Several months ago, SparkFun came up with the idea of a “Dumpster Dive,” where they would sell mystery boxes full of random stuff they were trying to get rid of — old discontinued stock, scuff-and-dent sale items, and so on.
A SparkFun Dumpster Dive box
The first batch sold out very quickly, though, and although I was able to submit an order, they ran out of stock before it could be fulfilled. I was disappointed, but they did throw in a $10 gift code as an apology. Fortunately, due to how insanely popular the initial Dumpster Dive event was, they decided to do it again last month.
This time, I was ready. I was logged in, had my payment options updated, and had a few other small items in my cart. When the page went live, I grabbed one and checked out within about thirty seconds. A week or so later, it arrived.
The Box Has Arrived!
Unboxing
So, what was in the box?
The contents of the Dumpster Dive box. (Click for larger.)
Here’s what I found (roughly, from left to right):
- Two battery-holder boxes with switches, which hold 4 AA batteries each;
- A mountain of small machine screws;
- Several bags of 330-ohm resistors;
- A bunch of jumper-pin connection terminals;
- A bunch of SMD ribbon connectors (for touchscreen displays etc);
- A breadboard (Some Assembly Required™);
- A strip of surface-mount capacitors (at least I think they’re caps);
- Two small assemblies which look like analog trackstick sensors;
- A diode;
- A small strip of unidentified surface-mount parts (two-terminal);
- Some pin connectors;
- Some SMD buck converter chips;
- Two jumper wires;
- A 6DOF sensor board with a few bent/missing pins (nothing too bad);
- A bipolar stepper motor;
- Two small screws;
- A mini USB cable; and
- Ten small interlocking storage boxes.
Not too bad for ten bucks plus shipping!
