ll start looking for another printer!
Paul Frederick 2 CNC machines and 2 5-axis robotic arms. I still have several more steppers but none of them are ideal sizes for things. I mostly like having a dozen nema 17’s around so I’m always ready with a bunch.
I concur with the carcinogenic nature of the toner. I don't know if it is accurate, but I would use substantial personal protection when digging around inside these. JIC!! I enjoy your videos and give you a LIKE unless I get distracted...or!
I just grabbed a very similar Ricoh from next to a dumpster. One thing I found a lot of is limit switches and optical sensors. Tons of the little optical sensor actually. Or maybe they're hall effect, I don't know but there's a lot.
This is an old video, however, I hope that you have added a bench or table for your tear downs outside. My back aches every time I see you bent over for long periods of time. We're not getting any younger. Tailgate works for me and the bed is a ready container for the unwanted items heading to the dump.
Nice find and great video Jeremy. Haven't had much time to get on UA-cam. Looks like you hit the jackpot! I wonder how they put those things together? Have fun with all your projects. Looking forward to your videos.
Thanks... My video was like that at first (super long) but I try to be a ninja in the editing room LOL. Great details. My neighbors don't seem to have the patients for that.
Your wife after you took apart the print cartridges: "You didn't wear gloves?!" Of course, if you want some quality family time, you could let your kids disassemble the cartridges.
Hey Jeremy, I know you're into some mad engineering, and I hate to be the safety police - but I've been in IT for over a decade - I just wanted to give you a heads up for next time. Toner (that coloured powder) is crazy carcinogenic, and due to the fact that it's incredibly fine you run a decent risk of siderosilicosis (similar to silicosis from regular cement dust). There is no safe exposure limit to toner - we even have to use a special vacuum cleaner to deal with toner spills (these vacuums are about 60% filter by weight, and cost a fortune). Also, looks like you might already know this - but cold water, immediately applied, will wash off toner now problem. Toner fuses with heat, and even body heat can start that process. Absolutely staggering haul from that MFD - you can really see why they're so expensive, and why companies tend to lease them vs purchasing them outright. Keep up the great work! (Aaaand just now I'm realising this video is 3 years old. Thanks algorithm!)
I used save old tv's and any other useful items I found... There's so much useful parts that can be saved and reused again.. Just let your brain think!
thanks for the video, I took a small printer apart once. I still mess with the little motors . and the ink, so had to laugh when seeing yellow everywhere
My garage use to be clean and neat till I started watching you.
It's a shame that we are becoming a throwaway society. I have a great satisfaction in repairing and rebuilding things. It feels good to say I fixed or made something. We can save the world with one motor or vacuum at a time.
😂 i see where i am going now.
@@fishnrivertotally agree ✊
I used to work on larger but similar equipment to this for a living and they are a wealth of goodies for tinkering. The glass in the scanner area is tempered glass and would make a good table top for a small end table. You can etch a design into the glass using a small sand blaster or an air "eraser". The feed roller metal shafts can be cleaned up and used to make turning mandrels for your lathe. Sometimes the roller shafts are stainless, check with a magnet. I use the shafts as lathe stock to make small parts on my metal lathe as well. Printer toner makes a good pigment for mixing up colored epoxy if you ever need any so you may want to save some for that! There are usually lasers and pretty cool prismatic reflectors in the scanner assembly.
Lots of good ideas thanks:)
Dang it Jeremey! I told you how fragile my marriage was and now you go and put out a video on taking apart office equipment. This is like crack for me and you know it. I gotta get in my truck now and drive through the "bad" parts of town looking for a fix on the curb.
Have fun:)
@@Jeremy_Fielding Where do/can you get a hold of all the things you cannibalize???? Where do you get a broken copier??? Hooooooowwww???!?!!! I'm so jealous!!
All great stuff Jeremy ! I have taken apart A-LOT of stuff and also have my students in my middle school after school electronics club take things apart..lots of fun, great educational value and the kids get to use their hands...win,win,win. Then, you end up with millions of parts to repurpose into contraptions !
