What grinds my gears: Companies destroying test gear... - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Thilo78
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2016, 11:41:58 am
content: ...rather than giving it away to hobbyists and students.Recently, I had a lengthy discussion regarding discarded test gear (scopes, multimeters etc.) and why companies refuse to give it away or sell it to employees.Apparently, there is an interpretation of German product safety laws, that considers the companies to be responsible for any incident happening after they sold the gear.Thus, in order to avoid being sued, they destroy the gear prior to throwing it in the trash.Inquiries to buy single units are strictly refused.Of course, they also refuse to make a written agreement with the buyer, that could potentially release them from responsibility.I have no idea, how much good equipment is dumped in the process. And I also don't know how much vintage (=worth restoring, at least for historical purposes) gear is in this part.This kind of drives me mad, being the technophile I am.What did you experience in this respect?

author: dr.diesel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2016, 11:51:21 am
content: At one of the companies I worked for, someone filed a grievance that he didn't get the chance to buy what someone else did. Caused a big issue and demanded an auction site, which costs money and employee dedication, so they ended up just trashing everything.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2016, 11:51:40 am
content: We could buy old used test equipment for low prices (think 10-20 euros), although there was a huge list of interested employees so in practice you get one power supply in three years or so.If you left the company you got put on top of the list, so I got a nice Fluke/Philips digital oscilloscope 12 years back, no probes though, those could be re-used for the workplace.If you worked closer to the fire you got more lucky. If your own testequipment failed and repair was too expensive you could take it home for a pie. That kind if stuff.In practice there were some outrageously things going on, factory closes and one person ends up with 5 digital power supplies 0-300V 0-5A costing €4000 new, ending up on ebay kind of places a week later for €1000 a piece. That stinks and I really hate.But in respect to the safety laws there were some unwritten rules for instance high voltage (kV's) dc powersupplies were not sold due to safety issues. And some testequipment were only sold to registered EE's because a layman could well injure himself. Kinda you do not sell chainsaws to underaged persons kind of stuff.

author: 1xrtt
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2016, 12:29:02 pm
content: I worked on the brazilian subsidiary of a (once) huge telecom vendor, I lost count of how many times I saw this happen.YMMV, but in this case, It's all bureaucreacy. From the company standpoint was simpler to pay a third party to get the equipment away and provide a paper confirming they were properly scrapped and disposed. So the bureaucrats could happily scratch that passive out of the company inventory.Most of that was surplus that was imported into the country but not sold. And I was not alone with that feeling. A colleague managed to build the one largest lab out of the headquarters, just by scavenging equipment about to be scrapped. Telecom switches, LAN switches, PBX, Cisco routers, Sun workstations, HP/Dell servers, we even had sales team conducting proof of concepts with customers, using those leftovers.My last try was back in 2009, when the mother company was in Chapter 11 and we all knew what will be the outcome. I made an offer for a couple of racks of equipment by the time I was let go and was told that it is just too costly to manage "individual sells". One month later, the brazilian subsidiary closed down and, although the bankuptcy process is now done, nobody I talk to knows what happened to over 200 sq meter of equipment racks. Probably still in storage some place else.

author: m100
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2016, 12:38:25 pm
content: We never scrapped test kit in the first instance, we always offered it for internal sale. We used to have internal sealed bid system for surplus equipment of all types, test gear to heavy goods vehicles. Worked well for many years and you could pick up some quite good bargains. Most of the bidding activity wasn't with test gear but with cars that might only be two or three years old and while some were shagged out and stinking of tobacco some were in near showroom conditon.There was a huge stink when some arsehole in 'accounts' that were tasked with administering the system gave someone an authorisation to take off site test equipment at somewhere around 1% of it's new value even though there was a week or two to run and offers of in excess of ten times that were either already in the internal mail or sat on their desk in accounts waiting to be formally opened at the end of the offer period. What was even more galling was the bid end date was timed for the arrival of already ordered new replacement equipment. So as the old kit was taken off site part of the department just ceased working for a couple of weeks. Protests at the highest level were ignored.Another tale of unlimited fuckups. After an extensive evaluation process that lasted weeks, and despite three competitive tenders the same silly twat in accounts also changed a huge order for laptops so the colour TFT screen ones that were essential were replaced with 'better value ones' with a mono screen. If he hadn't had a crippled leg there are a few of us in engineering that would have busted the other oneIt cost us tens of thousands in restocking fees to get the ones that were required even though they were all sent back to the vendors in sealed boxes.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2016, 02:55:09 pm
content: In any large organization there are numerous factors. Costs to administer the program. Legal liability. Costs to investigate liability. Sales taxes. Value of employee satisfaction. The list goes on and on. No one really knows the answers. Many of the upside factors are fuzzy and hard to evaluate. The downside answers are often low probability, but really huge. So the final answer isn't rational because no one can get meaningful data. The answer is based on the personal values of the highest power person who gets in on the decision.

