Show us Your Wall Wart Pile(s)

[xrunner]

I've cracked a few open so as to use the little power supply in another project. If it's decent quality anyway - beware of looking inside - you might not like what you find ... and you might not sleep well after that knowing that what you saw is out there in the field multiplied by 100,000. 

[SeanB]

Apparently you guys haven't heard of rubber bands .. you can buy bags of them for less than 5-10$, and in various widths and thicknesses for example

https://www.amazon.com/Universal-Rubber-Bands-Size-432/dp/B000783OSA/
https://www.amazon.com/Business-Source-Rubber-Bands-Assorted/dp/B003SBU94U/

Leave them on PVC for a year or two and come back to me about how good they are, if you can get the goo off, and leave no marks or discolouration in the cable and plastic cases, you have been very lucky.

[madires]

I've cracked a few open so as to use the little power supply in another project. If it's decent quality anyway - beware of looking inside - you might not like what you find ... and you might not sleep well after that knowing that what you saw is out there in the field multiplied by 100,000. 

Just 10^5? I'd think 10^8. I've found a nice and power-saving solution for all the wall warts in my SOHO data center. I've built a simple PDU powered by an 80+ Gold ATX PSU and added DC/DC converters for the common voltages. I've expected to see some decrease in power consumption, but it turned out to be halfed. That was surprising! As everyone else here, I keep a box of old wall warts for spares and projects. If a relative or friend asks for a spare PSU I simply ask "which color?"

[Electro Detective]

Rubber bands cause dramas down the track when they deteriorate into a sticky gunky mess, or dry/shrivel up and blow away,
leaving the once 'sorted' wall wart stash in chaos and tangled spaghetti HELL..

Plastic coated wire ties (that people can't wait to bin) work better than rubber bands.

Cardboard dunny rolls may take 3 months or more to accumulate enough stock.

Plastic sandwich bags ensuring the connector is visible, with blank used paper envelopes for labelling wall wart specs, are my current fav. 

I won't be tossing any linear based wall warts any time soon

[TerraHertz]

For unlimited quantity of free cable ties, grab any old solid-core Cat-5 cables (building wiring) you see being discarded. Cut into 1m lengths. The sheath is loose enough that the wire pairs can be easily pulled out of 1m lengths.
Now you have 4 x 1m twisted pairs of nice stiff-ish copper wire. No, you don't need to 'unwind' the pairs. Just grab an end of a pair, separate the pair enough to grab one wire end in one hand and the pair a cm or so down in the other hand. Pull those fingers down along the pair like you were stripping off insulation. The 2nd wire turns into a squat spiral, separate from the other wire which is left straight. Now the spiral one can be stretched straight again.

That whole action takes a couple of seconds once you get it.

The single wires are the cable ties. Two turns around a mains cord bundle, pull tight, twist ends together, snip off the long remaining piece. Done. And it's reusable, since the copper can be twisted, untwisted & retwisted many times.

You can do this forever for free, once you start noticing how much used blue cat-5 building wiring gets thrown out everywhere.

[TheNewLab]

Wall worts?!! for me it's all the batteries for everything! plus the various sizes! I no longer need "D" though

[MrMobodies]

Just added another one to the pile - from a failed Black & Decker screwdriver -  9V 100mA. It's quite amazing how many pile up. I use them here and there from time to time, sometimes changing the connector. I just can't throw them away.

Show me your wall wart pile - I know some of you can easily out-do my pile. 

Those are my favourite power supplies.

I buy the 12V ones in job lots on Ebay and I have no problems.

They are LiShin sometimes rebranded but I have seen those in that shape for Wyse terminals that come in 12v. They can be opened up under the rubber feet and some of them the DC cords are socketed.




I'll gather all my ones up later, my place is in a terrible state.

I remember those 20 years ago. I can't remember the name but had a silver sticker ontop. They were the timed chargers with a tamiya connector for 7.2 sub-c cell packs.

It said in the manual not charge the batteries with the alternator running I only found that out later when it cause the pack to smoke and leak inside.

I took mine apart after that. It had a big transformer, a long white thing? resistor, a few leds, one red and green and a counter.

I found an automatic one down the charity shop with a pack and it was called an M-tronics apc200 digital. It could also charge a 7.2v Nicd Bosch drill battery when the drill charger broke and I experimenting to see what would happen with some 12v 7a batteries it charged them up to 12v but it was very slow. The transfomer was noisy and it made a buzzing noise when it was charging and it had a sticker on it labelled "Drakes transformers".

Edit:

I just remembered the name and found one on ebay:

Riko chargers