I'm a big fan of using magnets to keep certain tools handy around my bench. But, I've been told by a small handful of guys much wiser than myself, to keep magnets away from my digital caliper. Great content, as always. Thanks
I worked on copiers and printers from the early 70’s through the early 00’s. Some advice about the bronze bushings that you found: they are for relatively low speed applications, and never, ever oil or lubricate them. Just clean them with a dry rag. They are made by pressing thousands of tiny bronze beads together and are porous, like foam rubber. They are impregnated with oil during the high pressures and temperatures of the manufacturing process. No amount of oil added to them post-manufacturing will put any additional oil back into the pores of the bearing. The oil will only collect dust and dirt, causing the bearing to fail.
72mgmidget thanks for that info . I was just about to put graphite on mine 😮
Electron Proton Neutron Mouron 👍
Can recommend Latex gloves for Both ink and laser printer Teardowns. And just a heads up some of the toners are carcinogenic in powder form so a respirator will go a long way! Sweet video. Unfortunately i only got "consumer" grade printers so far!
carcinogenic means cancer causing, it builds up in your body till one day boom cancer. ( for those that don't know / are learning ).
Yes. Do not expose your skin or lungs to the Toners.
my thoughts exactly too, but gold video
We will all die eventually
Also, toner is polyester, ground into a fine dust. Letting it fly in the wind and drop on the soil is a massive injection of micro plastics directly into the environment.
I wish I'd have been tinkering a few years ago when we used to scrap these weekly. Thanks for the teardown overview!
Creativity has limits,but with you there are no limits.Creativity continues
I work at a car dealership. We have two car brands spread across what used to be three stores. One slow day I went and explored the now unused parts warehouse in the middle. Among other treasures I found about ten old computers and at least a dozen old printers. I knew there were good shafts and stepper motors to use and circuit boards to scrap. I asked around until I got permission to haul them off.
Fully three of the printers still work perfectly, including one with Wi-Fi, a duplexer, and a sheetfed scanner. There was also a Fuji ScanSnap high speed sheetfed scanner.
It took me many days of "spare time" to break down the rest, but I now have hundreds of plastic gears, dozens of precision shafts, a box of fans of varying voltage and diameter, many boxes of top quality circuit board scrap, over two dozen stepper motors (including some strong enough to run a 3D printer or laser engraver), 8 or 10 solenoid of varying size, and lots and lots of wire. I posted the plastic and steel scrap on Craigslist and someone picked it up (wasn't enough to be worth it to me to cash it in, but enough that someone would). Haven't cashed in the circuit boards yet, but I'm looking forward to some cash there.
You found quite a treasure man.
One man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure.
Jeremy your really a shinning light for people like me trying to learn electronics/motors. You have a great understanding about how all this stuff works. I started watching your videos about how 3 phase motors work and im constantly playing your videos. I can tell you're not only well skilled but have a great passion for what you do. Keep up the videos its a blessing you're willing to share your knowledge to help others in the field. Much love from northern California!!
That is awesome thank you for letting me know!
@@Jeremy_Fielding of course! Well deserved. You're a perfect example for the one's trying to learn this complicated but interesting stuff. God Bless
It's good to see a man that's doing what HE wants! I started doing what I really wanted at the late age of 70! I'm now 78.
man i wish i lived near you i would pay just to hang with you and learn from you very cool video
There is a wealth of motors, bushings, shafts, etc. in one of those....I tackled one a couple years back...nice find Jeremy!! And not to mention the extra screws to re-up the supply!!!! Beautiful a do it yourselfers jackpot in my mind....
nothing more fun than taking stuff apart to see whats inside, cool vids bro
Nice video Jeremy, keep it up! Amazing how much valuable equipment is simply tossed away in this country!
Yep, one thing about them "Corporate" size printers, you get a MESS of motors and gears outa'em. Whenever I happen upon discarded desk top ink-jet and laser printers and decide to salvage, I "harvest" just about all the junk inside - springs, rods, solenoids, motors, gears, screws (most screws), some electronics, inner parts of the housing, etc. Great source for esp. mechatronic "mad scientists" projects and "sputniks"
And, to make another point, some of the components and elements salvaged can be extremely difficult and or costly to acquire by normal "mail-order" commercial means for one's personal unique purposes.
