How To Salvage A Commercial Printer for Electrical And Mechanical Parts 049 

My garage use to be clean and neat till I started watching you.

I used to work on larger but similar equipment to this for a living and they are a wealth of goodies for tinkering. The glass in the scanner area is tempered glass and would make a good table top for a small end table. You can etch a design into the glass using a small sand blaster or an air "eraser". The feed roller metal shafts can be cleaned up and used to make turning mandrels for your lathe. Sometimes the roller shafts are stainless, check with a magnet. I use the shafts as lathe stock to make small parts on my metal lathe as well. Printer toner makes a good pigment for mixing up colored epoxy if you ever need any so you may want to save some for that! There are usually lasers and pretty cool prismatic reflectors in the scanner assembly.

Dang it Jeremey! I told you how fragile my marriage was and now you go and put out a video on taking apart office equipment. This is like crack for me and you know it. I gotta get in my truck now and drive through the "bad" parts of town looking for a fix on the curb.

I wish I'd have been tinkering a few years ago when we used to scrap these weekly. Thanks for the teardown overview!

Can recommend Latex gloves for Both ink and laser printer Teardowns. And just a heads up some of the toners are carcinogenic in powder form so a respirator will go a long way! Sweet video. Unfortunately i only got "consumer" grade printers so far!

All great stuff Jeremy ! I have taken apart A-LOT of stuff and also have my students in my middle school after school electronics club take things apart..lots of fun, great educational value and the kids get to use their hands...win,win,win. Then, you end up with millions of parts to repurpose into contraptions !

I worked on copiers and printers from the early 70’s through the early 00’s. Some advice about the bronze bushings that you found: they are for relatively low speed applications, and never, ever oil or lubricate them. Just clean them with a dry rag. They are made by pressing thousands of tiny bronze beads together and are porous, like foam rubber. They are impregnated with oil during the high pressures and temperatures of the manufacturing process. No amount of oil added to them post-manufacturing will put any additional oil back into the pores of the bearing. The oil will only collect dust and dirt, causing the bearing to fail.

I always enjoy taking apart a big laser printer or copier, but I do always get rid of any toner related part directly without opening them, and give a good vaccum cleaning inside the machine before I start the disassembly.

Jeremy your really a shinning light for people like me trying to learn electronics/motors. You have a great understanding about how all this stuff works. I started watching your videos about how 3 phase motors work and im constantly playing your videos. I can tell you're not only well skilled but have a great passion for what you do. Keep up the videos its a blessing you're willing to share your knowledge to help others in the field. Much love from northern California!!

I'm a big fan of using magnets to keep certain tools handy around my bench. But, I've been told by a small handful of guys much wiser than myself, to keep magnets away from my digital caliper. Great content, as always. Thanks

There is a wealth of motors, bushings, shafts, etc. in one of those....I tackled one a couple years back...nice find Jeremy!! And not to mention the extra screws to re-up the supply!!!! Beautiful a do it yourselfers jackpot in my mind....

I work at a car dealership. We have two car brands spread across what used to be three stores. One slow day I went and explored the now unused parts warehouse in the middle. Among other treasures I found about ten old computers and at least a dozen old printers. I knew there were good shafts and stepper motors to use and circuit boards to scrap. I asked around until I got permission to haul them off. Fully three of the printers still work perfectly, including one with Wi-Fi, a duplexer, and a sheetfed scanner. There was also a Fuji ScanSnap high speed sheetfed scanner. It took me many days of "spare time" to break down the rest, but I now have hundreds of plastic gears, dozens of precision shafts, a box of fans of varying voltage and diameter, many boxes of top quality circuit board scrap, over two dozen stepper motors (including some strong enough to run a 3D printer or laser engraver), 8 or 10 solenoid of varying size, and lots and lots of wire. I posted the plastic and steel scrap on Craigslist and someone picked it up (wasn't enough to be worth it to me to cash it in, but enough that someone would). Haven't cashed in the circuit boards yet, but I'm looking forward to some cash there.

man i wish i lived near you i would pay just to hang with you and learn from you very cool video

Love your videos Jeremy. I find myself with more projects than I can possibly get to. Wish you luck with yours.

