The ability to reuse electronics for new purposes until they stop working to the point that they’re irreparable or otherwise no longer fit for purpose. You can do a LOT with old computers and hardware, and you can often resurrect “broken” things relatively easily, if you can find parts. However, sometimes you do have to weigh this against the energy costs some old stuff has relative to new stuff if you don’t have direct access to your own renewables.
My entire home network infrastructure is built out of old, repurposed, and/or second-hand equipment. My router is a broken netbook running OPNSense, my switch is an older Cisco small business switch. I picked up a used couple year old used consumer router and put OpenWRT on it and run it as a standalone access point. It supports Wifi 6, and I expect it to last at least a decade. The only thing I bought new was my modem a few years ago, because I refuse to rent from the ISP.
More directly relevant though is that I’m using an old low power (formerly) Windows 8 tablet from 2014 to run Home Assistant, which I’m using to optimize my energy usage bit by bit. It’s a slow process because I don’t want to run out and buy new stuff until existing stuff stops working, but I’m slowly expanding my network to observe my energy usage and put in place automation to reduce usage where it makes no sense to waste energy.
One thing I’d like to expand into is actually learning to solder and picking up some basic electrical engineering skills. So far this has mainly been hobbyist, replacing only parts with connectors. I’d like to be able to do even more.
Hey there, I just wanted to say that I really like this comment. I used to work a tech-centric position at an office type job and the amount of electronic waste there was insane. Seeing a huge dumpster full of old computer parts was quite depressing. Good on you for taking matters into your own hands. I would love to do something like that if I am ever in that sort of position again. Good luck!
Ironically enough, I started at a young age because of that electronic waste. My father worked in IT too and skimmed some stuff out of the waste pile to take home and used it to get me started on my own journey. We weren’t very wealthy and couldn’t afford many new parts, so much of my childhood was me learning how to make the most of whatever I could get my hands on, and I just carried that forward as an adult.
This reminds me, I’ve got smart things (because it was the only thing I knew about 6 years ago when I built it) and I definitely need to look into some motion sensors for a light that has really shitty access and basically is just on 24/7. It’s very difficult to run a second switch and that annoys me.
I sell car parts, not really all that solarpunk as the industry currently exists, but automobiles are tools, and people with more know-how than me could figure out how to kludge together something solarpunkish from car parts.
The ability to reuse electronics for new purposes until they stop working to the point that they’re irreparable or otherwise no longer fit for purpose. You can do a LOT with old computers and hardware, and you can often resurrect “broken” things relatively easily, if you can find parts. However, sometimes you do have to weigh this against the energy costs some old stuff has relative to new stuff if you don’t have direct access to your own renewables.
My entire home network infrastructure is built out of old, repurposed, and/or second-hand equipment. My router is a broken netbook running OPNSense, my switch is an older Cisco small business switch. I picked up a used couple year old used consumer router and put OpenWRT on it and run it as a standalone access point. It supports Wifi 6, and I expect it to last at least a decade. The only thing I bought new was my modem a few years ago, because I refuse to rent from the ISP.
More directly relevant though is that I’m using an old low power (formerly) Windows 8 tablet from 2014 to run Home Assistant, which I’m using to optimize my energy usage bit by bit. It’s a slow process because I don’t want to run out and buy new stuff until existing stuff stops working, but I’m slowly expanding my network to observe my energy usage and put in place automation to reduce usage where it makes no sense to waste energy.
One thing I’d like to expand into is actually learning to solder and picking up some basic electrical engineering skills. So far this has mainly been hobbyist, replacing only parts with connectors. I’d like to be able to do even more.
Hell yeah. This kind of stuff is my lifeblood. Never heard this word before, thank you!
Hey there, I just wanted to say that I really like this comment. I used to work a tech-centric position at an office type job and the amount of electronic waste there was insane. Seeing a huge dumpster full of old computer parts was quite depressing. Good on you for taking matters into your own hands. I would love to do something like that if I am ever in that sort of position again. Good luck!
Ironically enough, I started at a young age because of that electronic waste. My father worked in IT too and skimmed some stuff out of the waste pile to take home and used it to get me started on my own journey. We weren’t very wealthy and couldn’t afford many new parts, so much of my childhood was me learning how to make the most of whatever I could get my hands on, and I just carried that forward as an adult.
This reminds me, I’ve got smart things (because it was the only thing I knew about 6 years ago when I built it) and I definitely need to look into some motion sensors for a light that has really shitty access and basically is just on 24/7. It’s very difficult to run a second switch and that annoys me.
I sell car parts, not really all that solarpunk as the industry currently exists, but automobiles are tools, and people with more know-how than me could figure out how to kludge together something solarpunkish from car parts.