Today on Made To Hack, I salvage useful parts from old printers. I begin with this old inkjet printer.
A simple Philips screw driver is all that is needed to take apart most of the printers. Inkjet printer and laser printer all have useful parts that can be salvaged and recycled to be used in other projects. Most people use the parts found in printers to make their own CNC Machines and 3D Printers.
The most sough after parts in printers are the stepper motors (usually from laser printers), regular DC motors, steel rods and shafts, a whole bunch of gears and gearing systems, screws, springs, limit switches, optical encoders and much more.
After taking everything out of the plastic shell, I further disassemble the components. These are all the useful parts from the inkjet printer. I keep the cartridge head assembly as well as the paper feeder as one piece.
There are two motors that I can salvage as well as a whole bunch of useful gears. There is a 30 volt switch mode power supply that can be useful in the future.
There are a few limit switches and some plastic rollers, a whole bunch of screws and springs
Taking apart this old laser printer goes much the same way. I begin by removing the paper tray and taking apart the plastic shell.
The laser printer is significantly more complex than the inkjet printer. The components also seem to be of much higher quality
There is this stepper motor which I was really looking forward to get. It is a Nidec 50M2883061 DC 22.5V that I find in this old Brother laser printer. This stepper motor is probably the most useful part salvaged.
There are these solenoid coils and some optical encoders plus the toner and the drum kit that can be salvaged as well as the laser and prism assembly.
So if you have old printers lying around at home that you can no longer use try to see what useful parts you can salvage out of them. You never know when you’ll need to use them in a future CNC or 3D printer project.