author: borjam
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 04, 2016, 03:27:11 pm
content: I remember when more than 20 years ago the Physics department replaced the ancient Telequipment oscilloscopes with brand new shiny Tektronix onesThey aligned all the old stuff at the corridor, and, if I remember well, they told everyone that everything would be scrapped in a week, free to grab before the deadline.Shame on me I didn't go to class that day. Of course the oscilloscopes (most of them in good working order) were gone in a matter of minutes.

author: TassiloH
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2016, 03:56:37 pm
content: Partly it is the miracle of EU consumer protection law:If they sell it as functioning test gear to the public, and the buyer is a person and not a company, they have to give warranty. There are different time periods involved regarding who has to prove that the cause of a defect was already there at the time of the sale, but practically this is a 6 months warranty. It is not possible to exclude this warranty for used goods by contract if the buyer is a consumer, period.If they declare it as broken it is questionable if it can be sold to a end user, that might be illegal disposing of trash (keep in mind, even our local scrap metal dealers are NOT allowed anymore to collect household appliances).If they sell it for cheap to their employees and don't make the offer publicly available, the tax department could interpret that as a form of wages and demand tax for the monetary advantage that the employee gains.A long time ago I wanted to buy some used equipment as an empolyee, and because of all these difficulties formally my mom's business had to purchase it officially (and then just give it to me).

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2016, 04:15:58 pm
content: Quote from: TassiloH on April 04, 2016, 03:56:37 pmMy current employer has a habit of loudly proclaiming "Oh dear, the cameras in the waste room aren't working, the key for the door has been lost, and the disposal company aren't here until Wednesday. I do hope nothing goes walkies."Somehow an industrial computer, a bunch of servos, and lots of aluminium extrusion found their way to my place

author: German_EE
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2016, 05:26:03 pm
content: Similar to my approach. When scrapping useful stuff I used to find out who was interested then walk with them to the skip. The product concerned (labelled as scrap) was then carefully placed in the skip without damaging it and I then walked away. What happened then? No idea

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2016, 05:45:08 pm
content: Sounds like an opportunity for a maker group, radio club, robot club or whatever to form a company, call it Equipment Home. That presumably gets around the consumer protection aspect of the laws. Equipment Home can purchase gear from various companies that need to unload this type of equipment. The purchase price could be extremely low, since the alternative for the sourcing companies would be to pay disposal fees. Equipment Home can then have periodic demonstrations. Might even be able to charge a fee for admission to cover the costs of putting on such an event. Unfortunately things just seem to disappear each time one of these demonstrations happens. Can't imagine why that would happen.Of course there would be some stuff that just never seems to disappear. The admission fees and any other sources of income would have to cover the cost of disposal as well as storage, transportation and other costs of putting on the demonstrations.

author: station240
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 04, 2016, 07:37:37 pm
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on April 04, 2016, 05:45:08 pmMost maker spaces don't have enough space to store anything really. I have no idea why those that down lease/own large store rooms don't do things with surplus test gear.A certain group lead by one Bowden for instance take in old computers to reuse, most get scrapped, some used in projects, some sold.the EU's eWaste laws, that relate to disposing of equipment make a joke of the first part of recycling, the reuse part. Really should be a way of signing off equipment as "disposed of: reuse" so all the accountants/lawyers are happy.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2016, 09:16:58 pm
content: I've never encountered this myself. I've been lucky to have been given lots of old test equipment from work for free.I can understand why a company might not want to sell it though. Typically companies have to give some sort of guarantee, when they sell something which they don't want to be liable for. As far as safety is concerned, it shouldn't be a problem as long as it has a PAT (Portable Appliance Test) certificate, which all UK businesses have to have for anything with a UK mains plug.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2016, 10:14:56 pm
content: "Apparently, there is an interpretation of German product safety laws, that considers the companies to be responsible for any incident happening after they sold the gear."The cost of having the government protecting the people from themselves.

