This one is a bit more about the general clutter at VHS.I have marked items for review with red tape
Under the right end of the soldering bench is a stack of DVD/CDROM drives, a multi DVD ROM burner, several tower PCs, and one Mac. The stack is marked with red packing tape.
Under the electronics bench across from the 3D printers are several cardboard boxes of miscellaneous items, mostly power supplies. I have marked them all with red packing tape.
The yellow horizontal band saw appears to be damaged, with a control box broken apart. We have another green one. Do we need both?
The manual miller is to the left of the server rack. I am told that it has been badly damaged and is no longer suitable for use. It is identified with red packing tape.
Several containers of electronic parts in the electronics storage area are no longer usable due to age. For example, the electrolytic capacitors. Those containers have been partially sorted through, and subjects for removal are identified with red packing tape. It would be great if others could help identify what else could be disposed of.
As before, here are the objectives:
7 days for review
Pick an item
If you know about it, let people know
Express your opinion on Keep, Bin, Sell or claim it
Equipment that is retired by the community should leave VHS completely on the 7th day.
Members who chose to “adopt” retired equipment are responsible for its removal and ultimate disposal. If it is present on the 7th day, it will be donated to freegeek.
The List:
Stack CD/DVD ROM burners and miscellaneous PC hardware
Boxes of power supples and miscellaneous
Yellow horizontal bandsaw
Green manual miller
Assorted outdated electronics parts
A final note: this is a large pile of things to sort. If you proposes keeping a fraction of it, please take the time to review it yourself. Also, help transporting this stuff on Saturday would be much appreciated.
(1) Last time someone (cant remember who) said that Green Manual miller was working, we were doing injection molding.
KEEP if good?
(2) Are the outdated Electronics parts through hole? I do use them occasionally.
Old Electrolytic capacitors can be slowly brought upto voltage and they become good again.
Definitely KEEP.
(3) Is the Yellow Band saw damaged? Control Box is easy fix (some contactor arrangement).
If fixable KEEP.
Since the lathe and manual mill are on loan to us and rarely used, it would be nice with the upcoming move that those who want to use them at the new space actually show up and help move them. They are very heavy and hard to move. When we moved from the Bunker to Cook St most of the people who insisted we needed them at Cook St were a no show on moving day. I will admit that I am surprised at how much use they have had at Cook St.
New electrolytic capacitors cost pennies - there is a reason why these old ones ended up donated to VHS.
We don’t have space or the need for 2 bandsaws like the yellow one. If it’s broken and no one has bothered to fix it then unless someone (other than @Rebel_without_Clause as he has too many projects on the go already) wants to fix it and help move it to the new space then we should keep it.
I would suggest keeping maybe 2 PC power supplies (I will test a couple next Tuesday)
The yellow bandsaw should definitely be kept (afaik it should be working), as the setup is supposed to be each bandsaw is for a different type of metal (with the corresponding blade installed). This hasn’t happened recently unfortunately, which is a big reason for the blades frequently snapping.
The green mill should be working fine; I haven’t heard anything to the contrary.
(1) For lathe and manual mill, the owner(s) should have significant say and responsibility (moving, etc.).
May be this can be miscellaneous materials (Acrylic, etc.) milling mill with proper tooling of course?
(2) My mentor needs a few power supplies and few towers (cases) for some number crunching, will take it (else will leave a note).
(3) If space doesn’t want Electrolytics, through holes, I will keep some and take them to my mentor’s place.
Electronics Supplies. I get parts out of here probably weekly. There is a huge variety in here and lots can probably be tossed, but this post is vague enough that I’m nervous that useful stuff will get tossed out. This deserves its own post with head-on photos of the drawer sections in question.
Large power supplies under the rear electronics bench. We could probably consolidate the best 25% and get rid of the rest, keeping a selection of voltages and form factors.
Transformers (one of the boxes with the power supplies) - Keep a few
Project cases (another of the boxes with the power supplies) - Keep 50% - I’ve found a good enclosure for my project here a few times in the last year.
Lathe - this wasn’t in Andrew’s original post but is now being mentioned in this thread. I’ve used the lathe 3 times in the last month and consider this a critical VHS tool. Mark used it last week to for the Injection Molding group project. Emerson uses it regularly in the last couple months.
Manual mill
Both bandsaws - if we can clear up the confusion about whether the blades should be covered by VHS, then these can be for different metals. Currently the blades are not covered (so members have to put a blade on for each use). As long as we’re putting a blade on for each use then I suppose we could get by with a single bandsaw.
For context on the electronics, Andrew had me help and point out easy candidates for removal.
If I recognized something as potentially useful, I recommend keep, but all of the marked stuff is super junky. Old exposed-copper ICs, most of those electrolytics are from the early 2000s, and I know that some VHS members have had problems with them.
Definitely keeping the well-sorted resistors, a good collection of 555s and 7400 series logic, grab bags of random (marked) transistors, high voltage fluidless caps, etc.
The green manual mill is working. There are collets but needs a few more end mills and boring bars etc. It is not great for high precision work but will do fine for everything else. It is documented on Wiki. If anyone wants to be shown how to use it I can demo however I am no expert on this.
The metal lathe works great and it is being used often. Built like a tank and built to last.
Keep both metal bandsaws. One should be dedicated aluminum and the other for steel only. I would like to hear from Equipment Purchasing Committee on whether blades are considered shop consumables like laser tubes and filters.
Yes please keep the manual mill.
I would be totally willing to go through the components. I agree with most that way to many of them are like 20 plus years old! some 40 plus. They need to go so we can restock them with good working components. I have spent a silly amount of time combing over all the components and know mostly what we can toss. Ill also Be there on Tuesday evening.
I can find a home for the cd/dvd burner stack. If thats ok. I can also donate the towers to a few single moms in my area who could use a computer.
Regarding the big bin of unsorted AC/DC power adapters, I recommend keeping only ones that supply >500 mA of current. Also keep ones with the USB mini connector.
Laptop power bricks can be useful for powering LED light strips and other projects with high power needs.
The assortment of random power adapters come in handy though. Plus, the old PC power supplies can be used for DIY bench top poser supplies. (This might be a good workshop.)
I used the green manual mill to handle stainless steel and other hard materials that can’t be machined with TAIG or Grizzly. I know also that Richard @rsim has used the same equipment before. It is a powerful equipment and may be the only one, that is robust enough for handling with hard materials and gives the flexibility to work manually. It would be convenient to keep as a property of VHS.
I totally agree with Richard. First, the green mill is of high interest whenever we have to deal with hard materials (stainless steel, toll steel, high carbon steel and the list goes on…). And it happens very frequent that not everything that we do is made of aluminum. Second, the yellow band saw together with the green one, are supposed to be used for different materials, one aluminum and the other steel or other metals. It is important to keep what we are already using. If we don’t have the blades is another issue, but we do need them more frequent than one can think.
There are six Marconi vacuum tubes in this collection. I’ve contacted the fellow who maintains http://www.jproc.ca/marconi/ which is a website on the History of Marconi (A Canadian Company) and asked if he would be interested. He said he would like to have these so I would like to mail these off to him if no-one objects.
