Vintage/Rare Component Harvesting/Removal Finds

Looking for a particular component or hardware part and you just cannot find it? Got comoonents surplus and want to get rid of it? Post it all here... No sales of working pedals, put these in the 'Seen for sale' section please.
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Scruffie
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Post by Scruffie »

I had a quick look and couldn't see a topic for this and just thought that a good thread would be sources of items where people had harvested/removed/taken rare or vintage parts from old or broken equipment, i personally got 2 good JRC4558 chips out of an old broken Fender 15watt solid state amp i had and a few good parts out of some old broken radio's and in my searches for an old transistor ( which i received thanks to removing it from an old radio ) found this link which shows old radios and more often than not the transistors or tubes that could be taken from them http://www.vintage-radio.com/manufactur ... index.html & thought others could share there finds too to make finding that special part a little bit easier, though i realise that not every piece will have exactly the right one, it could still lead to that lucky find.

Scruffie

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KindaFuzzy
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Post by KindaFuzzy »

This would be great to see what everyone has found while junk hunting. I was looking for schematics or parts listings for other stuff that might have mn3005's or other bbd chips in it and couldn't find anything either.

The only rare parts I've found are germanium transistors in radios or reel to reel players, and tubes and stuff in old consoles and stereos. I found a couple of bumblebee caps too in an old reel to reel.

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Scruffie
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Post by Scruffie »

Well i'm glad to see the thought is spreading fast, only posted this 10 minutes ago. If you remember what radios or anything you might have found those parts in, list it, along with the model number of the radio etc. I think it could really be a useful resource to get those hard to find parts, if people have time it would be nice to be as specific as possible with model numbers, values etc. but not everyone has the time but any contribution will help the community, if people do have the time they could even write out entire part lists if an item was particularly abundant with rarities and thanks in advance to everyone that posts here.

Looking at your comment just a shame i didn't post Junk hunting ( good term ) in the title to help people find this.

Thanks for the comment,

Scruffie

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Scruffie
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Post by Scruffie »

The 2 JRC4558 Chips were hacked out of a Fender Squier SP-10 Amplifier to be precise if anyones after some for there Tube Screamer Clone or other project.

Scruffie

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.Mike
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Post by .Mike »

Not necessarily stompbox-related, but keep an eye on your local craigslist for Hammond JR-20 tonecabs. I was given one by someone who found it while clearing out his church's basement. It had been there for decades, and was destined for the trash.

Inside I found 4x10" Rola speakers that sound ok.

The gem of this find, though, was a 12" speaker whose entire speaker cage had been factory-painted with black paint. I used rubbing alcohol, nail polish remover, and q-tips to remove some of the paint, revealing a mint-condition Jensen P12R that was made in November of 1952.

Sounds great with a little 5-watt tube amp, and the price was right!

:)

Mike
My website: America's Debate | My effects site: Just one more build...

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Post by KindaFuzzy »

I totally forgot, until .Mike mentioned that. I found a 1955 Jensen P12P in a Bell and Howell extention speaker cab from a film projector for $10 at a flea market. The spider had come unglued, causing the voice coil to rub, but once I re-centered it and re-glued the spider it was perfect and now sits in my paisley 5E3 deluxe.

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Scruffie
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Post by Scruffie »

Hmm i wonder if speaker finds and component finds should become 2 different threads? Although useful contributions which im sure people will find helpfull and a good resource to find vintage speakers would be nice to keep the 2 threads clear and concise to what the person is actually looking for to make it easier to search for as pedals and amps are really 2 different things, but thanks for the input, i'l start the new thread in the amp making section and post your quotes there, cheers guys.

Thanks,
Scruffie

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puppiesonacid
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Post by puppiesonacid »

how do you test IC's though? like bbd's or the 4558's I have junk laying around that has some stuff like that in them but ya know....Im just a wee bit inexperienced with properly testing of the ic's. I've gone with the "if it works..." kind of thinking when it comes to projects. I have a logic probe, but I think the instructions are gone...


maybe an experienced forum member could write a tutorial for fsb for the common ic's we use for our coveted cloning capabilites...

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Scruffie
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Post by Scruffie »

I can't remember myself at the moment although i did use to know, i'l have to give it a brief glance over tommorow when it's a lil less late and see if i can write something up, but for the moment here's the link to 3 veroboard layouts for very good transistor testers, i especially like the bottom one, has been really useful for quickly discarding broken Germanium Transistors with out having to find out if its a leakage issue with the Geofex Built one on the top left:

http://www.aronnelson.com/gallery/main. ... t.gif.html

Thanks, And i'l do my best to get you an answer tommorow

Scruffie

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salocin
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Post by salocin »

There are circuits on the net for testing op amps. Not many parts involved. I built one recently and it works great.

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Post by playon »

60s vintage transistor organs, when they were still discrete circuits, can be a gold mine for germanium transistors, especially the Italian brands.

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Post by SpencerPedals »

I found a couple of junked old car stereos and dissected them tonight. Here's what I ended up with:
Image
Image
and family shot:
Image

Well there were ceramic caps and a few film even, but this is the interesting stuff. A few older Delco and Kemet caps, two germanium diodes, a 2sc828A silicon transistor, a pair of 2sb481 germaniums in big TO-66 packages, and the other 4 metal can transistors that I'm not sure of. Two are marked "A102" followed by "CA" which is inside a circle, with a "5N" followed by a big O or circle. One other is marked "A100" followed by a "B" inside a circle, with "65"
below it followed by the same O.