author: eugenenine
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2016, 10:22:00 pm
content: Its the same anywhere, the grocery store I worked at while in college had to destroy groceries otherwise the employees would "drop" stuff on the floor so it had to be trashed then pick the trash after their shift.

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 05, 2016, 03:18:12 am
content: I was at IBM Fishkill in the mid nineties. While I was commissioning a piece of equipment there I saw big carts with piles of equipment in the hallways. Every piece of equipment had a series of five different colored adhesive dots on them. I asked one of the employees what was going on with all this equipment in the hallways.He told me that all the equipment was at the end of its tax write off life and therefore it had to be destroyed so as to not cause a tax problem for IBM. Some of the equipment was only five years old or so. The next day as I arrived through the back entrance near the loading docks I saw a sight that made me almost want to cry. There was a sheriff standing beside an industrial crusher/compacter. He had a clip board in hand and was marking off serial numbers of equipment as it was being thrown in and crushed. This is necessary in the US so the companies don't have to pay taxes on capitol equipment. If they try to re-sell it or give it away it regains value and their tax deductions on the capitol equipment can be reversed.When I looked at the piles of equipment, oscilloscopes, power supplies of all types, high powered RF equipment, measuring equipment of all types, you name it they had it, it added up roughly to over 5 million dollars. I saw all of this destroyed in a few days as if it was all garbage.The world is inside out and the only ones who are happy about it are the ones who wrote the rules to make it this way, and those who gain from this craziness at the expense of the majority who have no real say.

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 05, 2016, 03:41:41 am
content: Quote from: Lightages on April 05, 2016, 03:18:12 amI had my own little tale to tell - but that one trumps it ten times over.... and then some.

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2016, 04:37:33 am
content: Quote from: Brumby on April 05, 2016, 03:41:41 amDon't let that stop you. Make this thread a record of these crimes. Because they are definitely crimes. Hopefully one day (after the revolution, ha) the laws will identify such willful, stupid destructiveness as a criminal act. In fact this would be a good litmus test by which to judge any new regime.Some of my experiences are here:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/extreme-teardown-pr0n-$100k-server/msg881109/#msg881109https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/extreme-teardown-pr0n-$100k-server/msg881750/#msg881750

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2016, 02:24:47 pm
content: The horrible thing is that fixing these cases makes other things worse. Eliminate the depreciation tax credits so that no one will care if the equipment is destroyed? Think how many decades it will be before the corporation decides to update the equipment in your lab. Eliminate the careful checking to see that depreciated equipment is destroyed? After your taxes have increased to cover the corporate deduction, the corporation will sell the equipment at actual market value. The corporation will actually recover more than the cost of the equipment between tax write-offs and the sales price and all you have to show for it is your tax bill. Well you also get to play with the pretty equipment while the corporation depreciates it.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2016, 02:51:34 pm
content: I don't understand that american tax law at all, maybe someone can explain it?.Here in the Netherlands when a company buys a product it can settle the salestax with the tax they collect from selling stuff in the same bookyear.Then they can write off the investment usually in three to five years. What happens is that on the balancesheet the investment that is on the assets side is reduced each year with the same amount till it is 0.That has nothing to do with taxes and the asset is 0 at the end, it can be sold then that is income or destroyed but why in hell would the serialnumber have to be registered and an official present? I really do not understand any of this unless your government paid for the equipment in the first place.

author: Delta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2016, 03:06:20 pm
content: At my local council dump - sorry, "recycling centre" - they have a large container for TVs and computer equipment. The items dumped range from vintage CRTs to modern flat screens probably just needing a few new caps in the PSU.I approached one of the guys there to ask about recovering some stuff for repair (the council's slogan is "Towards zero waste") only to be told that they're not allowed to let anyone take anything from that container, as the council have a contract with a WEEE firm. The council actually PAY this company to collect stuff that still has genuine value! The guy also made the international sign language gesture for "backhanders" ("kickbacks" I believe they say in the US)...It stinks.

