Valuable Power Supply components?

[petreza]

Hi,

I am just starting to learn the basics of electronics (components and stuff). On some web site I read that you can get a lot of useful stuff from old motherboards, TVs, etc. So I gathered a bunch of stuff that people threw on the garbage and gutted the electronics parts. Now I have three Power Supplys - the old Pentium/Pentium MMX type - and I don't know what is worth desoldering and what I should throw out. Could you help we with that....!

Thank you!

 

[larrymoencurly]

I think that everything can be used for something else, except for the heatsinks and transformers, which are usually too custom-fit. I keep the fan and anything that's either expensive or hard to buy, like the connectors, big transistors and diodes, their insulator sheets, thermistors, electrolytic capacitors, and AC-rated high voltage capacitors (lots of writing on them). I also found that if I gut the stuff, it takes up more space than if I had kept everything in one piece.