Received today my 3 pack of third party tapes for my Brother label printer. Cool.. I thought.... I thought.
There is an indication on the cassette warning you that before using it, you must turn the yellow gear in the direction indicated.
So I did that, but it just spins and spins... I could turn this gear all day long, how do I know when I should stop ?!
I shove the cassette into the printer, try to print a label and... fail. Tape comes out, it looks an absolute mess, and somehow the black ribbon/toner comes out as well
I try to print another label... it jams.
OK I am not impressed with cheap cassettes so far
The OEM one did not ask you to fuck with turning a gear or anything, you just pop the thing into the printer and that's all, it just works FFS...
So since we are on TEA here, and seeing that I had nothing to lose... instead of scrapping that cassette and using the next one in line... I thought hey why not try to crack it open see what we can find... and I found that the black tape had broken. I then remembered a YT video on 12voltsvids channel, where he showed how to fix an old VHS tape that's broken.... simply using some sticky tape !
So I did it the same way he did, followed his instructions...
Used some Kapton tape because I had bought a roll a while ago and thought it's about time I use it for something eh.
It worked just fine.. the hard part was yet to come : putting the freaking cassette back together again !!!
Oh dear me....
First figure out the ratchet mechanism on one side of the black tape (that yellow gear I was asked to turn...) ... then as I tried putting it together, the ratchet mechanism on the other side of the tape... flew apart. Took a while to figure out how it worked... turns out it can only work / makes sense to you once the two halves of the cassette are brought together. But OK, I figured it. Cool I can close it shut now and give it a try... well, nope. The worst part was still ahead : putting the white sticky ribbon and the transparent one together, aligned / matching perfectly.
After 15 minutes trying multiple times, I was about to commit suicide, then thought no it's not worth it. So I tried one last time and somehow it worked
Then closed it shut, gave it a try and... SUCCESS !
Can't believe I managed to do open heart surgery to this thing and make it go again.
Then I could print all my labels and I am starting to get fed up cutting them to size... takes time. I don't even have a cutting mat, using a piece of wood instead, left over of my parquet in the bedroom.... Don't even have a stainless steel ruler, using a regular crappy plastic ruler made of rather soft plastic that gets cut just as much as the labels
Don't even have a proper sharp blade / scalpel, using a small box cutter.
Then I am using a piece of plastic cut to size, 50mm wide, the length of the label, to cut the labels. Plastic was cut from the lid of an ice cream container... reason being it's transparent, so when I apply it over the label, I can still see the label through the plastic, which makes it so much easier to align the text as I want it. But it's still a painful and slow process. Also, even though I press firmly onto the plastic to keep the label firmly in place... sometimes it still manages to move a little bit as I go to cut it, which means the cut is not perfectly straight or square, which pains me a lot.
So... I am thinking of fabricating some king of tool that would cut the labels in one single motion, easily and square. Just place the label, act on the tool, clean cut in a single stroke, next label please. Maybe with two razor blades in a holder with a little handle, and mounted on a hinge. Maybe a screw to adjust the spacing between the two blades, to cater for different sizes of drawers.
As for how to organize the transistors in the drawer cabinet... eventually decided the following was the best compromise between access time and saving storage space : the labels on the drawer front, bar one exception for the TIP 31/32 transistors, do not mention the part number of all the transistors inside, just impossible, way too many different ones, not enough space on the label of course. So instead the label just indicates a broad category, like : " NPN small signal ", " NPN medium ", " NPN big ". Then I added a second label on the top part of the drawer front, where you can slide a (non-sticky) paper label. So, sharpie hand written label as BD mentioned the other day. I finally succumbed and did just that. The idea is that the printed labels, which take time to do, only indicate the broad category. That is, it's not likely to change... then the paper/ sharpie label, non sticky, easy and fast to remove and redo, can be used to convey more "dynamic" information so to speak. For instance it gives information on what prefix part numbers are stored in the drawer. So it will say "2N" or " BD & BC " or whatever.
Of course I tried to make them as good as possible, so I bought super thick paper/cards ( "Bristol" Paper we call it here... ) so that the label isn't floppy, looks nice and... stays in place. Regular 80/90gram copy paper doesn't cut it, I tried.
But cutting these labels accurately, again was not that easy... lack of cutting mat and large SS ruler and sharp blade didn't help. It was a chore to do a single A4 card. Ideally I think I will end up buying one day something like this :
.. but it's freaking expensive. 100 Euros at least for a half decent full A4 one with a proper blade, not a piece of bent sheet metal vaguely sharpened, barely more adequate for the job than a butter knife...
So all my trannystors are now sorted and organized
Well, I am sure I will find some more in some box somewhere, but at least now I have an inventory "system" in place, so it's easy to add new components to the stock, and easy to find something.
The idea is to first look on the spreadsheet to see what's available, basic specs are indicated. Then only you go to the cabinet and can quickly find in what drawer it is. So if I want a 2N2222 say, I just go to the cabinet in the " NPN small " section, then look for the drawer with a sharpy label " 2N ", and there is my drawer. Then within the drawer, the transistors are stored in alphanumerical order, same as the spreadsheet. This way I know what compartment of the drawer I need to look at.
So of course for convenience, there will be a hard copy / print out of the spreadsheet attached to the cabinet, so that's it's handy, all in one place.
OK so now that my inventory system is well in place... I can easily add more to it. Now on my plate : beefy diodes and voltage regulators.... a bucket load of 3 terminal regulators
That's all for today.
Can't afford the paper cutting machine whatever it's called, way too expensive and don't want to waste money and be frustrated with a cheap bottom of the barrel unit. Either I buy a good one from the get go, or I don't buy.
However hopefully more realistic money wise, I am hoping to get soon a large cutting mat, A3 or A2 size, as well as a 50cm long, wide SS ruler, and a sharp blade/scalpel. That alone will make my life so much easier and allow me to do a better job.
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Topic: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread (Read 16965645 times)