Anyway, as always, good conscientious vid Jeremy. So Keep up the great stuff man.
Cordially:)
I always enjoy taking apart a big laser printer or copier, but I do always get rid of any toner related part directly without opening them, and give a good vaccum cleaning inside the machine before I start the disassembly.
Love your videos Jeremy. I find myself with more projects than I can possibly get to. Wish you luck with yours.
I know exactly how tearing those apart feel. I took 3 of them apart and took EVERY screw out all 14 trillion of em. All the same goodies. Wish i coild attach a pic to show you my shop when I got done lol plastic panels and metal EVERYWHERE. awesome vid
I ended up editing that part out because the audio was bad but I did record the carnage in the end lol it was crazy
I don't have to space to take apart such beasts right now, but I do a lot of smaller salvage. If I don't want to get into shredding (again -- space is an issue) what's the responsible way to dispose of all of the structural hard plastic waste? E-waste recyclers won't take disassembled bits for obvious reasons...
I found 2 printers similar to that one - half of my garage was covered with the pieces for a month! Loads of solenoids, stepper motors opto-detectors, dc motors, 4 HV power supplies in each, plus lots of steel shafts and bearings. A gold mine of parts :)
sweet find my friend and yes a CNC would be a nice build "hint hint". Those motors are nice. I've always wanted to salvage one of those bad boys.
I could not tell what phase those stepper motors are. You can pretty much only really use bipolar motors today. The drivers for the rest are too difficult to source. But unipolar and 5 phase motors are common in commercial equipment.
The oddball in copier motors is the scanner drive motor. Most that I work on (KM & Canon) use small 3 phase motors instead of steppers for smoother movement. Kinda hard to fabri-cobble a driver circuit for them.
Mr. Jeremy, nice to see the garbage can right there!
best way to avoid massive "clean-up time!"
great idea!!! "don't want stuff piled up everywhere."
(we can all learn from that!) super, quality, videos.
please keep up all the good work. best, walt
This salvaging is like some kind of therapy for me.
Hey Jeremy, I keep not only the HD magnets, but also the cast aluminium Harddrive housings, they make excellent material to meltdown for my aluminun casting projects.
I have a giant pile of them because I figured they must be high quality and I knew they were cast aluminum which is supposed to be a lot better for pouring into a mold than 6061 aircraft or just random bar stock aluminum.... Is that true? Do the hard drives really pour better?
This is one of my favorite hang outs. Thank you and take care. Paul.
HA recently found out ( from the install technician) the "old" unit one of my customer groups "traded in" has at least two boards that are/were worth ~ $2K or more since they are hard to come by. The salesperson's "trade in" value was a graciously $400. The customer look at me ( am the in-house tech guy ) and all I could say was " sorry you never called me to discuss" .
Getting those printers on the roadside is a huge jackpot!!!
I'm telling you. You're not finding anything like that where I'm at. If you could I'd be on it all day.
That's same for where I am living at.
@@1pcfred There a dime a dozen where I live. On Let go Market place last week' a company posted 60 for free as they replaced to new ones
@@scraplifetrashtocash4551 that sounds great. I'd take a few.
I came across a dumpster with at least 5 that I could see. Was a roll off with 8 ft sides though.
I been pulling parts out of discarded electronics all my life. Started with old valve or vacuum tube radio's. Began as a curiosity of how things worked and ended up building many useful things out of it all.
Jeremy, I do believe there will come a day you build an intelligent Robot from old parts and pieces, complete with a laser for cutting grass, LOL. Man you are a genius!
a pinball machine project would be cool with those solenoids since that is what the actual pinball machines we have (high speed, and monte carlo) use for the flippers.
I used to work for a company that rented out commercial printers. We would have to take them apart to fix and clean them before the printer went out to the customer. They are pretty interesting on the inside.
I got same model "scrap" for dismantle. It was surprisingly heavy weight device move inside my car. Thank you for video. 🙂
Great video and awesome find.... ! Ton of steppers in there.... thats a goldmine find.