author: vodka
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2016, 06:08:17 pm
content: Quotebut i 'm sure that the guy doesn't make the "backhanders" gesture with a group of the gipsies, because the bribery charges him at hot.

author: djacobow
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2016, 06:43:10 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on April 05, 2016, 02:51:34 pmI'll try. It's not about sales tax. It's about corporate taxes.When a company buys a piece of capital equipment, they are allowed todepreciateit.https://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/A-Brief-Overview-of-DepreciationThat means that each year, the piece of gear loses value as it ages. That loss of value can legally be treated as an expense by the company, reducing the net income on which it pays taxes. Rather than tying depreciation to some assessment of the real value of the gear, which would be complicated and not easy to predict (some gear gets worthless fast, some slowly, some never, some gets more valuable, etc) they use a specified formula. It depends on the category of the investment and its "useful life", but basically, at the end of 4 or 5 or however many years the value of the equipment is assumed to be 0. It is "fully depreciated." Over those years, the company has claimed that depreciation as an expense and as a result, enjoyed reduced taxes.Now, if that company were to turn around andsellthe piece of gear, they would have income from tax-legally worthless gear and the IRS would say "whoa, you have fully depreciated this asset and we see now that this asset has value, therefore you owe us back some of the taxes that we did not collect!"Companies like this system because it is simple and predictable. They get their tax writeoff over a few years and they're happy. The fact that Real Life is not quite like that and things do not magically become worthless at the specified time is just one of many, um, idiosyncrasies of the US tax system.-- dave j

author: borjam
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 05, 2016, 07:44:02 pm
content: Quote from: djacobow on April 05, 2016, 06:43:10 pmOf course, it's similar in many countries. However, it would be a good idea to grant an additional even if small write-off if, for example instrumentation was donated to educational institutions.It's such a waste of natural resources to be scrapping all that perfectly useable machinery..

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2016, 08:06:15 pm
content: ThanksQuote from: djacobow on April 05, 2016, 06:43:10 pmBut it is not illegal to keep on using that equipment inside the company after those years is it? It is written off so value 0 that is the same here.But difference is that if they sell it for say $250 then that is new income for that fiscal year and they need to pay taxes over that amount of $250.So actually the government gets more then if it is destroyed, or am I not making sense?

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2016, 08:08:10 pm
content: Liability BS in today's world really pisses me off, it seems to get in the way of a lot of things. Same deal that stops grocery stores or other businesses from donating "expired" food to charity.Then there is insurance. They'll order stuff to be destroyed even if it's still good, because it was written off.To me companies/people should be able to at least GIVE stuff and have zero liability.

author: vodka
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2016, 08:12:01 pm
content: QuoteThis a few coarse, if you sell a amortization goods, you will pay the taxes when you close accounting year, and if you have a positve balance ,unless that it has a kind transfer of asset taxes .The great corporations throw to trash , the amortization goods for achieving a negative balance and to reduce the taxes of corporation or don't pay.

author: vodka
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2016, 08:27:47 pm
content: QuoteIllegal isn't,but if the corporation have a rent/leasing warehouse and they have a amotization goods that occupe place ,asides from it has a posession cost .You imagine that have a gear that can't use and it costs you money every month. What would you do? .

