Leftover parts

Main Page - Tgimboej

I have a box right now, actually. Sending it off to the next person tomorrow.

I was having the same thought as I was sitting here bemoaning the fact that I had a bunch of extra stuff that I didn't need but none of a few pieces that I did need. Maybe one of us head-fier's would be willing to hold everyone's inventory and act as a distributor of sorts? We can setup some sort of rules where requests could come in and the person would pay for shipping plus a small donation to a charity or to head-fi's slush fund or something like that. I might be willing to try this out on a trial basis. We'd need to fully flush out the details though so it wasn't totally overwhelming and could be a benefit to the community.

The TGIMBOEJ is an interesting idea... but probably wouldn't work for what I am envisioning. I'll put some thought into this and maybe try to put out some guidelines for feedback.

I think a roving flat rate box or two would work quite well, at least in the CONUS.

placeholder post for final idea

I think you could categorize the parts you have and then make a few flat rate boxes then post them on the for sale section. Or give em to me

So this is what I was thinking...

Folks could send me everything they have that they are willing to donate and I would put everything worthwhile in inventory. (I've already got my own inventory of sorts going!) Here are some thoughts about how this could work:

1. Everything that isn't obviously identifiable would have to ship in the original digikey/mouser bag. I'm not going to go around verifying every resistor.
2. The ultimate "receiver" would have to verify everything is what they expect it to be... no guarantees or warrantees implied of course.
3. Things would ship in whatever is the cheapest flat rate USPS box to make this manageable. Or if the parts are small and not particularly fragile, even ship in a plain envelope.
4. Payment would be via paypal as a "gift" to avoid fees and would cover shipping plus some sort of donation. I would make the donation a flat number per "transaction." Maybe $5? Or $2.50 for a "small" order and $5 for a "large" order. That would be less than paying for onesies and twosies from mouser with the benefit of giving back to the community. We could donate to head-fi or rotate charities based on where the greatest need is or just pick one and be done with it.
5. Requests would come through a dedicated thread for full disclosure.
6. I would tabulate the transactions quarterly and make the donations on that frequency.

Another idea is to do something similar but split it up by project. So there might be one person that just accepts beta22 parts (or maybe even all Amb parts). And one person who just accepts millet parts. Or maybe there's some other way of segregating that makes more sense.

We can also just try this and adjust as it goes. After all, maybe not enough people will send me stuff in the first place. Or maybe there just won't be a lot of requests.

Anyway, those are some thoughts off the top of my head. Anyone have any upgrades? Should we run this by Jude?

IMO the easiest way would be to separate the lot into passive components, active (diodes, transistors, fets and IC's), connectors, and last iron. Sell them off in "grab bags" you do not have to disclose what is inside, but only a rough geusstimation of worth and that they are leftover from headamp builds. You can then choose what you want with the proceeds.

My two bits:

I've conversed with the same loose group of 30-some people on irc since 1994. Yeah really. Think of it as being like group primal scream therapy. A sympathetic echo chamber. Only a few of us have died of it.

Anyhow, naturally all of us are geeks of some color or other, so all of us have spares of one kind or another.

About 5 years ago it occurred to us that if we wanted to have a programatic way to know who has which spares available within the group (mostly computer parts, but also things like hand tools), it would be relatively easy to bend bugzilla to that task.

Enter each significant part (or lot of parts) as a bug, which remain open until claimed by others on the system, only to be closed when they are actually received at their destination. Can be subsequently reopened later if they become spare again. We informally trade gear all the time, but don't generally know what others have available unless we happen to be paying attention to the channel when they're casually offered.

Just an idea. doesn't solve the 500 parts for 400 people issue unless you divide it up into parts for some amp or "the box containing these resistors" or whatever.

Ah, didn't know you had a QA background. I'm up to my armpits in inventory software for the last couple years. Wrote more than 700 test cases for a flipping label layout editor this month. Just found out that feature has been postponed.

But yes, needs and wants as well. I know there are xml import tools for bugzilla, dunno if there's one for xls as well.

Hmm... do we really need to have a database? I was just thinking I would have a big shelf full of stuff organized well enough to find things and then respond to requests as they came in. Is that too simple?

It's worth thinking about the incentive scheme for this system. One potential problem is that it becomes a huge burden on those who are sorting/pulling parts for people. After all a person wanting to save $10 on resistors might ask for all the resistors to build a minimax as it doesn't cost them any time. However would it be worthwhile for someone to take an hour to find, sort and ship those parts?