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Creative Recycling: Dumpster Diving
gnewton writes "One angle of Open Source software that perhaps has not been emphasised enough is how the lower cost of software and operating systems as compared to proprietary/commercial solutions can allow for greater creativity and actually open up markets and solutions that were previously unavailable, in the area of Recycling. This article talks about a new startup which recycles old LCDs into cool and fun digital picture frames."
Last week I covered Roku, the high-end digital media player for HDTV buyers with money to burn. Roku was founded and financed by Anthony Wood, who made out well when he sold ReplayTV to SonicBlue. He's a rich guy selling gizmos to other rich guys, but not all startups have Anthony's resources. Here is a success story from one resource-challenged startup. Wallflower, which is also in the digital photograph display business, managed to get itself off the ground with a strategy I've seen only once before: dumpster diving.
The company makes (expensive) digital picture frames that compete with Ceiva, Digiframe, and Pacific Digital. Nothing special there. But Wallflower's startup plan was based around building its high-end products with pieces from recycled computers. To get started, Wallflower founders Mitch Kahn and Gordon Clyne bought 150 old but unused laptops from liquidators and via eBay, for $25 to $150 each. They were obsolete as workstations (most had 133MHz CPUs and smallish hard drives) but had the right pieces to make nice picture frames--most importantly, working 12" LCD panels.
Mitch and Gordon's small team disassembled the machines, mounted the displays in handmade wood frames with the motherboard and hard disk, and added Wi-Fi and their own Linux-based software. Basically, the Wallflower displays are Web servers that appear on a Windows desktop as disk drives--you put one on your network and you can just drag pictures onto it, and call up its internal home page to manage its settings. Now you have a nice big electronic photo frame to show your digital pictures, and changing the display is as easy as typing a URL into your home computer.
Frankly I can't see spending $500 for one of these things--but what do I know? Shortly after Forbes ran an article about the product, Wallflower sold out of its inventory of Frankensteined picture frames. Left with nice cashflow from its rising order volume, and needing more certainty in its supply chain than Weird Stuff Warehouse could provide, Wallflower recently gave up on the whole recycled kick and started buying components from manufacturers, the way most computer companies do.
With the new manufacturing strategy, the company is able to offer more features and bigger screens, but it had to raise its prices since these components are more expensive. Although I imagine they save a fortune in assembly costs, since they no longer have to dismantle laptops to get their parts.
There is a thriving economy in the leftover computer business. Another company in this space, RetroBox, makes money coming and going. First of all, they take in used computers from businesses that no longer need of them, and carefully scrub the hard disks clean of data--companies are so worried that old machines will get out into the world with sensitive data on them that they'll pay nicely for this service. Then, of course, RetroBox is free to re-sell the scrubbed hardware to new users or to re-builders like Wallflower.
But back to Wallflower. I love this story, since it combines the identification of an unusual but growing market space (digital picture frames) with the extremely clever, low-cost startup strategy of making its first products from unloved, unsold, obsolete technology. The founders knew full well that strategy wouldn't scale if they became successful, and they were able to switch to more ordinary production methods when they did, about one-and-a-half years ahead of plan.
As I said earlier, this manufacturing model isn't completely new: In 2000, startup Scout Electromedia released the Modo, a pager-like device that functioned as a city guide in New York. Scout made me look like a chump by folding shortly after I wrote a Catch of the Day about it. But the guts of the unsold Modos lived on: Wideray's first batch of products (it makes devices that beam data to PDAs and phones) used disassembled Modos for their pager receivers; it was a lot cheaper than buying or building new parts. Three years later, Wideray is of course no longer using Mo
So far, the best thing I've gotten from the article is the link to RetroBox.com, an outfit that buys old equipment from companies, wipes the HD, and resells them.
My company used to have an annual old equipment sale for employees. It was so popular, you actually had a lottery drawing for line position -- like a rock concert. But when we got bought by the Faceless International Corporation Ltd, that was just one of the personal touches we lost.
Hard to beat a $70 laptop... even if it does have a dark spot on the screen!
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Old Apple laptops make great picture frames such as this Duo hack described on Applefritter. All but the earliest Powerbooks supported color images and have some form of built-in networking.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Here's a do it yourself option.
I picked up one of the nicest LCD screens I've ever seen from an old 486 laptop a while back. It's a neat little 9" job, perfect for a picture frame, secondary display, or what have you. So I did a little research on what I could do with this thing...
:(
Short answer: pretty much nothing.
Long answer: The video hardware necessary to convert a VGA signal into the controls for an LCD panel is embedded directly into the motherboard. I suppose if you were enterprising enough you could play with a hacksaw and some FPGA's or something. Every website I could find repeated the same thing: proprietary interface, and no success for the most part. You're talking 50+ wires leading into the LCD panel, so even if you knew what you were doing (like a very few do - some have actually succeeded in this), it's still a LOT of work.
Addendum: I've pretty much decided to just use the thing as a remote terminal window that I can mount over my bed, or somewhere else where I might want to get a shell but not have a computer handy. This is still going to involve a lot of messing about, and unfortunately the motherboard/drives/power supply will have to be included somehow, but I'm working on an extension cable to at least be able to have the display a few feet from the rest of the guts. We'll see how that affects picture quality - these wires are an insanely small guage, and I haven't been able to find the right spare plugs in case I screw up
Anyway, best of luck, and if any other slashdotters have any ideas, please, share!
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
http://www.eio.com/lcdconnect.htm
You can't simply connect VGA or NTSC signal to an LCD panel. Click on the link above to read why and whether it's worth the effort.
IMHO, Wallflower could have done the same with a small business loan. (and avoided wasting time buying junk from ebay, taking apart laptops,etc)
LCDs can be bought from China for very little $, if you place a large order. (Thus the SBL)
http://www.china-tft.com
Wow...what I just wrote isn't funny...should I delete it...Oh, go on and "troll mod" me for this misfire. I don't care.
The Worldwide (!) Freecycle Network is open to all cities and to all individuals who want to "recycle" that special something rather than throw it away. Whether it's a chair, a fax machine, piano or an old door, feel free to post it. Or maybe you're looking to acquire something yourself! One constraint: everything posted must be free.
The site is organized by cities and most of the chapters seem to be yahoo groups, so you can't do online browsing (now there's an idea for Ebay: a "free to a good home" service for nonprofits [subject to verification and limited so as not to dent their cash flow, of course]). Still, it's a neat alternative to the landfill.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
The summary is not quite accurate. According to the article practically the entire notebook was reused, not just some "old LCDs". They more or less converted the (old but unused) notebooks' form factor into a wooden frame layout and added a $30 WiFi PCMCIA card. I would assume they removed the keyboard, battery and CD-ROM / floppy drive, but kept all of the rest of an already whole sytem. So they would be saving far more than just the cost of a new LCD per unit.
Also, purchasing a couple hundred old but unused notebooks of one specific model in bulk is hardly dumpster diving.
Yes, they were able to undercut the competition by utilizing a rare low-cost resource, thus "suceeding" in an existing market. But how does that translate into future business success now that they have to compete on a level playing ground with their competitors?
Dan East
Better known as 318230.