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Hey Dakka, quick question.
After clearing up my room, I found some old chargers for laptops, some old turtle beach headsets, all of which are broken beyond repair (or it'd be cheaper to just buy new ones).

I hate to throw things out, even the broken bits (my mum hates it ), I'm wondering if it's a good idea, or even feasible, to strip the rubber(?) case off of them for the actual copper(?) wiring to use for wires and such on my Iron Hands? (cybernetics! WHOOO!)

Cheers guys!

It's fine - probably good for rope rather than cable through.
Be careful of copper 'splinters' though as they can go deep really quickly.

I have drawers and boxes stuffed with bits and bobs from scrapped appliances and computers - they're great terrain/conversion fodder, at the very least, even if you'd never consider trying to use them for electronic purposes again.

Power cables (at least, the portion that carries mains current) are generally too thick and oddly shaped to look good, so I'd strip the insulation and use the bare wires. Thinner wires, though, I'll often leave in their sleeves, as they work wonderfully for (non-ribbed) flexible hoses for faux hydraulics and the like. Good for damaged power cables on bases/terrain, too, as the construction of cables doesn't change all that drastically as it scales up, making things like chunky headphone cords (not the thin, ear-bud style) seem like rather hefty power lines.

You can use them to get some wonderfully over the top effects, I say go for it.

I used handfuls of stripped extension cabling on my Stelf bommer: http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/692008-.html and for the record it's still that shiny and clean months later. I plan to paint over it, but left raw it also looks pretty cool.

 oadie wrote:
I have drawers and boxes stuffed with bits and bobs from scrapped appliances and computers - they're great terrain/conversion fodder, at the very least, even if you'd never consider trying to use them for electronic purposes again.

Power cables (at least, the portion that carries mains current) are generally too thick and oddly shaped to look good, so I'd strip the insulation and use the bare wires. Thinner wires, though, I'll often leave in their sleeves, as they work wonderfully for (non-ribbed) flexible hoses for faux hydraulics and the like. Good for damaged power cables on bases/terrain, too, as the construction of cables doesn't change all that drastically as it scales up, making things like chunky headphone cords (not the thin, ear-bud style) seem like rather hefty power lines.

I love the inventiveness of your approach oadie.

Tiny heatsinks might be useful for industrial/factory type scenery if you can reclaim them from old radios, VCRs & PCs. Ditto mosfets, capacitors, resistors and the like. Actually the price of electronic components manufactured in China and sold on eBay is so cheap nowadays it may even be worth buying them. If its thin-guage copper wire you're after, CAT5 or CAT6 network cables contain many pairs of twisted wire. Power extension cords would be better for thicker stuff.

The only downside is that flexible wire (with insulation wrapping or not) tends not to take paint well.

bubber wrote:It's fine - probably good for rope rather than cable through.
Be careful of copper 'splinters' though as they can go deep really quickly.

I will. Thanks!

oadie wrote:I have drawers and boxes stuffed with bits and bobs from scrapped appliances and computers - they're great terrain/conversion fodder, at the very least, even if you'd never consider trying to use them for electronic purposes again.

Power cables (at least, the portion that carries mains current) are generally too thick and oddly shaped to look good, so I'd strip the insulation and use the bare wires. Thinner wires, though, I'll often leave in their sleeves, as they work wonderfully for (non-ribbed) flexible hoses for faux hydraulics and the like. Good for damaged power cables on bases/terrain, too, as the construction of cables doesn't change all that drastically as it scales up, making things like chunky headphone cords (not the thin, ear-bud style) seem like rather hefty power lines.

I didn't consider terrain... but now I might have to!

We haven't got a gaming board in the house yet, but I suppose it doesn't hurt to make terrain in advance.

Buttery Commissar wrote:You can use them to get some wonderfully over the top effects, I say go for it.

I used handfuls of stripped extension cabling on my Stelf bommer: http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/692008-.html and for the record it's still that shiny and clean months later. I plan to paint over it, but left raw it also looks pretty cool.

That's really cool.
I'd suggest not painting the wires until last, just in case they look great with the paint scheme you give it.

Clang wrote:The only downside is that flexible wire (with insulation wrapping or not) tends not to take paint well.

That's not a problem. Thanks for the heads up though.

I strip the rubber off and use the copper wire for tree armatures or frames for miniatures to sculpt.

 Ond Angel wrote:
I didn't consider terrain... but now I might have to!

We haven't got a gaming board in the house yet, but I suppose it doesn't hurt to make terrain in advance.

As long as you have a bit of space to store what you've made, go for it! Actually, my very first miniature/wargame pieces were terrain, not models, precisely because I could just mess around with what I had on hand while my AoBR set was on order. It's also the reason that some of the stuff ended up rather out of scale - I didn't even have a model to compare it to!

Even if you're an experienced painter/modeler that doesn't need the practice, like I did, getting a leg up can't hurt, since it sounds like you'd like to have an in-house board, at some point. Just focus on buildings or elements that have bases you can leave blank, for the time being. Not much sense throwing a bunch of static grass around boulders, only to decide you want to make a snow board. Smaller scatter terrain is nice, since it's easy to pack up and take along with you, should you decide to play elsewhere, instead of building a table of your own. Also requires less in terms of materials, so it isn't all that painful to donate practice pieces or little bits that are needed elsewhere.