Upcycling broken laptops

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planted: 24/07/2021last tended: 27/11/2021

First thing - try and fix it, and donate it to someone else! But if it's beyond repair, there's a bunch of things that you can do with individual parts.

This video from DIY Perks has a whole bunch of cool ideas for projects to do with parts from end-of-life laptops: Things you can make from old, dead laptops

  • turn the speakers into portable speakers
  • use the heatsink to cool high-power LEDs and make a lamp
  • screen where the LCD is broken - use the rest of it with the soft diffused light, make a tracing backlight, or a false window
  • or use the various bits from the display assembly
    • diffusion sheets to make a nice lamp
    • fresnel lenses to make another nice lamp
    • get creative with the acrylic and make a feature light
  • if the screen is OK, turn it into a secondary display of some kind
  • make a headset/comms mic from the laptop's microphone
  • storage drive
    • external drive in USB caddy if it's working
    • a gimmicky tool cleaner
    • mirror to make an analog clock
    • turn the read/write head in to laser VU meter
  • batteries
    • take the cells from the batteries into mini battery banks to power the other things
  • webcams turned in to a security system

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