I'm done taking apart cheap LED bulbs with a hammer

Last Tuesday I spent 20 minutes smashing open a blown 8W bulb from Dollar General just to get the driver board out. Three shards of glass later and a cut on my thumb, I realized the whole thing was potted in epoxy anyway. Total waste of time for a part that costs less than a coffee. Anybody else just toss these things now instead of trying to reclaim components?

3 comments

3 Comments

averywright3mo ago

That line about "total waste of time for a part that costs less than a coffee" really hit me. I used to think I was being smart and thrifty by salvaging everything I could out of dead electronics, even those cheap bulbs. But after reading this, I gotta admit I was fooling myself. I've got a drawer full of random little boards and components that I've never actually used for anything. You're right, it's way better to just toss the whole thing and move on with your day.

grant8262mo ago

Man I had a buddy who did the exact same thing with old computer power supplies. He'd spend hours pulling every single capacitor and resistor out of them, bagging them up like they were treasure. Then one day his basement flooded and he lost that whole collection, didn't even remember what half of them were for anyway. @averywright your point about the coffee thing really stuck with me because he finally admitted after that he probably could've bought the same parts new for like five bucks total. Sometimes it's just not worth hoarding every little scrap, especially when you factor in the time and space it eats up.

king.aaron3mo ago

Wait you actually have a whole drawer of that stuff lmao that's wild.