I have a hundred or of slid-together drawer units that sub-divide into three to five sections per drawer...they keep filling up! Plus half a dozen drawer units like you get at Home Depot...and drawers of tubes...I am loosing control of the stork count as well. So we are trying to reorganize the parts in a more logical method, and what with manufacturers dropping our favourite ICs stock will only get more entertaining...we are designing a single IC replacement for the 6530 currently as we use that on two different manufacturers and I'm trying to make universal replacement parts. On that topic (designing new service toys), have a small run of prototype replacement RAM/ROM boards for pinball or video games. It will allow us to use ('fer example) 6808/2's in place of 6800s, and bypass any and all RAM/ROM on the game board. RAM/ROM addresses are (re)programmable via a GAL. Works great for our Game Plan MPU repairs where the corrosion has rotted out the sockets and RESET circuit. Am going to make it work for other games such as replacing Atari MPUs for games with bad IC sockets - like very old Missile Command and others. So far we have the Z80 and the 6X0X CPUs covered (40 pin devices) and are also considering the 8080 (wouldn't it be nice to get rid of the RAM issues there on the old Midway boards!!!). I am going to test an Omega Race very very soon...I have a nice cabinet with a RAM rotted board here... The second generation boards will have an on-board clock option or use the game's (depends on corrosion, eh?), and the same with RESET. Watchdog will be an additional option but might be too much of a hassle to implement inexpensively. John :-#)# At 09:14 AM 12/07/2002 -0600, Kurt Mahan wrote:
For small quantities of ICs (and everything else) I've got a wall of little drawer assemblies -- and I only put 1 IC type/drawer (no drawer subdivisions) so if I rearrange I don't have to relabel. I've still got lots of tubes -- I just label those and try and keep them all in the same place. And hope to hell my memory is better then it actually is.
I've got 15 of those 6x10 (60) drawer sets mounted on a wall, with a few more sitting in front. The trick is to get in the habit of always putting the parts in drawers (and labelling!) when you get them. Not just piling them up. I also try and arrange by categories -- one drawer set for caps, one for resistors, one for SMT caps/resistors, etc. That of course is a wonderful plan. In reality, well, use big lettering on your labels so you can find things easier.. :) I use a sharpie and stick on mailing labels (which has the added bonus of peeling off if I change things..
After a while you find that you don't have too many duplicate drawers.. :)
Kurt
Okay, we've all got ICs all over the place. How do you store/catergorize & organize your ICs?
I prefer to keep mine in tubes but then I've got 100s of tubes.
I use some of the small drawers for smaller quantities & smaller chips but once I set up a label for each drawer I find a need to change things (additons).
I've seen one tech work bench where he took the Wico catalog & lableled everything with drawer numbers. Handy but not intuiative.
Thanks, Kev