Make: Volume 87

Several hundred million electric toothbrushes

are manufactured, and sadly discarded,

each year yet most people don’t realize that

toothbrush parts are salvageable and they don’t

have to wind up in a landfill or the ocean.

Using the magnets and DC motors inside

discarded electric toothbrushes — and

also inside motorized personal fans, pencil

sharpeners, fabric shavers, facial brushes, and

toy cars — I’ll show you how to repurpose them

to make 10 practical projects. Here in Part 1 we’ll

build five using motors, and in Part 2 in the next

issue we’ll build five using magnets!

TOOTHBRUSH DISASSEMBLY

These instructions are for the inexpensive electric ...