ASU Surplus Auction
The next ASU Surplus Auction will be on Wednesday, October 31st. I have scored some awesome techo-junk there at past auctions, as well as some incredible deals on more rational buys. For example, at the last auction I bought a complete audience polling system (50 little boxes with push buttons and LCD displays, and the network to hook them all together) for $10.00. And last year, I picked up 14-feet of Maple under-counter cabinetry (from an old chemistry lab on campus) for $50.00.
But it’s not all Candyland. At the last auction the box of stepper motors I wanted ended up going for over $200, and the really cool stripped-out automated workcells went for about $1,700 each. But then, that’s the way of auctions.
If any of you think you might go, let me know and I’ll wear something identifiable.
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Cool, thanks John!
October 24th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Sounds like fun. Did you end up doing anything interesting with the audience polling system?
October 27th, 2007 at 7:44 am
Not yet. I bought them to harvest the LCD display modules and haven’t yet. I just couldn’t pass them up at that price. As it turns out it has all the cables and hubs for the system, but not the main control box. I could snag one on eBay if I wanted, but I don’t have any audiences to poll in the forseeable future. 8-)
I have to take one of the panels apart and look a little closer. There might be enough room to stuff an Arduino in there, leaving the display, keypad, and cool little case (with RJ45 jack on the back).
October 31st, 2007 at 12:01 pm
for those of us affiliated with ASU (staff, faculty, or grad student), we can go over there and basically pick out anything we want and do a property transfer for free. You have to have a legitimate reason to want it, I guess, but it’s a nice option. We’ve outfitted our entire office with desks, bookshelves, chairs, printers, mice, and other peripherals.