Isn´t it a shame that perfectly good stuff gets thrown away?

Thats especially true in the car sector.
Once a car is slightly older and or breaks, we tend to throw away the whole product.

But a car isnt just a car... It´s a collection of wonderful high quality parts that
are waiting to find a new life. Buttons, Sensors, Mechanisms, Displays, Motors...
And all of these beautiful parts are hiding from you at your local scrap yard (or online).

If you are not searching parts from a specific model you can find some seriously cheap
stuff that is often way better then you imagine.

For me it started with just buttons. I needed some nice looking buttons for a project and
they needed to be big, comfortable to press and have a long life span.

You should know how freakin´ expensive new stuff gets if you want higher quality.

I decided to go to my local scrap yard and ask if i just could look through the cars that are already scrapped to look for some cables and switches.

And indeed i could.

After several hours i came back with a small bag full of buttons, switches, interieur lights
and the connectors for them including some cables. 
European brands around the 2000s and onward have a super nice quality of things the driver can interact with. 

But beware of the "soft touch paint" on some parts... it is turning into goop and is disgusting. 

Double shot injection molded Parts are the best. 
Some buttons are painted and they flake off after 20 years of use... Dont get those.

Here i have two similar car radios. The upper one has double shot buttons and the lower one has painted buttons. 

The crappy look of the painted buttons make the parts very cheap. I needed exactly that radio for reverse engineering the can bus. And because it looks like it looks it was the cheapest one.

Perfect for the things i need it for.

Tip : Always try to get the plugs with some cable for a thing that you want to use... it makes your life easier.

Most of the time you can just use jumper leads if you dont have a plug. BUT to have the right connector feels better. :)

And if you dont have shematics a plug with its colored cables may give you some hints how to connect it...

 AND never forget some basic tools when you go to the scrap yard. 
I always take my super cheap toolkit with me and a sidecutter for the cables.

Most of the time you will need Torx from around 2000 and onward. 

Sometimes a regular screwdriver is a better choice when the one from the toolkit is too thick.

Your phone is a pretty good flashlight ... remember that ;) 

All this wonderful stuff made me so happy that i included the scrapyards around me as a parts bin...

Sometimes i have the feeling that this stuff made me more creative. You sometimes
have to work around limitations. Or you simply cant use a thing you really wanted to use and have to use something completely different. 

You can make this into a really fun adventure. You will learn a lot of interesting things
about electronics and mechanics.
And at the scrapyard it doesnt matter if you break something... But you will learn to get the things you want without brute force... :)
Because you often break exactly the thing you wanted in the process of ripping it just out...

Even if you break things ... you can look inside... and probably understand how a switch with integrated LEDs work for example. You will learn in every way. :)

Over the years i got a lot of things from the scrap yard. Like a window lifter motor i used to automate a sliding door. Or an old tail light where i replaced the LEDs with WS2812 adressable LEDs to make it into "light object". 

The Speakers you get there are also pretty descent depending on your donor...

And everything for super affordable prices compared to a new off the shelf solution.
Nearly all parts will use 12V to work. Thats perfect if you want to use an old computer power supply to get your parts going.

Here i use a old ATX power Supply to get a Multimedia system from a car working.

(Like always: be careful when handling power supplies. They may kill you!! if you dont know what you do!)

Most of the stuff i get these days are modules that comminicate via a BUS system like LIN or CAN.

Nearly all of the cars after around 2005 use some kind of BUS system. So you basically have no chance to get things working by just powering it.

I enjoy reverse engineering these types of communication and emulate its behaviour. This hobby evolved from just cutting out some buttons of scrapped cars...

If you think that sounds interesting you can follow my upcoming Projects. I have some projects and ideas that are too nice to just shove them into a drawer like i always do ;)

Now, go out and find some cool stuff to reverse engineer at your local scrap yard...