Yorx record player/cassette player/stereo

radio/cassette/CD player, unknown manufacturer

One of the downsides about only doing one entry per week is that some of the photo sets can stay in the backlog for over a month, maybe more if I find a lot of stuff over a short period of time. This entry, for instance, is from July's heavy trash day. I think. I didn't bother to write down exactly when I found it because it really doesn't matter. And of course, writing this entry further puts off other things that I found at the same time. I just hope I can keep remembering enough about each appliance to write something about them.

As you can see, this radio is far from mint condition. Parts are missing (the parts that most likely had the manufacturer and model names), there are various decorations drawn or stuck on it (the stickers suggest the former owner was a teenage girl), and it looks like it's been dropped or kicked. I am going to assume that the markings inside the cassette deck were made after the door came off, so it seems that the owner didn't just trash it at the first problem. I can relate: I still use my portable CD player/radio despite the CD player not working, and the radio not working as well as it used to. (When it finally kicks the bucket, be sure I'll scrap it and post pictures.)

The radio more or less splits in half. The housing seems to be designed around the size of the speakers, rather than the electronics, hence all the empty space in the middle.

The cassette player controls remind me a little of piano keys from this angle.

The CD player is its own module. I don't remember getting a lot of interesting parts out of it.

The focus of this picture is that tall column where the screw goes in. I like taking things with cavernous plastic housings apart because they often have columns like this. Rods and tubes are good basic shapes to have around, much more versatile than some of the more esoteric shapes that I often get.

Not a bad haul, though I seem to recall taking apart radios that had more stuff in them.

Panasonic tape recorder

Most of my disassembly fodder comes either from the sew/vac place or the campus's occasional purging of obsolete and broken electronics. These are fairly clean sources for junk, in the sense that they never have any nasty food trash mixed in with mechanical and electronic stuff. The piles outside of houses and apartments in anticipation of heavy trash day are generally 'clean,' but there's always a risk of food trash (or worse), so salvaging from them requires some discretion.

I almost didn't grab this one. It had just rained, and the junkpile that this recorder was in smelled as if it had some food trash in it, and I pretty much avoid trashpicking in anything that might have organic garbage in it. But the recorder was off to the side, and a cursory visual and smell test determined that it didn't have anything nastier than a little mud on it, so I took it back to the apartment. And washed it off, just to be sure.

All trash has a story, an object's history of use before it is discarded. Most of the time, the junked object doesn't give much indication of its 'life,' but sometimes it does. If I may play amateur detective/archaeologist for a second, the masking tape above the battery area seems to indicate that the battery cover didn't stay in place, which makes me think that at one point someone dropped the recorder and broke the latch, necessitating the quick-fix. Maybe the owner finally lost the battery cover altogether, prompting him or her to finally toss the tape recorder out.

Or not. I don't know for sure, and on a strictly practical level I really don't care. But I do think it is instructive to think about trash beyond just 'that stuff they take to the landfill twice a week.'

Anyway, I knew from previous experience with tape players that this disassembly was going to be at least somewhat more entertaining than the past few things I've taken apart. Yep, lots of little pieces, though I was disappointed in how many of the little screws didn't budge. Also, note the detatched carry handle in the upper right of the picture above. It's made of metal. You don't see that much these days.

The signal traces (i.e. printed wires) on this circuit board are much less compact than those of more modern electronics.

A few trophies that I don't what I'll do with. I like the shapes of the buttons though.

Koss UR19 headphones

Most of the electronics and appliances I take apart either come from trashpicking or interceptions of other people's junk on it's way to the garbage can. "If you're just going to toss that, can I have it?" That kind of thing. These headphones, on the other hand, were actually mine to begin with but they finally quit working right.

I try not to buy crappy appliances, and what I buy I try to take as good of care of whatever it is as I can. Though when something does break down, I have no qualms about immediately ripping into it.

These headphones have lasted me at least five years, then they fell victim to the same thing that kills all my other headphones. One of the speakers dies. And it's never just a matter of the wire's connection to the speaker coming loose. It's always much more subtle than that.

Here I've taken the malfunctioning speaker out and inspected it, but it looks fine to my admittedly untrained eye, which means I don't know what's wrong with it in order to fix it. So now I officially have to drop some cash to get a replacement. Oh well, might as well take it all the way apart.

I didn't bother to take a picture of the other ear disassembled. Looks pretty much the same as that one.

I took the housing off the sliding volume control on the wire, and the whole assembly is exactly as uncomplicated as you would expect. That control housing reminds me of a motorcycle gas tank; it might have a place in some future art project of mine.

Basically, I tossed the guts and kept the outer shell of the headphones. Who knows, I may get industrious one day and make a boom mic style headset for a cellphone hands-free microphone, since apparently no one makes those anymore.