----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2004 3:15 PM Subject: Re: [OT:] RadioShack Canada S***s > Rule 1: Never order less than 200 resistors, or less than 10 more of > anything that you need. 200 of the same value? There are very few values I use 200 of in 10 years. If you're getting an assortment, how do you pick which values you need for a project you won't think of for 6 months. If you're missing a single one, that's another order so you've lost any advantage of ordering 200 in advance, and you still have the disadvantages. Same goes for ordering 10 or more; it means the price for your project is multiplied by 10 *and* you have to store all the junk, probably for years. This is probably reasonable for business, but not for the hobbiest. > Rule 2: Get good at desoldering stuff. Rob a few caps from old VCRs What good is that? Caps only cost pennies, there's a chance the recovered part won't work, leading to hours of frustration, you now have a huge time investment in your junk box, you still have storage issues, and where do you get the VCRs (even used and junked with a much higher chance of faulty parts) for less than the price of the handful of parts that might be salvagable from modern equipment? Some of the repair people I know swear by the technique that the first thing you do is replace all the caps because they're the first thing to go. You want to salvage and reuse them? Even if you do get anything out of it; you'll probably end up storing most of the parts for the rest of your life never finding a project that calls for them. Then you kids will throw them out because they're worthless. > Rule 3. Keep a big, well organized junk box with lots of littlle labeled > drawers. Avoid the H*** Box syndrome. "Aw H*** I will just throw it all > in a box. Again, much more time and space is needed than it's worth. The local retail store has thousands of little drawers full of parts. Maintaining such an inventory at home just isn't worth it for a hobbiest. I had set of little drawers that was stuffed with carefully sorted parts, many of which are over 20 years old, and except for the resistors, I don't think I'd used anything in there for 10 years. I junked them in the move. What am I going to do with 20 year old red LEDs that are very dim by modern standards? in metal housings that are covered in corrosion and I don't have specs for? Assorted power transistors salvaged from old circuit boards decades ago? Now I do have a few H*** boxes. I try to keep an inventory for each one up to date on the computer. It does take 10 times longer to find anything, but compared to all the time wasted sorting parts I'd never use and labelling drawers, I'm way ahead this way. > Rule 4: Jameco is your friend. Mouser and Digikey are nearly your > friends. Yes, your friend at a $6 surcharge for shipping every time you need a part. > Rule 5. Grab bags, assortments, and so on are good. They're good if you love diagnosing problems. Radio Shack was always the worst for that, but grab bag assortments is where companies put questionaly or faulty parts. The best was my grab bag of 100 "untested" 7-segment LED displays. Every one had an "N" hand printed on it with a sharpie, and every one had at least one segment that wouldn't light. $10 for 100 7-segment displays sounds like a bargain, but 5 hours of my free time testing 100 displays and having nothing to show for it but a pile of garbage sure isn't. > Rule 6: Round out those onesies orders to $25 by adding a few NIMH > batteries each time. You know you will need them. This is totally illogical. You're still only placing the order for a few dollars worth of parts, so effectively you're only paying the shipping for that. Stocking extra batteries you don't need doesn't mean you've gotten a better deal on shipping. You can wait until you're ordering a few parts and need the batteries, and then order all you need for the same flat shipping. Why be out the money and have to store the batteries before you need them if in the end you've spent the same amount of money? > Rule 7: Yes, radio shark stinks. I still give them a lot of business > because there is no alternative locally. They *DID* have a USB:RS232 > adapter in stock when Circuit City didn't. They *DO* have many types of > obsolate cables and such, and the store near me still stocks some > components. All of the shops here that catered to real hobbyist went out > of business. Radio Shark got the message and sold stuff that makes them a > profit. I don't blame them. They are a ghost of their former self. I just bought an enclosure from them with an integrated membrane keypad covering the top. It's shaped like a remote control and inside, it has a 9V battery compartment and space for the project board. The front panel is removable and they included a transparent red replacement piece (for using IR LEDs inside). It seems like it will be very useful for a lot of possible projects. It's the sort of unique and very hobbiest oriented part they used to be famous for. It even came with the 9V battery snap. When they specialzied in products like this, it's easy to see how they were truly great. They only had one left and the package was covered in dust. It's probably been sitting there for 10 years, and I doubt they will be restocking it. I also got the last small piece of perf board with an IC friendly pad layout. I can only hope they'll restock that item; I must have bought dozens of them over the years. Jason -- http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic: [PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads