If you’re the type of person who sees possibilities when confronted with useable parts, there’s plenty to inspire inside a VCR, writes Julian Edgar.
Now is a great time to be salvaging VCRs. With the move to DVD players and, even more significantly, digital video recorders, VCRs are being discarded in huge numbers. You can find them at the tip, at garage sales, even in kerbside rubbish pick-ups. The most you should pay is a few dollars, but more often than not they are free.
So why would you bother salvaging a VCR? And wouldn’t it take hours to pull it apart to get the good bits? Well the answers are, respectively: lots of reasons and no. And contrary to what you might expect, the best bits are mechanical rather than electronic. The trick with salvaging VCRs is to quickly pull the thing apart, sort and keep the good bits and then get rid of the rest.
Here’s a typical starting point. This is what you might call a medium-age VCR. Older ones are better and heavy older ones are better again!
Why is this? The heavier a VCR, the better the quality of salvageable components inside. In fact, to go to extremes, the ancient U-matic video tape machines weigh an incredible amount (some can barely be lifted) and inside you’ll find engineering that is fantastic, including solenoids and switches.
On the other hand, a super lightweight VCR has generally less of everything you might want. However, any VCR is worth picking up for its parts. At the very least you should get a useful motor and a few other goodies.
Read the full article in ReNew 112This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 at 12:00 am