Creativity has limits,but with you there are no limits.Creativity continues

Nice video Jeremy, keep it up! Amazing how much valuable equipment is simply tossed away in this country!

One man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure.

nothing more fun than taking stuff apart to see whats inside, cool vids bro

I found 2 printers similar to that one - half of my garage was covered with the pieces for a month! Loads of solenoids, stepper motors opto-detectors, dc motors, 4 HV power supplies in each, plus lots of steel shafts and bearings. A gold mine of parts :)

It's good to see a man that's doing what HE wants! I started doing what I really wanted at the late age of 70! I'm now 78.

sweet find my friend and yes a CNC would be a nice build "hint hint". Those motors are nice. I've always wanted to salvage one of those bad boys.

I got same model "scrap" for dismantle. It was surprisingly heavy weight device move inside my car. Thank you for video. 🙂

Yep, one thing about them "Corporate" size printers, you get a MESS of motors and gears outa'em. Whenever I happen upon discarded desk top ink-jet and laser printers and decide to salvage, I "harvest" just about all the junk inside - springs, rods, solenoids, motors, gears, screws (most screws), some electronics, inner parts of the housing, etc. Great source for esp. mechatronic "mad scientists" projects and "sputniks" And, to make another point, some of the components and elements salvaged can be extremely difficult and or costly to acquire by normal "mail-order" commercial means for one's personal unique purposes. Anyway, as always, good conscientious vid Jeremy. So Keep up the great stuff man. Cordially:)

Hey Jeremy, I keep not only the HD magnets, but also the cast aluminium Harddrive housings, they make excellent material to meltdown for my aluminun casting projects.

a pinball machine project would be cool with those solenoids since that is what the actual pinball machines we have (high speed, and monte carlo) use for the flippers.

I been pulling parts out of discarded electronics all my life. Started with old valve or vacuum tube radio's. Began as a curiosity of how things worked and ended up building many useful things out of it all.

Mr. Jeremy, nice to see the garbage can right there! best way to avoid massive "clean-up time!" great idea!!! "don't want stuff piled up everywhere." (we can all learn from that!) super, quality, videos. please keep up all the good work. best, walt

This salvaging is like some kind of therapy for me.

Hi,that is a Ricoh copier, I been servicing Ricoh printers for 30 years.is amazing the technology that goes in that box.

HA recently found out ( from the install technician) the "old" unit one of my customer groups "traded in" has at least two boards that are/were worth ~ $2K or more since they are hard to come by. The salesperson's "trade in" value was a graciously $400. The customer look at me ( am the in-house tech guy ) and all I could say was " sorry you never called me to discuss" .

Hey I work on these for a living- this specific family/brand. There’s a lot of interesting salvage to be had from them, indeed

I used to work for a company that rented out commercial printers. We would have to take them apart to fix and clean them before the printer went out to the customer. They are pretty interesting on the inside.

I know exactly how tearing those apart feel. I took 3 of them apart and took EVERY screw out all 14 trillion of em. All the same goodies. Wish i coild attach a pic to show you my shop when I got done lol plastic panels and metal EVERYWHERE. awesome vid

Have you built a plastic shreader? All that plastic e-waste can be converted into feed for a homemade injection molder. Save the aluminum for a homemade foundry. Linear rods for cnc/ 3D printers. Likewise the stepper motors.

Recently just found your channel. Love all your videos. Very helpful and informative. I've always been a tinkerer too. Thanks

This is one of my favorite hang outs. Thank you and take care. Paul.

Getting those printers on the roadside is a huge jackpot!!!

Jeremy, I do believe there will come a day you build an intelligent Robot from old parts and pieces, complete with a laser for cutting grass, LOL. Man you are a genius!

The 2.1V on stepper motors is the highest voltage you can apply to them without any controllers. It just means that if you apply 2.1V DC they will reach their maximum current and won't overheat even when stationary (0% efficiency so 100% goes into heat). Commercial stepper drivers usually apply very high voltage (for example 50V) to energize coils quickly, allowing more rapid movement and then lower it when maximum current is reached to avoid overheating. High frequency AC voltage will act similar since polarity will change before too much current builds up (you can use stepper speed calculator to test it).

