So do you ever forget you have plenty of a component or forget where they are?

Thread Starter

spinnaker

Joined Oct 29, 2009
7,830
So do you ever forget you have plenty of a component or forget where they are? Then after you order them you find you stash of parts?

I needed some of those 90 degree pin headers, single row. I thought I had ordered some. Couldn't find them anywhere. What I found was the dual row type that I had mistakenly ordered. I could not find the single row version anywhere so I figured I forgot to order them. Ordered some more then what appears on my workbench? Yep the old headers.

This is not the first this has happened to me. Usually I forget that I even have a certain component then order more.

If only I was more organized. :)
 
As a matter of fact, I am currently holding off ordering more pin headers because I know I have a bag of them around somewhere. Can't for the life of me, think where I put about 100 headers. My work area is only about 6 x 8 feet so they can't be far.
 

tracecom

Joined Apr 16, 2010
3,944
I often can't remember where I put things, so my only hope of finding things is if I put them somewhere logical. Then, I can say to myself, "Where should I have put that?" Often, that works, but not always.
 

absf

Joined Dec 29, 2010
1,968
All my spares are spread in 2 rooms. Upstairs, they are in my drawers, bookshelves and boxes. Downstairs, in my repair room, in parts drawers like what #12 has and also in plastic bags under the tables.

I know I have about 20 pieces of TIP120 but I have been looking for them for few months and I still unable to find them. Two months ago I just bought 20 pieces of 40 pin DIP sockets and found out later there 50 pieces in a paper box buried deep underneath my table.

Allen
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
29,976
I often can't remember where I put things, so my only hope of finding things is if I put them somewhere logical. Then, I can say to myself, "Where should I have put that?" Often, that works, but not always.
I find that exactly the opposite is more true. Many, many times I have had things that were someplace they didn't belong but I knew exactly where they were. Then I finally would make a point of putting them "where they belonged" and could never find them again because I would always look for them where they had always been and couldn't remember where I had decided they "belonged".
 

#12

Joined Nov 30, 2010
18,224
When I go to look for something, I pretend that I just now received the shipment and go to where I would put it if I was putting away new stock. It works pretty well.
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
29,976
When I go to look for something, I pretend that I just now received the shipment and go to where I would put it if I was putting away new stock. It works pretty well.
Only if you are a sufficient creature of habit. I am far to haphazard and random for that (and I HAVE tried approaches like that, which is how I became forced to acknowledge how haphazard and random I am).
 

takao21203

Joined Apr 28, 2012
3,702
I had trouble with that, but sorted through all the bags and boxes many times, bought larger containers + assortment racks. It is pretty much solved now, even if some boxes are totally mixed together with chips or components not really belonging together.
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
29,976
I have a friend that is impeccably organized because he absolutely has to be. When he gets new (okay, usually used) components he puts them in whatever the first drawar is that he finds that has room for it out of thousands of drawers in dozens of bin units that he has. But then he enters that information into a database he made for himself about 30 years ago on an Apple IIe. Because there is no physical rhyme or reason to how the tens of thousands of parts he has are stored, he is religous about maintaining the integrity and availability of his database records.
 

Evil Lurker

Joined Aug 25, 2011
116
I have gotten to keeping parts in weekly "medication managers" from the Dollar Tree. Cost a buck, have 14 small compartments (one for evening, one for morning), and a whole lot cheaper than tackle boxes or dedicated drawer setups. For larger things I get mini-sized containers (also at the Dollar Tree), I think they hold like 4oz or so, and have a snap on lid.
 

GetDeviceInfo

Joined Jun 7, 2009
2,192
if my terminating screwdriver is in my upper left pocket, and my strippers in my lower left pocket, then things are on track, otherwise I may as well be doing something different. Same with inventory, if I can't find what I know I have, then it's money overspent, which could be doing something else.
 

MrChips

Joined Oct 2, 2009
30,701
I'm with #12. First I create a system that is manageable and works for me.
Then I ask myself, if I had to put this away right now in it's proper place where would I put it? I am your ultimate packrat. Nothing gets thrown away. So I must have a working system. Most of the time I find everything is where I last put it. Otherwise I go put the blame on someone else!
 

Thread Starter

spinnaker

Joined Oct 29, 2009
7,830
Like a poltergeist? I swear I have one here that keeps moving my stuff. Those headers were not on my bench before I ordered my replacements then all of a sudden they appeared. And the other day I was going to the gym. I looked everywhere for my water bottle but did not see it. I got home and there it was sitting on this little table where I put it sometimes. :eek:
 

KL7AJ

Joined Nov 4, 2008
2,229
An excerpt from "The Opus of Amateur Radio Knowledge and Lore" :)

Well, we’re almost halfway there. We now come to Method Six of self-destruction: choking on small parts. This is actually more of a hazard than it was in days of yore, because——well——radios are smaller nowadays.
Actually, the only time I really came close to choking to death on a small part (other than, perhaps, some forgotten experiences in my infancy), was when a transistor (I believe) had fallen, unbeknownst, into my coffee from an overhead shelf. (See how all these safety issues can be related?) I think I actually swallowed the item in question. In any case, it was a most unpleasant, and best unrepeated, experience.
Now, as unlikely as you are to suffer a similar incident, you may (in fact, you should, if you are a ham worthy of the name) occasionally entertain young visitors in your ham shack. Young people, up to the age of around nineteen or so, have a penchant for inserting small foreign objects into their mouths and other orifices not intended for such. Be ever on the alert for this eventuality. Keep easily swallowed parts in appropriate bins until ready for use. In fact, you might even entertain the notion of labeling said bins, so as to more readily find the parts in question. This is a wonderful, innovative idea, though I have yet to encounter any ham who’s actually implemented it.
I suppose there is some aspect of this hazard I’ve forgotten, but we should probably move on.
 

nerdegutta

Joined Dec 15, 2009
2,684
When I buy new components, I try really hard to put it in its proper place at once. Sometimes it's hard and sometimes it's easy. When it's hard, the components lay on top of my workbench for a while, before I man myself up to put it in place. I have this rule of thumb:

"Everything has its place, and everything is at its place." Too bad the places are piles on the floor all around me...:eek:

Well, not all the time. I have often wondered if I should make a list in Excel, or a database for all my components, and now I'm partly between projects and it should be easy, so perhaps I make one. If I do, I think MySQL and PHP on an Apache server is the way to go. Then, when a project come to mind, I can easily check if I have the component. From a computer connected to Internet.

I saw once a man who had all his small components in envelopes. Arranged in an ascending order. All envelopes was marked on the top, so it was easy to see where an envelope should be.

Most of the time I find everything is where I last put it.
For me that is obvious, because no one in my family goes into "my lab" without me. I'm lucky to have it all to myself...:)
 
Top