Anybody Scavenge Components from Old Boards

Note- this is what the other side looks like. The relay for the heater circuit blew up. 

not really all the parts in the boards have aged many years and you won't know how much life will be left in the components especially the capacitors they'll dry out and be useless!

The board itself is handy....knock off all the components, and save the board for shims, or whatever else you can think of....material is dense and hard...make great draw bars, or whatever else comes to mind....cuts real easy with a dremel tool or a band saw...wear a dust mask when you cut.......Pat

So like an old transformer, it's a boat anchor. 

The two relays that did not blow up are worth saving IMHO. 10 A rated with 24 VAC coils. 

Bob, even on the front of the board, I see discoloration from heat around some of the resistors, capacitors, etc.  I'm with Alan, I wouldn't trust capacitors, etc. as their days could be numbered too.   As you mentioned, you could use the good relays.  Pat has a good used for the boards themselves.

Components are so cheap nowadays that I rarely worry about salvage.  I do keep old boards around for spare parts, many boards have parts that are not readily identified, if I need the same part for a working board, I have some parts to harvest.

Not so much the components, but the boards. A couple of terminals and piece of AA battery-charger board went into a Heljan HO turntable re-work. Ugly but functional...and mostly out of sight 

I agree with the others, simple components like caps and resistors are pretty cheap new and the old ones are reaching end of useful life.  

I'm with Rich on this, you won't save anything might even cost you more in the long run. Most of these are inexpensive parts.

If it's there and easy,...well I'm cheap.

I salvage relays, diodes, resistors, bridge rec., l.e.d., photo optos, opto isolators, voltage regulators.  It's really a toss up of ease vs need vs stock on hand.  

Boards I toss mostly; but sometimes I'll cut out a section for bashing on/too. (say cut out the power section or l.e.d. segment drivers etc.)

Relay points can be inspected. The coil has no real "lifespan" as the mechanical parts do.

I salvage whent the iron is hot & I have some time to kill too.

I don't know about components, but do know and found out afterwards that a,( I thought), trusted, certified repair person used salvaged boards rather then the ERR system agreed upon and paid for and boards failed 6 months later because of age. So salvaging is an iffy.

Thanks for all the responses gents. I'll hold on to it for now. But I agree the components are cheap enough to buy new.

Bob

I also have a " solder sucker" and solder wick to make removal easy.

We don't talk much about solder removal, but a wick, pen, bulb, or machine makes for neater & cleaner repairs.

(I focus on them working and easier future repair, not looks. That cosmetic work isn't really needed and can even slow repairs later, un-doing/rebundling wire can be very.time.consuming)

I had a roll of the braided wick around someplace. Need to dig it out. It works great for removing solder from connections.

If you're really into scavenging, go for the bulk removal technique.

In the 70's and 80's I did a lot of computer building.  I'm talking real computer building where we actually were laying out memory boards and stuffing them ourselves.  I'd buy huge surplus RAM arrays and remove the RAM chips for our boards.  We used a propane torch on the back side and heated a section and then smacked the edge on the table and a bunch of parts would fall out.

It looks like there are three relays on that board that you could use. At least one of them looks cooked.

I have an old board from the original security system in the house. I kept it and have been harvesting the relays. One was dead, but another two were fine. It doesn't take much time and saves a few bucks and waiting for shipping. I also keep old wall warts in a bag and have used a few on the layout so far. I don't know that I would salvage caps and resistors since I can get them cheap and fast on Amazon. I do keep a bag of them around though, just in case.

George