author: djacobow
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2016, 08:34:04 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on April 05, 2016, 08:06:15 pmNo. It is perfectly legal to keep using a fully depreciated asset. I guess that's the IRS's way of dealing with the fact that the real value and book value are separate concepts. In fact, you might argue that a 5 year depreciation is actually a bit of a gift to companies, as it allows them to write off the entire value in the first 5 years when the equipment might last 50. (see "accelerated depreciation")Quote from: Kjelt on April 05, 2016, 08:06:15 pmYes. I think as capital gains.Quote from: Kjelt on April 05, 2016, 08:06:15 pmYes, you are making sense. It is a bit crazy. Let's say they sell it for $250 and have to pay taxes $100 in extra taxes. Then the government has $100 it would not have had, the company has $150 it would not have had, and the buyer has something that he payed $250 for but obviously values more than $250. That would be a win-win-win.So i agree with you that it is a bit crazy. I think it has more to do with predictability and being absolutely sure that they can "close the book on an asset" and not have to think about it again. That is, after the tax accountants are "done" with something, they do not want it to reappear as something they need to deal with.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2016, 08:57:59 pm
content: Ah yes the accountants, those i rather forget about, they often make dubious decisionsOn the same kind of story, i told in an earlier post that my old company did sell old measurement equipment to employees. There was one exception: spectrum analyzers. The reason was that the dealer firm that sells them the SA's offered a lot of money for the older models. Insane discounts we are talking 30-40%I asked them what that was all about and if I could buy one from them. They told me they destroy them and deliberately because they did not want those SA's on the second hand market, thereby disabling small companies or startups to cheaply acquire them but having to buy a brand new one for full price from them. They did destroy the old ones to keep the market small and prices high.

author: G0HZU
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2016, 09:41:22 pm
content: This is an interesting thread...At my place of work the company have now taken a similar stance. I can have/rescue obsolete TE for 'free' if it has been proven to have zero value. The acid test for value is to tart the equipment in front of a few TE dealers to see if they will offer anything.If the test gear has any value, even if the dealer offers peanuts for it, I can't rescue it and I can't even BUY it. I've even offered to outbid dealers for some obsolete items but the company won't sell to me because of various laws to do with my rights as a consumer. So the TE will go for destruction/recycling.At the minute we have four decent (fully working) HP vector network analysers from the 1990s and some sig gens on death row. They are on death row because we have too many of them and they 'only' cover up to a few GHz. So some of them have been taken to one side for disposal. So the company will probably either sell them for peanuts to an external dealer or send them for WEEE recycling.Almost certainly the gear will be sent for WEEE recycling because I can't see the company wanting to deal with the hassle/paperwork of a formal sale to a dealer.I can't grumble too much because I've had some amazing TE deals from the company in the past. Lots of free stuff and lots of decent RF test gear for very cheap prices. Also, I did get a free HP 54540C scope a few months ago along with some Hameg scopes and some frequency counters. This was the stuff even the dealers didn't want.But if the TE has any value then there are various legal reasons why I can't buy it to save it from destruction. I think it is because I automatically gain certain consumer rights if I pay for the test gear. I think the company is worried about being sued because of these consumer rights. Apparently I can't even sign away these rights to dodge this issue. It's crazy.

author: Carl_Smith
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2016, 11:38:25 pm
content: I have a few stories, not all test equipment though.I walked into the electronics assembly department at one place I worked a long time ago, to find a bunch of stuff on a cart, one item being a perfectly good looking soldering iron. The department manager said it worked fine but they were throwing it away because it wasn't temperature controlled. I asked if I could throw it away for her, and she said OK. She knew what I meant. It's still sitting on my workbench today. But finding tips for it is about impossible now.Another time, we had a Topward TPS-4000 bench power supply suddenly give up as much smoke as you could imagine could pour out of the vent holes. We quickly unplugged it, and it quit smoking. I suggested taking it apart to see if I could fix it, but the boss said not to bother, it was obviously toast, transformer burned up to make that much smoke. I threw it in the trash can just long enough for him to leave. Took it home and found out that the 5V/3A fixed supply had blown. It charred the whole corner of the circuit board. It was just a 7805 regulator with a pass transistor. The 7805 had burned up. They didn't even compensate for the drop in the pass transistor, so it didn't even put out 5V when it was working. So I just cut the traces to that part of the board, built a little daughter board with an adjustable regulator and 10 turn pot for adjustment, fed that to the pass transistor, and adjusted the regulator up so that it actually put out 5V. I've been using that power supply for probably about 16 years or more.But the best one at that company was that they built high current motor controllers, each using 6 giant 200 amp mosfets. Still remember the part number. IXFN200N07. These aren't TO-220 mosfets where the leads would melt at 20 amps even though they say max id=200A. These are SOT-227B packages - big block with 4 screw terminals on top. They had the idea that some of the reliability problems they had were caused by mismatched mosftets, so they decided it was bad to build a controller with parts from different date codes. So they watched the tubes, and when they got down to less than 6 parts left in a date code lot, they just wouldn't use those last 5 or less parts.One day they were going to toss all the odd parts that didn't match up to 6 or more of the same date code. I took home about 80 of them. With their size that's like 7 tubes. They still sell today on DigiKey for $26.00 each, although we were paying half that. Always thought they would be good for building some sort of high current motor control stuff, but never got around to it. They are still sitting in a box in the closet close to 20 years later.I'll post my other story in another message....

