Over the past 12-18 months I’ve been gradually cleaning out stuff at home and either finding a use for things, finally finishing a project in-progress, or getting rid of the hardware entirely. I often find myself with items in the “not worth anything to sell, but too good to send to e-waste” category.
Are you aware of any swap meets in southern Queensland, or northern NSW? I’m thinking along the lines of Swap Meet – Vintage Computer Federation in the US, or amateur radio Hamfests but with more of a computing theme. I can find some similar events interstate, albeit with more of a commercial vendor focus, but nothing locally so I’m curious if you’re aware of any here.
Hi Belfry, I have no local knowledge and @jdownie may know more.
As a general observation swap meets, linux users groups and the like are less popular in the age of fast and near universal internet connections. Refurbished equipment seems to be most often obtained from places like facebook marketplace and the various shops on ebay.
Having said all that, what are you hoping to shift?
A friend at work volunteers with a crowd that refurbishes old donated computers. He offered me this link. Maybe some of what you have would be suitable for that cause.
Thanks to you both for your suggestions. Over the past few years I’ve given away a bit of stuff to a local community group, and another bundle to university students studying IT for their own Homelab use. It’s been a longer process than it probably needs to be, both because my own motivation comes in ebbs and waves, and also because I like to to set the individual items or components up, run diagnostics, flash the latest firmware, etc. I don’t really want to give away “problems” to someone else if the item isn’t working or is missing a critical part.
Thanks for the heads up about C4L - I hadn’t heard of the group and I’ve got a couple of 2nd and 3rd gen i5/i7 PCs which would likely make decent units once I’ve had a chance to check them out. Other than that, I think it’s mainly network equipment (routers, switches, firewalls, access points) and older PC hardware (x86 Celeron, Pentium 3/4 era) and assorted components left to sort through. It’s hard to give an exact list until I’ve had a chance to dig things out and see what’s there. I think most of what is left probably not worth my time to try and sell on eBay/gumtree/marketplace, but also not enormously useful to give away to community groups and the like. Will start collecting the i5/i7 machines together as a starting point and will go from there!