How To Get FREE Electronic parts for your Project

The cost of buying electronic parts for our projects from Radio Shack or Maplin are quite expensive now days...
And most of us have a limited budget in buying stuff.

But...

If you know the secrets of how to get electronic parts for free, you could be saving your self hundreds of bucks! 

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Step 1Free samples

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You probably have never notices this, but most manufactures and suppliers will give away free samples of their high quality electronic parts.

However, control your self! Don't ask for hundreds of components! No company will give you that much, just ask for a few.

Here is a list of some companies and manufactures that will give you some of their free samples...
Fairchild Semiconductor
Texas Instruments
STMicroelectronics
MARL
WIMA

Step 2Talk!

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Talk to the people you know well, like your family and friends if they have any electronic device they are going to throw out, they may be glad to give it to you.

I had successfully got two portable TV's and a radio boom box by simply talking!

Step 3Computer Repair Stores

You can find pretty good stuff from the computer repair stores...

If you ask the manager nicely for blown electronic equipment like PSU's DVD/CD burners, they will usually give it to you.

If you do get a DVD/CD burner, you are very lucky...
Because inside a DVD/CD burner, it has a laser diode that cost several hundred bucks! With that laser,
I had successfully got a working 200 watts ATX power supply unit and converted into a lab power supply using help of those two instructables...
Convert an ATX Power Supply Into a Regular DC Power Supply!
ATX to Lab Bench Power Supply Conversion

Step 4Disposable flash cameras

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You can find disposable flash cameras at photo developing places that can be found in Wal-Mart or ASDA or other places like that.

If you ask the cashier or the manager nicely for disposable flash cameras, they are likely to give you a lot of cameras for free!
However some evil photo developing places will charge you for every camera you want...

What you can find in a flash camera are:

• 330v capacitor (that can cost a few dollars each if brought new.)
• Small inverter
• Trigger transformer
• NPN transistor(s)
• Small diode
• 400v film capacitor
• Resistors
• Xenon tube (the glass tube that makes a flash.)
• LED or neon bulb
• AA or AAA battery

You can find a lot of good stuff inside a camera.

Step 5Trash days

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You can find some pretty good stuff during trash days by going for a walk or drive around...

I had found a still-working pressure washer that worth over £400 ($800)!! So keep your eyes peeled!

Step 6Skips and dumpsters

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Almost like trash days, but you can get a lot more from skips and dumpsters...

Grab your tough protective clothing and gloves and go out for a drive and find those skips or dumpsters.

Try avoid skips or dumpsters that are filled with rotten foods or other disgusting stuff, because it smells bad and you may end up having some health problems...

Try grab some stuff that you can sell on ebay, car boot (trunk) sales, garage sales.... You can make a good chunk of change doing that.

Step 7The end

I hope this helps you with some of your projects!

If you have any questions, or need help, or found an error, or anything, make a comment! ^{I like comments! :)}