Cheap and scrounged

My luck hasn't been as good this year with the dump scrounging, it really seems as if people are buying less and therefore throwing less out. In fact the only real good scores I can think of this year are some kitchen cabinets for the MobIle Lab of Doom and a 19" LCD monitor that I still have to replace some bulged capacitors in. On a fairly recent dump trip, when I was pulling some RAM out of an older computer I realized that I should be grabbing coin cell battery as well. These little lithium batteries get used in a few items we use on a regular basis, car alarm fob, hat brim headlamp, keychain flashlight, miniature led lantern and they ain't exactly cheap to buy quality ones new (most dollar store ones are alkaline not lithium).
If you are looking through a pile of old computer stuff grab the thick old scanners, inside is a cold cathode fluorescent light and ballast that draws very little current and runs on 12vdc.
Those newer all in one printer/scanner/fax and the very slim scanning units tend to use a led light source and I haven't played with it enough to determine what it will take to get them to work, but the cold cathode ones are dead easy to fire up. If anyone is truly interested, comment and I'll dig up some picture I took a while back of what to pull out of the scanner.

Another score I made this summer on the battery front, while visiting a local grocery store garage sale, where they were selling all the knick knacky crap that would never sell in the store for the price they were asking. Anywho I obtained for free a crapload of thermostat lights, a stupid little battery powered light that clips onto your thermostat. Every light had 2 AAA batteries so I wound up with ~200 brand name batteries for free. Got a fair bit of other stuff for ultra cheap there, 8-10lbs of little tea light candles, thermo felt insoles, knitted winter gloves, liners and hats.

I guess this is all for now and remember, If you ain't paranoid, the reptilians already gotcha!