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2016, 03:08:31 am
content: Quote from: Lightages on April 05, 2016, 03:18:12 amDon't know if this will make you feel any better, but a lot of that probably ends up in China where all the interesting bits get salvaged and sold online. I bet it's where a lot of the "unobtanium" chips are coming from (that aren't just remarked common parts.)https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/experiment-buying-obscure-obsolete-ic-via-chip-broker/

author: Carl_Smith
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2016, 04:59:29 am
content: So my not-test-equipment story:At a past job I worked for a bit at one of the major PC manufacturers, as part of their desktop PC design team. Well, major a long time ago. Over time they downsized and were eventually acquired by Acer in 2007 and nobody's really heard of them since.It was just crazy all the computer parts we had in the design lab. Mostly stuff the public had never even heard of yet. Thing is, it was all engineering samples obtained under NDA and could only be used for design validation and had to be destroyed. Somewhere in the plant they had an industrial shredder that could destroy motherboards, processors, hard drives, etc.One of the program managers would receive processors from Intel by the tray full. He just stacked them on his desk and would pass them out for testing as needed. One day I went to talk to him about something and he showed me his brand new pile of Pentium 4 Extreme Edition processors, which the retail value at the time was about $1000 each. Each tray held maybe 18 processors, and the pile of trays was probably a dozen deep. Over $200000 of processors at retail value. And that was just one processor. He probably had another 5 stacks of trays of processors as well.In other parts of the lab we had boxes of motherboards, hard drives, memory, etc. No way I can even estimate the value on all that stuff.Then, in the end, the company was acquired by another company and they decided they didn't need an engineering department or a design validation department. They could just tell factories in Taiwan to put whatever components they wanted into cases and have working PCs. So over 200 people, including myself, were downsized out of a job.In the end, I was one of the last ones there. My manager and I were cleaning up the lab and cubicle area. He grabbed a big box and started tipping processors out of trays into the box to go to the shredder. Every processor in the design lab area got unceremoniously dumped in that box. Probably well over a million dollars of processors at retail price, sent off to go through the industrial shredder.All the hard drives, motherboards, etc., met the same fate.One thing that made it easier to resist the temptation to smuggle a bunch of them out was the fact that they were all marked "Intel Confidential" so I couldn't have sold them anyway.

author: pa3weg
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2016, 09:10:02 am
content: I have been at the total opposite of this.I did an internship at a research institute, where they had an intranet marketplace for used gear.They had a special section in the central warehouse for swapping test gear and parts.The rules were simple:- Stuff you do not need gets added to the warehouse with data of the previous owner, condition of item and (possibly) a value / price- you can send an email indicating your interest in stuff- there is a specific term in which you need to react- if your research needs the item, you get priority- if the item is not claimed within a pre-set period, it is scrappedThey were running this as a test to see if that would work out. Result: in one year the warehouse was filled up and researchers preferred to not spend the time searching for second hand options...So they tossed everything out, and I picked up a HP 3456A meter, several PSUs and some parts for freeYou did need a "scrap form" to show security if you were taking stuff home, signed by the warehouse manager.What also happened: the stuff in the warehouse was priced higher than market value for projects to solve their budgets. then other researchers actually HIRED the same kit because the internal price was too high...I was taking so much stuff home in the end, I felt guilty and I reported myself to the director, and he basically told me it was fine.

author: MrSlack
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2016, 09:24:49 am
content: Our kit (mainly IT stuff) is sold off to employees at £1 with a receipt and a disclaimer that it doesn't work even if it does.Never will forget dragging a stacked DL380 home on the train through London. PAIN.

author: GEuser
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2016, 09:44:23 am
content: Then there was the time a mining company had a deal that to replace all their radio stuff (several 100's of K) Motorola said you can purchase as long as the current stuff is Bulldozer Buried under supervision of armed guards .One assumes , no second hand stuff on the market = more new stuff sales .

