Saturday, December 14, 2013

Turning a free copier into ... recycling ?

Some time ago I picked up a free copier from craigslist (Sharp AR-M355N) with hopes of turning it into a 3d printer or some type of robotic project. Foolishly I was also hoping to sell some of the parts that would not be interesting to me (AR-FX12, AR-DU4, AR-MU2). Now it seems as though most of that will go to recycling. Here are some mixed tear down and eBay listing photos from the salvage operation.

picture of duplex unit for ebay listing




It turns out that interest in buying my salvage parts on eBay was very low, well zero to be precise. Oh well, the copier was free anyway. My hopes of turning this into a 3D printer were also dashed by the lack of any high precision linear shafts or bearings or screws. There were a lot of drawer slides, though, so I might still try to make a RepStrap, JunkStrap, or DeltaBot. Here are some shots of the good stuff that I kept for making robots. There are DC steppers, motors, solenoids, wire, and photointerruptors. I even found a complete linear slide with a stepper already attached to position the slide. 





I'm still trying to figure out what to do with all of these motors, gears, and solenoids. My latest idea is a robotic orchestra or sorts. In the meantime the rest of the copier is off to recycling where it can one day become useful again.

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