If I recall correctly, the part you were unsure of with all the gears is likely the auto stapler for the unit. I've taken two of them apart now myself, as I had to dispose of them from work and a) didn't want to lift them into my car by myself, and b) wanted to keep all the goodies inside just like you did...

Yes (health first) the Toner you could have collected for refilling printer cartridges generally works. The color ones are expensive. At least you did it outside.

I took one of these apart 1 year ago and got 28 stepper motors. Most of them nema 23 but about 9 nema 17’s. Im going to run out of steppers soon so I’ll start looking for another printer!

As an amateur machinist, I often see printer shafts mentioned as good candidates for standards--they are supposed to be ground to very good tolerances. Also, nice pile of stepper motors!

Nice video! ... like a kid in a candy-store. - I know the feeling: a few years ago I was given a very large Canon photocopier. It weighed 120Kgs, and it was crammed full with lenses, steppers, a universal motor, etc. etc. (For your info: Be careful with the toner-dust. Apparently it is quite unhealthy when inhaled!)

I just grabbed a very similar Ricoh from next to a dumpster. One thing I found a lot of is limit switches and optical sensors. Tons of the little optical sensor actually. Or maybe they're hall effect, I don't know but there's a lot.

I recycle outdated nuclear submarines for a living. I LOVE taking things apart that I don't have to put back together! I would love to have all the stepper motors. I used some from an old floppy drive to power my telescope.

Before touch those capacitors, be sure they are empty! Once i salvage old digital camera, opened it after testing it wasnt working and touched the circuitboard for the flash. I getted 300V electrical shock from it, the camera fly from my hands very fast, then i throw it away and had always be carefully with capacitors ewer since. These days i Allways remove the capacity by short circuiting it before touch.

Just think of the people whom job it is to pull it apart, fix it, and put it all back together. Cool video...thank you. Get yourself some plastic clear containers and store your stuff in categories.

They are heavy and dirty but SOOO worth it!

Jeremy you are not kidding those printers do take about 1 week to tear apart. time is money lots of great things inside a big printer.

LOL, Reminds me of when I picked through peoples “throw away” piles to rescue “parts”, screws and sometime refurbish entire item which it looked great and worked well until I sold it yrs later.

normally there also clutches, solenoid type. but you scored loads of motors. last one i striped had one big nema 24 stepper and several clutches

This is an old video, however, I hope that you have added a bench or table for your tear downs outside. My back aches every time I see you bent over for long periods of time. We're not getting any younger. Tailgate works for me and the bed is a ready container for the unwanted items heading to the dump.

I hope you found a good home for all the circuit boards.... I bet there's de-soldering a'plenty to do on those.

Nice find and great video Jeremy. Haven't had much time to get on RU-vid. Looks like you hit the jackpot! I wonder how they put those things together? Have fun with all your projects. Looking forward to your videos.

You should have plugged the hard drive in and see what was scanned!

Great video and awesome find.... ! Ton of steppers in there.... thats a goldmine find.

As always Jeremy, great video! Keep up the good work.

Hey Jeremy, I know you're into some mad engineering, and I hate to be the safety police - but I've been in IT for over a decade - I just wanted to give you a heads up for next time. Toner (that coloured powder) is crazy carcinogenic, and due to the fact that it's incredibly fine you run a decent risk of siderosilicosis (similar to silicosis from regular cement dust). There is no safe exposure limit to toner - we even have to use a special vacuum cleaner to deal with toner spills (these vacuums are about 60% filter by weight, and cost a fortune). Also, looks like you might already know this - but cold water, immediately applied, will wash off toner now problem. Toner fuses with heat, and even body heat can start that process. Absolutely staggering haul from that MFD - you can really see why they're so expensive, and why companies tend to lease them vs purchasing them outright. Keep up the great work! (Aaaand just now I'm realising this video is 3 years old. Thanks algorithm!)

The easiest way to run a stepper motor is with another stepper motor.... if you have two that match, twist like colors together and then simply turn one by hand and the other should spin the same direction. Once you know they work, then you can even use those motors to figure out the windings of other steppers. I have even used a large stepper motor to run smaller ones on my cnc projects to make sure my axis are all set up correctly and its a great way to make sure everything is moving smoothly before I put power to the machine. I suppose you could also build a poor mans cnc machine by wiring a large rotary switch to a couple axis and use one motor to run a couple others manually if you want.....