author: djacobow
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2016, 06:45:13 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on April 05, 2016, 08:57:59 pmSo, I talked to a few people who know tax a bit more than I do, and in addition to the "convenience" factor for accounting, they brought up a couple of other reasons:1. The actual cost of preparing to sell and selling this gear might not exceed the revenue (post tax) of selling it2. Selling the gear might bring liability issues. (You sell a laser, someone blinds himself, etc.)3. There are other taxing entities in the US (at the state and local level) that might make such a sale extra complex because they can attempt to claw backpropertytaxes not collected on low- and zero- book value equipment that in the end turns out to have higher value than was declared, potentially opening up pain from prior tax years -- something which companiesreallydo not like.One person I spoke with could attest through direct experience that 3 actually happens.-- dave j

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2016, 11:16:54 pm
content: In the US at least, the threat of re-opening previous years would apply to Federal taxes also.

author: Porch
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2016, 01:35:19 am
content: Had a collage do something like this. They filled a shipping container with well over 100k of used equipment, then let it sit outside in the desert sun for a good 5 years. Then sold it off at auction along with other equipment. Anything plastic looked like that melting clock painting. Nothing worth saving.But they learned, now they toss it in a fenced off area and let it get rained on, then just scrap it.

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 07, 2016, 03:23:11 am
content: My story is paltry in comparison - but here it is....I once worked for an electronics retailer and, as you would expect, some products were returned under warranty. Of those, some were to be sent back for repair while others were to be written off and a replacement given to the customer. These written off items were piled up in a corner of a storeroom until head office gave approval for them to be disposed of. At first, they didn't care what happened to those products - but what some people were doing was taking a faulty product and presenting it to a different store, where they would get a new one in exchange.When head office found out, things changed. Everything had to be destroyed or at least mangled sufficiently so that it was very clear it wasn't eligible for any sort of warranty claim. Only then could it be tossed into the dumpster. I got on really well with the manager and he knew my interest and trusted me to not do the wrong thing - but he just made it very clear that scavenging was history.Usually, I had the job of the destruction process - and some of the toughest challenges came from some simple blow-mold plastic pieces.

author: Cubdriver
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 07, 2016, 04:38:12 am
content: Quote from: Brumby on April 07, 2016, 03:23:11 amSomeone's always got to try to game and abuse the system and ruin it for everyone else.Those people suck.-Pat

author: Vgkid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2016, 04:56:41 am
content: Quote from: Carl_Smith on April 06, 2016, 04:59:29 amWas it Gateway?. If so we bought a high end desktop. The neat thing about it was the case was able to be opened without screws, snd the hdd's were tool less. This would have been around 2000, as the processor was an an amd at about 900Mhz. The monitor was the first lcd screen in my group of friends. My parents still use the lcd on their current computer, but it is s bit red.

author: Carl_Smith
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2016, 12:36:44 am
content: Quote from: Vgkid on April 07, 2016, 04:56:41 amYes, it was Gateway. I was there from 2002 to 2004. Their tool less desktop systems went way beyond just the case and hard drives. Before building the systems the motherboards had standoffs installed that were special ones with a slot all the way around. The matching holes in the case weren't holes, they were triangle openings with a slot toward the back side. Like arrows with the head reversed. So once the standoffs were screwed to the back of the motherboard, you could just drop the board in and push it toward the back of the case and it would just snap in place. There was a latch toward the front side of the case to hold it. The CPU fan had a plate screwed to the back side of the motherboard with four tabs that would hook into holes in the case when you slid the board back. The top side had a frame with stiff wire "bars" to hold the heatsink that would latch under hooks. The power supply even had a latch to hold it in place, but we didn't trust it and screwed the power supply to the case. But the latch was convenient to hold it while putting in the screws. It made it very easy and very fast to build systems.All of that went away when they got rid of the whole design engineering, testing, and validation people and just started slapping parts into cases in Taiwan.I always like their LCD monitors as well. I still use several of them. I like that the colors don't seem as blue as most monitors, the white seems more like a proper pure white.

