[hackerspaces] Circuits lab organization and parts retention for noobs

[Joshua Pritt]

All makerspaces tend to have the packrat tendencies on what to keep vs
throw out / recycle.  Depending on how much space you have for parts /
hackables storage would be the main factor.  If you have a lot of shelves
you might use several banker boxes to keep the bigger things sorted like
"hard drives", "5V wall power supplies", "junk cables", "Power cables",
"USB cables", etc.  Then for the smaller things like individual resistors
and diodes it is very helpful to purchase or ask for a donated organizer
like this one:
http://goo.gl/J6uYIO

I've never heard of any specific rules or ways to scientifically determine
what to keep vs throw away / recycle since there's always that, "someone
might be able to use this on a project" mentality that is very much in line
with just plain pack-ratism.

I hope this helps (you probably already knew all this)!


On Wed, Mar 18, 2015 at 3:23 PM, Shirley Hicks <shirley at velochicdesign.com>
wrote:

> Good afternoon everyone,
>
> The Red Mountain Makers in Birmingham is in the process of organizing and
> binning parts from donated defunct equipment.
>
> Do any of you have notes, write-ups or links regarding how to decide what
> to recycle and what to keep? Any recommendations regarding how much to keep
> on hand? The person who is organizing the work (me) is a relative noob to
> lab organization, and those who are parting the stuff out have packrat
> tendencies. :) Our lab guru who is guiding us has given some general
> recommendations, but his experience is within a development workplace with
> far more resources than we currently have.
>
> By way of example, we have 2 paper box sized bins of SATA drive cables,
> and a similarly sized box of VGA cables.
>
> My main concern is managing the supply while we shuffle the space to
> accommodate renovations. It's all binned and on racks, but isn't clustered
> beyond like with like (first sort). I have electronics recyclers coming in
> two days.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Shirley Hicks
> RMM Secretary
>
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