Just think of the people whom job it is to pull it apart, fix it, and put it all back together.
Cool video...thank you.
Get yourself some plastic clear containers and store your stuff in categories.
Hey I work on these for a living- this specific family/brand. There’s a lot of interesting salvage to be had from them, indeed
They are heavy and dirty but SOOO worth it!
As an amateur machinist, I often see printer shafts mentioned as good candidates for standards--they are supposed to be ground to very good tolerances. Also, nice pile of stepper motors!
I recycle outdated nuclear submarines for a living. I LOVE taking things apart that I don't have to put back together! I would love to have all the stepper motors. I used some from an old floppy drive to power my telescope.
What pray tell is an outdated nuclear submarine? Those things don't even need to be refueled for 50 years. Though we do have an overstock of nuke subs. That's because if we ever stop making them we won't easily be able to start back up again. So every 4 years we make another. Well, we're making one all of the time, but going as slowly as possible we still crank one out in 4 years.
There are many reasons that a sub is recycled. After say 30 - 40 years of service the technology can only be updated so many times. Once it has outlived is usefulness it gets the big "D's". De-commissioned, De-fueled, De-energized, and Drained. Then it goes to floating storage for a minimum of 5.7 years. (half life of the radiation). It will drop to the point of background radiation. You get more from eating spinach or the sun then from whats left. Then the sub is ready for recycling. We can't build new ones until the old ones are gone.
I'm not sure but I think it has something to do with nuclear reduction with the Russians too. Here is a good UA-cam link. ua-cam.com/video/cdjsRyXb_lY/v-deo.html
Hi,that is a Ricoh copier, I been servicing Ricoh printers for 30 years.is amazing the technology that goes in that box.
This printer was a goldmine! Congrats
As always Jeremy, great video! Keep up the good work.
Recently just found your channel. Love all your videos. Very helpful and informative. I've always been a tinkerer too. Thanks
The 2.1V on stepper motors is the highest voltage you can apply to them without any controllers. It just means that if you apply 2.1V DC they will reach their maximum current and won't overheat even when stationary (0% efficiency so 100% goes into heat). Commercial stepper drivers usually apply very high voltage (for example 50V) to energize coils quickly, allowing more rapid movement and then lower it when maximum current is reached to avoid overheating. High frequency AC voltage will act similar since polarity will change before too much current builds up (you can use stepper speed calculator to test it).
Now that is interesting. Thanks for the info
While you're saying go, go, go the motor is replying no, no, no! So we developed high voltage constant current drives to persuade more performance out of recalcitrant stepper motors. Technically it is due to inductive reluctance, and decreased step times at higher speeds. As you speed the step rate up the period between pulses has to decrease. We can't dilate time. But we can increase the voltage. Which has the effect of shoving more electrons through a coil for a given space of time. Volts times amps (the flow of electrons) is power. So it stands to reason that increasing both increases power output too. It is still funny to watch a stepper motor current starve as you run it faster.
Great video Skywalker... he salvaged robots & other electric items to sale for $$
Have you built a plastic shreader? All that plastic e-waste can be converted into feed for a homemade injection molder.
Save the aluminum for a homemade foundry.
Linear rods for cnc/ 3D printers. Likewise the stepper motors.
Yes (health first) the Toner you could have collected for refilling printer cartridges generally works. The color ones are expensive. At least you did it outside.
Man after my own heart! Taking stuff apart! Way cool!
LOL, Reminds me of when I picked through peoples “throw away” piles to rescue “parts”, screws and sometime refurbish entire item which it looked great and worked well until I sold it yrs later.
Jeremy you are not kidding those printers do take about 1 week to tear apart. time is money lots of great things inside a big printer.
You talking about the sizes of your bearings has the same energy as farnsworth's "let me show you the different lenghts of wire I used."