author: Vgkid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2016, 01:15:00 am
content: I replaced/upgraded everything but the mobo, cpu, psu. By the time I got my own laptop in 08. It was running XP(so many isdues) , an upgraded sound card, a 256mB video card(dont remember which one) either 2(or 3) GB of ram. It originally gad half a gig. I never really thought it was anything special, just an old computer. Until the sound card started causing the computer to reboot. We took it into a local shop, in which the owner was explaining to his assistant that around when the computer was made, that the companies were actually competing to build high end computers. Though when I entered college I saw a ton of the FX series laptops. I was jealous of them, with my Dell Inspiron 1525.

author: rx8pilot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2016, 01:38:20 am
content: For those that have a concern for very high-end gear potentially being wasted......VOTE IN THE KEYSIGHT CONTEST.They are giving away a $70,000 6Ghz Oscilloscope to whoever gets enough votes randomly on the internet. Take a look at the top three in the running and see if you think it is headed to a good home that will utilize it.I will give you a hint: Carlos A will fully utilize the capability of this fine instrument. If you do not vote this thing is at risk.Your choices are a student that is designing a water heater, a hobbyist building various robotics projects, or a small business struggling to move up to the next level designing very high-speed circuits for movie cameras.You are more than welcome to skip the videos and simply vote for Carlos A - the only forum member in the top three.VOTING:http://www.keysight.com/main/editorial.jspx?cc=US&lc=eng&ckey=2677452&nid=-32546.0.00&id=2677452THREAD:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/contests/keysight-6000x-6ghz-voting-is-live-vote-for-carlos-a/Only a TINY percentage of the forum has voted. Please take a moment to vote, there is so much at stake.

author: Carl_Smith
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2016, 04:27:57 am
content: Quote from: rx8pilot on April 08, 2016, 01:38:20 amNearly forgot to vote today. Thanks for the reminder.Can you vote for yourself? If so, I have to wonder why some of those entries only have like 3, 4, or 9 votes...

author: rx8pilot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2016, 04:33:40 am
content: Yes, you can vote for yourself. Kind of weird.Anyway, thanks for taking the time to vote. This can be a BIG step for my career, business and of course my family. If anyone is able to drop mentions of this in your normal posts. The support of all forum members is crucial to close the gap.Sent from my horrible mobile....

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2016, 08:02:22 am
content: Quote from: Carl_Smith on April 08, 2016, 04:27:57 amProbably gave up when the competition reached a couple of hundred and they were below 10

author: senso
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2016, 11:58:23 am
content: Quote from: rx8pilot on April 08, 2016, 04:33:40 amJust did my 3 votes.Hope you win.

author: PointyOintment
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2016, 07:17:32 am
content: Quote from: G0HZU on April 05, 2016, 09:41:22 pmSeems to me that you could make a deal with the dealers like so: They tell your company that everything put before them is worthless. Your company gives the items to you. You sell the items to the dealers at a discount. Results: Dealers pay less for the equipment they buy. You make some money. Your company doesn't have to pay for disposal. Equipment gets saved from destruction.

author: Philfreeze
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2016, 09:17:38 am
content: My experience is that most of the time you can ask them when and where they will throw the things away and you can meet them there. Then they can "throw it away" and with that it isn't their responibility anymore and you can just take it ouf of the trash can (no actual throwing gear into trash cans involved, they just give it to you but if anybody asks that is how it went down).btw. I live in SwitzerlandI got all my tables and other furnishings like that.

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2016, 09:25:24 am
content: While on the other side of things, my father is a genuine dumpster diver, every time someone damages a digital pressure gauge he hoards it, he now has a set of 8 of the things, each worth $500 each, and tonnes of other stuff that only had a bad solder joint or cosmetic damage etc,Main difference is he literally climbs in the dumpster after its thrown in there to make sure its legally in the clear,

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2016, 11:30:47 am
content: Quote from: G0HZU on April 05, 2016, 09:41:22 pmNo, I seem to remember that you can't sign away your basic rights under law in the UK, there's a liability assumed with the sale of goods that can cause a company big problems.

author: hayatepilot
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2016, 12:47:13 pm
content: That must be why there is so few used testgear here in europe!The companys all trash the equipment instead of putting it on ebay or even giving it away.It's just sad...