How do you clean your workbench?
Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)
Posts: 23,514
Yesterday I began an approximately biennial ritual: cleaning my workbench. This takes place whenever things that I need become too buried in the strata to locate, and it's always fun to find things that I forgot I owned or had even replaced with a duplicate. After putting away the big items, plus connectors, fasteners, etc., here's the pile I'm left with, an assortment of resistors, caps, diodes, and other semiconductor flotsam:
So I'm wondering how other foumistas deal with something like this. I've identifed three possible approaches:
So what's your technique? (If you keep a tidy workbench in the course of your work, I seriously do not want to hear about it! Such behavior is unnatural, and you should seek counseling.)
-Phil
So I'm wondering how other foumistas deal with something like this. I've identifed three possible approaches:
- Lost Puppy Method: Pick up an item, identify it, and put it where it belongs.
- Where's Waldo? Method: Open a drawer of parts and find all instances of them in the pile.
- Heap Sort: Separate the mess into piles of similar items. Then use either the Lost Puppy or Where's Waldo? method, or recurse on the Heap Sort.
So what's your technique? (If you keep a tidy workbench in the course of your work, I seriously do not want to hear about it! Such behavior is unnatural, and you should seek counseling.)
-Phil
855 x 642 - 154K
Comments
I've found that for small parts it can help to have a sorting tray like this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/GEMSTONE-SORTING-TRAY-PLASTIC-NEW-/200484793907
You can just scoop up all the parts in the tray and then sort them as you drag them off the tray and drop them in the appropriate bin or container. There are also many other styles of these trays and they can help a lot. I have one in bright yellow that I find very helpful when looking for screws. I have several jars of recycled screws and that I can dump in one of these trays and then when done can just use the tray to just pour them back into each jar.
Robert
Your list is missing a technique I occasionally employ called "Build a New Workbench". It's a get out of jail free card until that bench becomes full of clutter.
If it comes as a spousal decree, I tend toward heap sorting the lost puppies.
[video=youtube_share;ysFnNrQF0oY]
It works fairly well. The container stays about 50% full unless I'm stumped on a project, need to take a mental break and put stuff away. The trick is to use a container large enough so that most stuff is on the bottom, yet small enough that it doesn't get out of hand and shallow so it's not a problem to pick up stuff. A cookie sheet would be a really bad idea, a tupperware lid is just about right.
-browz
FF
That's great, but next time you try to RMA a component back to Parallax because it's broken, we'll just refer you to the video that you posted.
BTW) I use Heap Sort ...
All caps
All Resistors
All Wire
All transistors/IC's
All Diodes/LEDs
All Misc
All Trash
Then I go through each group and assess it again (Lost Puppy), restocking my parts bin where applicable ... seems to be the best approach
Interesting sort!
1) I have a lady over or a guest
2) Oh crud my mom is gonna fly in and visit me better look normal .
3) I am gone for a week and want to make my place look good when I return
4) last bit not least .. I cant find anything any more . so a 2H sub routine called :CLEAN is ran after that I return to my normal program.
as far as parts
I do a clean sweep every night .
all resistors
electrolytic caps
other caps .
diode
transistor
any IC
Plugs DC
all other plugs
any LED
any Pot or varCAP or the like
small Xfmrs
Inductors
this is SO easy to sort and its very effective
Mind 90% of my parts are From old PCBs so I have to sort any ways .
Attachment not found.
Attachment not found.
Attachment not found.
Some day Ill add LED strip lights under the shelf for task lighting .
"" So what's your technique? (If you keep a tidy workbench in the course of your work, I seriously do not want to hear about it! Such behavior is unnatural, and you should seek counseling.)"""
sadly I feed on chaos .. Yet I keep a some what nice place .. As I have to be open to take on any thing that comes in the door .
this past week I had a UW ROV on the desk being programmed and wired .
Peter
A messy workspace is truly the sign of a creative person.
In my opinion, your time is more valuable than the grief and frustration that a creative person would suffer by sorting through such a mess to save a few bucks.
In your particular instance, I would take some hi-res and close up photos of the affected work area, and then shove all the parts into a bag for "Phil's Biennial Electronics Grab Bag Auction". At which point, I would then move onto the next creative project.
Bruce
The shed builder seems to know what I want before I say it. He says I need a "Man Cave". With half the shed lined, an internal door, a large bench space, windows, 3 phase power, water, rainwater tank, sink, mezzanine floor for storage and a secret hidey hole in the floor for spare gold bullion etc.
Heck, I just walked into the shed showroom intending to buy a cheap garden toolshed...
As far as sorting goes, I usually pick out the ICs, throw them in a container and throw everything else into another container. I sort ICs when I end up needing one and the rest ends up in plastic bags that I sort when I'm really bored.
I can't say I use a particular sorting method all the time but it's usually a group sort, followed by lost puppy, followed by garbage!
I use one of two methods to clean: put away larger pieces where they belong, and move small components to a "to sort" box. That box then gets pulled out whenever I watch a movie, and I sort through it during that time.
I never really believed the statement that "my time is so valuable I can't be bothered to do X", whatever X may be. Those who say such things inevitably spend some time doing something with no profit margin. I find cleaning therapeutic, so I do that.
I'm not saying that an intervention is in order; but I would be happy to offer you an hour of free counseling, should you ever visit Port Townsend, and start you on a twelve-step program of entropy enhancement.
-Phil
Nice!! I think I may put that on a bumper sticker: "Seek Entropy Enhancement"
Being one with many and many with one.
Negentropy – a shorthand colloquial phrase for negative entropy. (About as popular as the Un-cola)
Entropology – the study or discussion of entropy <- Sadly, they didn't offer this when I went to school!!
I see a lot of crud behind the main monitor, including a Dr. Demento hat. You can't fool us.
-- Gordon