You talking about the sizes of your bearings has the same energy as farnsworth's "let me show you the different lenghts of wire I used."

This printer was a goldmine! Congrats

@2:38 the things you pointed to are magnetic clutches. I think they were 24v in the older machines. I used to repair Ricoh copiers/printers.

Hey Jeremy, great channel, I have learned a lot from watching your videos, you explain things better than any other RU-vidr that’s for sure.. Anyway, I was wondering if you’ve ever broke a mosfet open? Now I know this isn’t important, but it’s just one of those things I have to know. Lol Okay, if you have, well I see that it’s copper, but I’m trying to figure out what the silver type material is located in the middle of the copper section. It’s a little silver colored square. I’ve broken up a few different types to see how they function, as I do with about everything I get my hands on. Lol I just can’t seem to find the answer, and Im hoping you or someone else reading this could let me know. Thanks. 🤠

An Awesomeness of quality content super affordable an good quality could be called a liked theme,,, like the pro level value vision text bonus!!!

That was a lot of work. Your gear logo is really cool.

So much good stuff, I really like all those steel shafts.

Man after my own heart! Taking stuff apart! Way cool!

If you come across an old Canon 6650II analog copier, there is a massive dc motor and all kinds of sprockets and chains.

Great video Skywalker... he salvaged robots & other electric items to sale for $$

Lots of nice steppers!

What do you recommend salvaging from consumer/household printer-scanners? What's worth the effort vs what's readily obtained from McMaster Carr or digikey?

Gotta go, I have a older bulky faqs machine stored on my carport which is fixing to be reduced to a pile of parts, hope there's some motors in it!

Where can I find those printers.i collect dc motors,ac,motors,and cooling fans.im going to make a windstorm with those.i have 115 motors

your great,, im with the guy that wants to hang out and learn from you...thank you...

I'd kill to find a few of these things

It's like a treasure chest for electronic hobbyist

You should do a build with the stepper motors you pulled out of the printers.

Aaah, Milwaukee M18 very nice!

Yea. I subscribing. Why not? Will be looking out for more vids of yours, hopefully in the near future.

I had no idea how complex those commercial printers are. I mean, it looks like Apollo program level stuff inside a kitchen oven sized box!

rescue? That was a brutal evisceration! :)

I like using the steel rollers for making lathe gouges, they work alright for $0

5/16 is close enough to 8mm to be interchangeable. Its only 0.04 of a mm smaller.

For your information, if that yellow ink stuff was stucco pigment, and you had just one fingers worth and wiped it on your pants it would contaminate your washer and ruin everything you put in it for 5-8 loads...just thought I'd set you straight since you showed no fear and I don't know about that stuff. It did give me the shivers though as it reminded me of a lot of clothes I ruined, not all of them mine either long ago. Just a heads up man

if I pulled one of those apart id be so tempted to toss the HDD into my USB enclosure and see if I could mount it or even read it. Those things buffer anything copied and often times stuff is left behind when the units are scrapped.

I've got one in a garage. Not sure if I should try to salvage motors and stuff. I'm thinking to throw away it.

Hey Jeremy, The part at 9:23 is the built in paper stapler

thanks for the video, I took a small printer apart once. I still mess with the little motors . and the ink, so had to laugh when seeing yellow everywhere

I would love to have that many stepper motors. You could make a really nice robotic arm.

You must live in just the right neighborhood, i never find anything where I live, have fun with it.

Smashing Video ...thanks for your time

So many motors 😮I passed one up recently but I may go get it but still have concerns about what to use stepper motors for

9:40 lol Keep it up .. informative . doing the same stuff .. got 2 treadmills today . simple fixes too but torn down

Perfect parts for DIY 3D printers

I concur with the carcinogenic nature of the toner. I don't know if it is accurate, but I would use substantial personal protection when digging around inside these. JIC!! I enjoy your videos and give you a LIKE unless I get distracted...or!

very cool and informative ! Thanks and keep on trucking (from France) !

Thanks for the video. I found that very informative.

Where did you find this printer? I been looking for a large office copier for ages now, and still can never find one like you see in a large business or some school offices. It will be a good increase for my motor collection.

Wow you hit the mother load in recycling with that copy machine.