The easiest way to run a stepper motor is with another stepper motor.... if you have two that match, twist like colors together and then simply turn one by hand and the other should spin the same direction. Once you know they work, then you can even use those motors to figure out the windings of other steppers. I have even used a large stepper motor to run smaller ones on my cnc projects to make sure my axis are all set up correctly and its a great way to make sure everything is moving smoothly before I put power to the machine. I suppose you could also build a poor mans cnc machine by wiring a large rotary switch to a couple axis and use one motor to run a couple others manually if you want.....
Christopher Leveck actually that gives me a great idea . I will set up a dc motor linked to a shaft of a stepper that wired to another stepper motor . This will allow me to get simple metrics on position increments or on a seperate note you could use a lower power dc motor coupled to a small stepper motor to create higher power steps in a bigger stepper motors output. A test I shall do soon 😮
I'd kill to find a few of these things
Press X to loot all.
Nice video! ... like a kid in a candy-store. - I know the feeling: a few years ago I was given a very large Canon photocopier. It weighed 120Kgs, and it was crammed full with lenses, steppers, a universal motor, etc. etc. (For your info: Be careful with the toner-dust. Apparently it is quite unhealthy when inhaled!)
Yes sir I will
That was a lot of work. Your gear logo is really cool.
Thank you!
@2:38 the things you pointed to are magnetic clutches. I think they were 24v in the older machines. I used to repair Ricoh copiers/printers.
Thank you! I love it when you guys bring these little facts all together for me.
No prob! If you find anything else weird I might be able to help. With the clutches, basically the main motor powers all those shafts, but the shafts don't turn until the clutch engages. So everything is timed to feed the paper through different stages. You could use them in the same way and use an arduino to control them.
Another cool thing is the rollers that pick up the paper from the tray - it's called a feed and reverse roller. Kind of hard to explain, but the lower roller has a spring clutch inside that is being driven in reverse, but the top roller is forcing it to feed forward. If two sheets of paper get between the rollers, the lack of friction between the pieces of paper let the lower roller go backwards and kick the bottom piece of paper back so only one sheet gets picked up. Really clever system!
This shows it pretty well - ua-cam.com/video/Qs6tPLBi-6s/v-deo.html
If I recall correctly, the part you were unsure of with all the gears is likely the auto stapler for the unit. I've taken two of them apart now myself, as I had to dispose of them from work and a) didn't want to lift them into my car by myself, and b) wanted to keep all the goodies inside just like you did...
Moving that thing was crazy. And someone who builds these told me it is a stapler so thank you ...you are correct.
You should have plugged the hard drive in and see what was scanned!
An Awesomeness of quality content super affordable an good quality could be called a liked theme,,, like the pro level value vision text bonus!!!
It's like a treasure chest for electronic hobbyist
So much good stuff, I really like all those steel shafts.
You must live in just the right neighborhood, i never find anything where I live, have fun with it.
Its not always my neighborhood. I just leave early for work everyday and keep my eyes open. I don't change my route or anything. But over the course of a year you would be surprised how many things we drive by, but are in a hurry or just simply not paying attention. You will start to see different things now that we have had this discussion. I use to think the same as you.
your great,, im with the guy that wants to hang out and learn from you...thank you...
Before touch those capacitors, be sure they are empty! Once i salvage old digital camera, opened it after testing it wasnt working and touched the circuitboard for the flash. I getted 300V electrical shock from it, the camera fly from my hands very fast, then i throw it away and had always be carefully with capacitors ewer since. These days i Allways remove the capacity by short circuiting it before touch.
For some reason I didn't think about it on this project... but you often see me discharge "caps" before I move them in my videos. Its a good practice.
I took one of these apart 1 year ago and got 28 stepper motors. Most of them nema 23 but about 9 nema 17’s. Im going to run out of steppers soon so I’ll start looking for another printer!
Were they all the useful bipolar variety?
Paul Frederick every single one.
That's good. What did you end up using so many stepper motors on? I have a pile myself, but I only ended up using 3 on my CNC.
Paul Frederick 2 CNC machines and 2 5-axis robotic arms. I still have several more steppers but none of them are ideal sizes for things. I mostly like having a dozen nema 17’s around so I’m always ready with a bunch.
