After the death of my daughter, and 9 years of manic depression, a stroke and a cancer scare, I’m finally waking up to a new springtime in my life.
So now I’m sorting through dozens and dozens of boxes of old items and papers, to reuse, recycle or trash. Some of these boxes have old computer parts in them (I used to build, repair and upgrade computers). All of these items are now outdated, and useless for their original purpose.
Of all of the items that these boxes might contain, I am asking for suggestions on what would I be able to put to use on an HO layout. Any and all suggestions welcomed.
N.B. Over the last 4 years I’ve been reading the info put forward by the people on this forum. Your input has helped me through some of those dark days when I cared for nothing else. I’ve gone from a complete novice to someone who has a hobby that I enjoy and am well versed in.
You might use some of it in signaling and train detection. The how part is way beyond me. The “mechanicals” (switches, barrier strips, fans…) would seem kinda useful, too. And power supplies can have their uses.
If you’re cleaning house, maybe a local model railroad club would want stuff. Or, for that matter, maybe there’s a high school with a computer club…
I understand the motors used for CD drawer automation can be great motors for locos, remotored or scratchbuilt. Also, the power supplies can be used, I think this site www.awrr.com has info on how to “load” the outputs with the correct reisistance so the power supply will be stable. Other than that, only thing I can think of is some of the componentry might be useful for home built circuits.
You must have a resilient soul to have emerged from such profound loss. You have my admiration. Welcome back to the hobby (and the light).
I have got some motors and stuff from scrapped electronic eqpt that I am experimenting with using. (Like to power to scale disco ball in a model night club!)
But more often, I use cannibalized parts to create “highly detailed” but not-very-specific detailing parts.
I have a Digitrax PR2 programming unit. It can be used with JMRI or with the supplied Digitrax software. It’s an option for programming decoders, as well as storing all your programming information in case you ever have to restore a decoder.
These are not demanding applications, so older, slower computers can handle them. On the other hand, the old machines may not have USB interfaces, and I wouldn’t even bother with a machine that won’t run at least Windows XP. If you have an older machine like that, though, it might be a good dedicated “train computer” for your trainroom or workbench.
Congratulations on your ongoing recovery (I suspect one never fully recovers from such a staggering loss), and welcome back to the world!
I’ve used motors from old printers to power locomotives, and a 24v motor from an IBM mainframe tape drive in an old brass 0-8-0 that is so strong it is nearly impossible to stall the mechanism. As has been mentioned, almost all of the mechanials (switches, cable plugs & sockets, etc.) can be used in some application.(For instance, an IDE cable and sockets could be used to link a control panel to the layout, providing easy disconnect and connection when the panel needs servicing…
I have some old (circa 2000-01) rack mounted servers that I used when I was hosting the website of a local sports talk radio station. They are pretty much boat anchors for any of today’s typical Windows applications, but they are good for low horsepower applications like surfing the web. I recently put one to use as my JMRI server and it works great. It has plenty of horsepower for JMRI which I use to control the entire layout: turnouts, block detection, signals, and in the near future, automation. Jamie
well in my opinion model railroad applications don’t need the latest capabilities. There is a group that has developed the JMRA dspatching program. You could also do switch lists with any database program. Allso maintenance records, purchase dates and costs of equipment.
I have used the power supplies, fans and can motors out of some cd burners in the few PC’s I have junked. Never found much else to use. Once in a while, a aluminm chacsis or some sheet metal.
Most any externam computer accessory has some sort of pwoer supply - various voltages, some AC< some DC - these can be very useful for many things. Motors of all sorts - even bigger things than will fit in a loco, like printer head stepper motors, might come in handy to drive a turntable or automate scenic items. Every old worthless hard drive - save the magnets! They are too strong for model railroads, you’ll pretty much glue the car in place with one of those babies, but they have all sorts of fun uses - just don;t let two of them snap togehter with your finger in between, it hurts. A lot. And don’t let them snap together against one another, they crack very easily.
Gears and assorted widgets can be used to make all sorts of scenic items - piping, air conditioners, vents on factories, etc.
Well, before you go and start removing motors, gears, and what not from your old computer stuff, maybe you can consider selling some of it off. I don’t know if you have a craigslist (or similar) available to you, but if you can sell some of the stuff you can use the funds for your hobby purchases. I’ve been doing that with some older computer items I’ve come to uncover in our overstuffed closet. Granted you won’t make a killing but 10 bucks here and 15 bucks there can add up to a nice freight car or two.
I bought an old Zenith portable, runs on DOS, it works! Its your heavy duty green screen portable, not your laptop kind. I scrounged for a database program that works on it online, it works! I will use it to try to create a model railroad database program traffic managing, use it as a learning tool if I find an equivelent up to date proggie database to transfer it to.
If it can run windows anything, use it for dispatcher view of DCC, this kind off stuff is available.
I thought about using an old computer to run dcc, I decided against it, because of computer crashing.
I use Digitrax. I have my older computers, one is a 386dx40, still runs.
As a last resort, one layout I visited in Maryland had a scrapyard filled with gears and other components from scrapped disk drives(remember the 5" floppy disks?). The owner just tore everything down to individual components, guled them down layer by layer, and painted the pile rusty and grimy. A fitting end, don’t you think?
Dean Freytag, the guy who used to scratchbuild big steel industry buildings and such, used to cannibalize old electronics boards for their component parts. Used to make barrels and motors out of capacitors, pipes, cylinders and such out of resistors and diodes, and interesting “loads” from things like coils and chokes and whatnot. He would think about the shapes of the various components and then glue them together or combine them with something else to make all manner of things.
