We had a blast in 2010 working to bring our great community a resource that equaled their eccentricities and ingenuity.  In 2011, we have great plans to continue to present to our community a resource, incubator and nexus of grassroots innovation and cutlure.  Stay tuned, it’s quite a ride.

We too will be celebrating the New Year’s holiday and will be closed 1/1/11. Our normal hours will resume on Sunday, the 2nd.

We hope to see you soon!

Homemade CNC Machine

A good friend of the store came in today to show off his homemade CNC router. He built it using pieces readily available not only here at the Reuseum, but also many inexpensive parts any local hardware store might have.  It can mill lots of useful pieces and parts, drill circuit boards, and etch into many different types of materials.  Even from a hobby perspective one could think up tons of uses for a machine like this.

It’s computer is a recycled old Pentium running free CNC software whose proprietary equivalents cost hundreds of dollars for even a basic setup. Got an old computer? Well, its still useful. Why not use it to make things? Using stainless steel threaded rod for his actuators, he was able to get resolution of .5 mil ( 1 mil equals 1/1,000th of a an inch) a margin not readily visible to the human eye.  Most of the machine is made from parts and pieces that were repurposed or reused. Old computer power supplies, plastic sheet, skate bearings motors mined from printers and a Dremel tool were the main components. Now having built one of these, an individual could create the circuit boards needed to control a machine such as this for almost no cost whatsoever.

So there you have it. Something made from recycled materials that will enable you to manufacture things from your own home. There is no better value that we can give our community than the ability to take such a form of economy and make it their own.

An early milled circuit board prototype

Same prototype, populated w/ components

We will be closed for the Christmas holiday weekend and will open again on Monday the 27th with a fresh new load to goodies. Sorry for any inconvenience!  We hope you all have a great holiday!

Happy Holidays!

-D

Dave the shop guy, aka "Thighs of Steel" in the suit.

A good friend notified us this morning of Engaget’s write up yesterday on our famous Pleo R&D frame.  It popped up on Hack-a-Day as well and I gotta say thanks for the great kudo’s, small business businesses like us need the support, and you can’t buy this kind of attention.  Anyone with a with a tech fetish might agree that we, the Reuseum, and the Obtainium leave nothing to the imagination and anyone’s unique fantasies might be fulfilled by perusing our shelves and online inventory.

Frankly we are sort of surprised that people commenting in the threads aren’t realizing how much of a collector’s item it is. Sign of the times?  In our opinion there is no way a hacked kinect or whatever can compare to a frame handbuilt by a living inventor.

Also surprising is that Obtainium hasn’t received any attention of any of the other rare relics it constantly digs up for the world to innovate with, since they are like the Cloud 9 of affordable industry on Earth.

For the last decade or so, we have been collecting things from the realms of science, industry and government surplus not only to use for making new things, as our clientele constantly displays, but equally relics from the technology and generations that brought us to the heights that make our status of life what it is today.  The entire front of our store contains things that may not ever be used again for what they were meant for, but will be used as long as we are around to remind us that no matter how fast or far technology develops, innovation and ingenuity is the key.  This is what we hope to share with the world, either through Obtainium’s prolific and deep inventory, or the Reuseum’s access for the local tinker and community education, the goal is the same.

We’re getting ready for a big year in 2011.  The fight continues to bring our brand of odd, recycled and repurposable surplus tech to a visible and important value to our community and in the next year we’re going to step it up a couple notches, again.  As we become more familiar with the needs of our eclectic clientele, we are streamlining what we look for on our sourcing adventures and have come across loads of new things that we think curious minds might want to experiment with.

In order to clear up some space we would like to try out an interesting idea and just weigh everything and price it accordingly.  So most of our inventory will be prices at $1 per pound starting Monday and This means that that most of the small gadgets we have will become one dollar, test equipment and power supplies could be less than ten bucks.

Items that don’t fit under the “pwndage” category will be marked accordingly, but most of the store will pretty much be up for grabs.

If you are looking for strange gifts or have had your eye on something in here for a while, better come down.

The PWNDAGE SALE starts Monday the 20th and goes until the 23rd of December!

Got this email from an enthusiastic person who had never heard about us until recently;

“Message body: I just found your site through Big Brothers/Big Sister’s of SW Idaho. Looking through the galleries, I want, well, a lot of stuff. Can’t wait to check it out this weekend. My last science fair was in 1979, so this place looks pretty damn cool! — This mail is sent via contact form on The Reuseum.com”

In times like this when you work everyday for something, and even then it’s still on a sink or swim basis, it’s good to get a good word every now and then.

Do you like to make ornaments and holiday decorations? Yeah? What about making them from neato electronic components and other cool stuff? These are just some of the cool stuff we have on stock that might fit the bill for some great holiday creations. If you have any ideas, feel free to stop by the shop and talk with us about what you might like to build!

LED Madness

Colorful Assorted Wire

Nothing says "Holidays" like some green "Yule tube"

Craft wood, PCB and copperclad board.