I concur with the carcinogenic nature of the toner. I don't know if it is accurate, but I would use substantial personal protection when digging around inside these. JIC!! I enjoy your videos and give you a LIKE unless I get distracted...or!
I just grabbed a very similar Ricoh from next to a dumpster. One thing I found a lot of is limit switches and optical sensors. Tons of the little optical sensor actually. Or maybe they're hall effect, I don't know but there's a lot.
normally there also clutches, solenoid type. but you scored loads of motors. last one i striped had one big nema 24 stepper and several clutches
This is an old video, however, I hope that you have added a bench or table for your tear downs outside. My back aches every time I see you bent over for long periods of time. We're not getting any younger. Tailgate works for me and the bed is a ready container for the unwanted items heading to the dump.
rescue? That was a brutal evisceration! :)
+larson gregory 😂
Yea. I subscribing. Why not? Will be looking out for more vids of yours, hopefully in the near future.
I had no idea how complex those commercial printers are. I mean, it looks like Apollo program level stuff inside a kitchen oven sized box!
You should do a build with the stepper motors you pulled out of the printers.
If you come across an old Canon 6650II analog copier, there is a massive dc motor and all kinds of sprockets and chains.
Nice find and great video Jeremy. Haven't had much time to get on UA-cam. Looks like you hit the jackpot! I wonder how they put those things together? Have fun with all your projects. Looking forward to your videos.
The components labeled at 3:30 are not DC motors but actually clutches. Check EEVBlog's video here:
ua-cam.com/video/WSxEGgrvhMM/v-deo.html
Thanks... My video was like that at first (super long) but I try to be a ninja in the editing room LOL. Great details. My neighbors don't seem to have the patients for that.
I would love to have that many stepper motors. You could make a really nice robotic arm.
Lots of nice steppers!
Thanks for the video. I found that very informative.
9:40 lol Keep it up .. informative . doing the same stuff .. got 2 treadmills today . simple fixes too but torn down
Smashing Video ...thanks for your time
I would watch a video of your procedures of looking up part numbers and judging components for their potential value in future projects.
very cool and informative !
Thanks and keep on trucking (from France) !
Hey Jeremy,
The part at 9:23 is the built in paper stapler
Thank you! That is awesome
Aaah, Milwaukee M18 very nice!
Love your work...really my kind of guy...much knowledge...
Your wife after you took apart the print cartridges: "You didn't wear gloves?!" Of course, if you want some quality family time, you could let your kids disassemble the cartridges.
Hey Jeremy,
I know you're into some mad engineering, and I hate to be the safety police - but I've been in IT for over a decade - I just wanted to give you a heads up for next time.
Toner (that coloured powder) is crazy carcinogenic, and due to the fact that it's incredibly fine you run a decent risk of siderosilicosis (similar to silicosis from regular cement dust).
There is no safe exposure limit to toner - we even have to use a special vacuum cleaner to deal with toner spills (these vacuums are about 60% filter by weight, and cost a fortune).
Also, looks like you might already know this - but cold water, immediately applied, will wash off toner now problem. Toner fuses with heat, and even body heat can start that process.
Absolutely staggering haul from that MFD - you can really see why they're so expensive, and why companies tend to lease them vs purchasing them outright.
Keep up the great work!
(Aaaand just now I'm realising this video is 3 years old. Thanks algorithm!)
Wow you hit the mother load in recycling with that copy machine.
I like using the steel rollers for making lathe gouges, they work alright for $0
Great video as always Jeremy. Thank you so much for sharing :)
I hope you found a good home for all the circuit boards.... I bet there's de-soldering a'plenty to do on those.
I used save old tv's and any other useful items I found...
There's so much useful parts that can be saved and reused again.. Just let your brain think!
thanks for the video,
I took a small printer apart once. I still mess with the little motors . and the ink, so had to laugh when seeing yellow everywhere
Great job Jeremy thank you for sharing
Perfect parts for DIY 3D printers
did ya keep the 10 million screws??!!! Never can accumulate enough screws ma daddy told me once!!! Lol.
If I were you I would never take the toner unit apart so dirty but you managed it good