I think these are 2sc100 and 2sc102's, if I've researched that correctly? I can't say I understand all of the other hieroglyphics, though.

The last of them is marked "B475" followed by a "C" inside a circle, with 64 underneath it all, also followed by the O. I thought it was a 2sb475 but I can't seem to locate a data sheet for it.

This may very well be a pile of junk and I don't have a way to test it other than putting it on the breadboard and giving it a go. If anyone has any suggestions for uses for the transistors, I'm definitely open and appreciative to that sort of thing. I vowed a while ago to stay in the "current production" realm but hey...they were free.

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Scruffie
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Post by Scruffie »

Congrats on the finds, but not to sure about alot of those parts but i will have a search around, one thing i would suggest is building the transistor tester at the bottom of this page http://www.aronnelson.com/gallery/main. ... ewsIndex=1 can find out if they work and if there NPN or PNP which is the main thing to find out.

Hope this helps slightly and i will keep looking around
Thanks,
Scruffie

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Post by SpencerPedals »

Thanks Scruffie. I was debating building RG's tester but was too lazy. I suppose I could throw it into a breadboard in a minute or two, though, so I really have no excuse. I know they're all PNP except for the unidentified one, per datasheets. That's about all I know so far, though.

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Scruffie
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Post by Scruffie »

Ah fair enough, well i've been looking but the closest i've come is some sites in japanese... which is entirely useless, think it may be a case of just building a fuzz face or range master and socketing it so you can try them out unless anyone else comes back with an answer, sorry i couldn't be of more help and i'l keep browsing to see what i can find.

Thanks,
Scruffie

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Post by Lovekraft »

Interesting post! A few things I've heard:

Old tube testers will have old caps and some have a bunch of 3 way switches identical to those in old Fender guitars.

Old organs will have a variety of stuff. Tube models will have amps that can be modded for guitar use. I heard some Thomas Organ models have a bunch of inductors as used in the TO wahs, but at a number of different values.

70's Japanese electronics often have JRC4558's, think I found some in an old clock once.

Early Dunlop Crybabys (80's) used a "stack of dimes" inductor like in the Thomas Organ wahs, too nice to leave in a Dunlop, ha ha.

Ethan

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Scruffie
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Post by Scruffie »

Cheers for the post Lovekraft some interesting ideas there, lol not a fan of Dunlop then?

Just bought a bulk lot of radio parts on ebay myself and will report on any finds along with any model numbers i can when they get here.

Thanks,
Scruffie

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Post by SpencerPedals »

I breadboarded RG's transistor checker earlier and I THINK I did it right. If someone that has done this before wouldn't mind double-checking my math, that'd be much appreciated. Here's what I got for the germaniums:

2sa100:
2.42v-.94v=1.48 or 148 gain
and for leakage (1,000,000)(.94)(.001)/2.472 = 380.2 uA leakage

That's how that all works out, right? The numbers look about right...leakage for that one is highest. The rest were:

2sa102(1 of 2)
111 gain
279.1 uA leakage

2sa102(2 of 2)
54.5 gain
111.2 uA leakage

2sb475
85 gain
117.3 uA leakage

Wicked huge 2sb481 (1 of 2)
39 gain
254.7 uA leakage

Wicked huge 2sb481 (2 of 2)
37 gain
234.6 uA leakage

I may just have to breadboard up a small germanium circuit to see if they're worth keeping around. I've been kind of wanting a treble booster and what cooler way is there to get a Rangemaster than to make one out of old car stereo parts?

I also found a PCB from an older TV (back when they were made of wood!) that has some old-style caps, I'll be scavenging later tonight or tomorrow. A few look like tropical fish but aren't, lacking the obvious coloration. There are also some of the weird dot colored caps. I'll throw up some pics after.

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Post by guiltyspark »

Scruffie wrote:Cheers for the post Lovekraft some interesting ideas there, lol not a fan of Dunlop then?

Just bought a bulk lot of radio parts on ebay myself and will report on any finds along with any model numbers i can when they get here.

Thanks,
Scruffie
I'll try to think of some more. I find the Dunlop GCB-95 wahs pretty generic sounding, I have to say, ha ha.

An obvious one is to check your area for surplus electronic places, there's a cool one here in Orlando. Found some Mullard EL34's there a few years ago. It's fairly stripped of cool stuff now.

Our European forum members can probably find old "tropical fish" caps and Mullard trannies in old UK electronics. Not much UK electronic stuff here in the US from what I've seen-

Ethan

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Scruffie
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Post by Scruffie »

Yea i'd agree on the generic sound but i suppose it is the classic, so it would. I'm modding mine to my own personal take on the 535Q soon when i get the time, money and motivation so hopefully that'll liven it up with an excessive amount of switches and knobs.

Don't often get surplus electronics stores in the UK so the lack of UK electronics in the US is kind of a trade off i guess so both sides should hopefully get use from this topic.

Thanks,
Scruffie

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