I'm going nuts in my lab - need to get rid of stuff. Advice?

[mdszy]

I'm kinda at this place right now with my lab. It's cluttered and I can't get anything done and I don't want to spend much time in it. It kinda helps that I'm going to be moving off to college soon so I'll pack up what is most necessary and bring that with me. Then I'll have a much more slimmed-down lab that will hopefully be easier to keep organized.

[PointyOintment]

How about:

• Contact nearby hackerspace/makerspace, or visit them by bus or bike
• Offer them the stuff as a donation to their electronics lab, as long as somebody is willing to pick it up
• If no member is willing to pick it up, visit the space every week for their (presumably weekly) open house, to hang out and chat about electronics with members, and every week take in what you can carry
• If they really don't want it as donations to their lab (too old or something), put it on their free shelf (if they have one) and a member will probably take it home

[TheNewLab]

offering stuff as donation, also gives you a tax deduction on your income tax.

I have seen YouTube channels that do their own type of mailbag where they buy an assortment of stuff in a large package they receive. and people do sell this on eBay.

Just group an assortment of all kinds of loose ends, toss in a 5lb box or 50LB box. take some photos before hand of the stuff laying on the floor (or table). and sell as salvage/parts - no returns or refunds.

[Ysjoelfir]

Hey everyone,
first of all, thanks for your support, nice words and your tipps and tricks.
I managed to get rid of quite a few things in the last weeks by just going through every single shelve, every drawer, every box and sorting for stuff I didn't think of in the past few years. Right now I am sorting my component drawers and I already got rid of two complete drawers. Sorting those is actually pretty easy, at least for me, since I don't work with too much old analog or digital stuff, so I just decided to get rid off
- FETs that aren't logic level (if not something special, like capable of switching a bazillion amps or no RDSon at all)
- Transistors that I have like a million off - just kept the modern versions
- ICs that are so obsolete that using them in a new project would be stupid
- micros that I can't programm (basically everything that isn't an atmega)

Other stuffe like relays (discarded everything with voltages over 12V and every used one),
switches (discarded very old, ugly and/or used ones),
diodes (kept sorted, new zeners and two to three types of every category (shottky, general purpose, high voltage, high current,...)),
mechanical stuff (discarded almost everything),
lamps (discarded everything without a marking),
leds (discarded old, used ones)
and much more got also disposed off.
I tried one last time to give stuff away in a bunch but everyone that said he would be interested came around with something like "well, actually I would only like to take that specific item, you can keep the rest" - well... how about no.

So, getting along quite well with the cleaning project. I hope those of you that commented and have the same problem were able to pickup some good advice from the previous posts as well and are getting stuff done as good as I am right now

[Kjelt]

micros that I can't programm (basically everything that isn't an atmega

Any stm8 or 32 in there?

[DC1MC]

I can get the obsolete ICs, MCU and transistors, kindly put them in a box and PM for shipping details in Germany, of course I will compensate you for the shipping costs and for the effort.

 Cheers,
 DC1MC

[lordvader88]

If u live in a big enough town/city, box some stuff up and just advertise it for free to hobbyists that don't have near as much yet. Pick-up only.

I have a large box of stuff I've scapped from multiple printers. Lots of gears and shafts, etc. I know I'll want it some day, but I haven't bothered learning anything about motor circuits yet. I'll kick myself if I throw it out, but I've had it for years, and I only got serious about electronics this past year.

[Brumby]

I'll kick myself if I throw it out, but I've had it for years....

There are many of us who know that chorus.

[EEVblog]

have you been at that point where you stepped into your lab, looked around and nearly immediately turn around and leave, everytime you just thought that you will today finally start with THAT project or finish another one, just because you don't find any space to work or everything is in your way?

I've got 7 benches in lab, yet every time I want to shoot a video I have to literally get my arms and "part the red sea" pushing all the crap to both sides to get space. 

[Kjelt]

I've got 7 benches in lab, yet every time I want to shoot a video I have to literally get my arms and "part the red sea" pushing all the crap to both sides to get space.   

Yes about that, did you design something new ? 

[taydin]

You just have to learn to throw out stuff that won't be useful. Even stuff that has a small amount of possibility of being useful should be thrown out, because storage is a cost, too, even if it's an indirect cost. Accumulating junk means lost productivity, because you can't find shit easily and you don't want to work when you see all the junk in your lab. Also, accumulating junk means extra shelving, extra boxes, and what not.

So think about it, let's say you have thrown out something that you thought you would never need, and then later you need it. You will have to pay for a new one. But if you hadn't thrown it out, you would have continued paying for its storage indefinitely. By this reasoning, I think it is cheaper to throw out stuff that is likely to be not used.

[Kjelt]

For jellybean stuff you're right.
For more :
- expensive OR
- rare / hard to find-comeby / one of a kind

stuff you're wrong. Even if you wanted you can not get anything you want.
Especially these kinds of fora have treasure troves guarded by senior EE collectors that if you have a legit project they are willing to part with and you are so gratefull that they have  not thrown it away decades ago 
Or maybe you are right all along and I just wanted to defend my personal hoarding 

[basinstreetdesign]

Find a makerspace.  In my experience they will accept almost anything.  I gave one in Toronto a 1980 logic analyzer with all of the probes/cables/manuals, about a kilometer of RG-59, and several thousand 1/4W R's.  They were happy to get it.  In fact they had a project begging for the cable right away.

[coppercone2]

I am starting to think benches are a fail idea and I should have some kind of warehouse which drives the requested equipment rack to my work bench.

I thought about a double decker cart thing so that a mini-rack can actually drive on your work bench (like power supply or waveform generation)

In the end what it looks like I will need is a system that turns the actual test equipment you want into a card that can fit into a rack space, so you don't need to hook up a cord, it just aligns perfectly. otherwise its all too much work.

once you get alot of stuff and alot of specific gear and know everything you don't even have a general requirement (maybe other then a digital troubleshooting bench with a freaking PSU and la/scope/jtag/programmer on it)

i feel like I want to use completely different gear for different experiments based on what I care about to minimize my work time (i.e. not dealing with menus when I don't need to for simple shit, or high power, etc)

since I can't justify a servant you need some kind of modularization or even robotic set ups. I am starting to think that delivery robots which follow rails or tracks might not be as crazy an idea as I thought.

all this would do is free up more workspace to pollute though, but at least the pollution would not migrate to where your equipment 'library' is stored because you would need to stand up and walk over to it.

my latest gambit was to get a big open tupperware, sweep everything on my workbench into it, and consider it to be in stasis, pending resorting at a later date. the big key here is to 'seal the file' so you don't keep adding more shit to the tupperware so you get some kind of chronological idea of where stuff you recall might be, before it becomes completely random.

these self imposed bureaucratic procedures will drive you insane 

it is unhelpful that a hobbyists mission statement is : investigate random interesting shit and cease investigation when interest wanes. No one is holding you to anything.

I suspect if universities followed this decision they would all be in the desert and have equipment graveyards outside filled with rattle snakes.

And it gets even more ugly if you have freaking boat anchors/mainframe systems. this shit puts me at a fucking limit and makes me think I am too poor to participate.

[Brumby]

It sounds like you are in need of some support.

I recommend you spend some time in the TEA thread.   

[coppercone2]

more like a vacation

[wilfred]

"döstädning" I recently found out is Swedish for death cleaning.

ie. cleaning out your stuff before you die.

Now, is there a word for cleaning out your stuff before you go nuts?

[coppercone2]

I calculated it would be cheaper to run a well built humidity controlled shed as a storage then to dispose of stuff