Thanks guys, very helpful posts 👍
From very recent experience (over the past few days, it is amazing how trusting people have been towards me on purchases involving significant sums of money ! I must have an honest face
I like the idea by Psi of making individual listings and just inviting interest. I can still include a ‘filter’ by asking for offers over £xxx to help potential buyers. I agree on the picture front and it saves me posting pictures to individual interested parties
This is all excellent food for thought and I really appreciate the xcellent advice. My health dictates how quickly I can operate so I do need some sort of sensible plan in order to not become overwhelmed. I am, after all, effectively doing a ‘technical house clearance sale’. I have accumulated an awful lot of goof quality equipment as part of my ‘addiction’ and it is really quite scary when I see just how much have to work through.
To answer a few questions that have been placed in this thread.
1. All the equipment is mine from my accumulation over the years.
2. I buy nice kit and not junk and I care for it
3. I am essentially selling all of my personal lab test equipment as I am just not that involved in R&D electronics any more. I am 51 and moving into a new phase in my life with new priorities. I will keep the essential tools of the trade to work on and repair electronics but I find that I do not need the very expensive and advanced test equipment for that anymore. I can repair most equipment with my eyes, nose, decent multimeter, oscilloscope, logic analyzer and solder rework stations
4. I will continue to enjoy working with thermal imaging equipment but even on that front, I need to rehome the excess as owning over 80 thermal cameras is a little excessive
I am not a museum or exhibition after all
5. Regarding operating condition. All my lab test equipment is in good working order. I do have ‘for parts’ or ‘repair project’ equipment I have never got around to looking at but these are not my test equipment. They were bought to amuse me or for repairing other equipment. I can put such equipment up for sale but where values are low I may be better served to either send it to the scrap recycling or place it on eBay to help someone in the world repair their faulty kit. If the return is not worth my time to pack and dispatch, sadly the kit goes in the bin. I gave little other option. I could group faulty kit into bulk lots but return could still be low compared to the effort of packing. I pack all equipment properly and it can take me a mist of an evening to pack a large heavy piece of equipment. For one known faulty equipment will be either binned (basically rubbish projects that never got started) or left until the good kit has gone and I have more time.
6. I am non commercial..... just an electronics technician who is/was dedicated to his hobby and spent too much on ‘toys’ by multiple duplications of capability! As a non commercial seller of the equipment, I ask to be treated fairly with offers. I am not just ‘ditching’ a container load of ex MoD equipment onto the market or trying to make a fast buck. The difference between this request on this forum and saying it on eBay is that my experience has shown forum members respect that request in many cases. I have already received firm and fair offers on two pieces of expensive equipment that I have advertised and have accepted them. It is important to me that both parties are content with a deal
7. It is true to say that this is an excellent opportunity for someone to effectively buy a decent electronics lab in one purchase if they so desire. I have multiple equipment duplications as already stated. It offers an opportunity to ‘cherry pick’ from one source of quality equipment rather than trawling eBay for years as I have to accumulate such kit. It cannot be for free or even bargain prices however as I cannot afford to give away equipment when it can provide essential funds for my life going forwards. This is why offers on equipment that I sold in the past have caused mr some concern.Students offering $100 for an equipment that sells used for over $700 are likely to be disappointed as. Just cannot work with such an offer. It is not that I am being mean, I just have to be practical. I am not working and have financial commitments so I am effectively worse off than many students
8. Collection ? Absolutely ! I welcome equipment collection and would look favourably on offers that involved collection as it makes my life so much easier and equipment can be shown working. I am located near Milton Keynes so in the midlands.
I hope this little post is helpful in understanding what is going on here. Just a professional tech who also had electronics as a serious hobby for over 40 years and who’s life is taking a change of direction whilst maintaining basic repair and maintenance capabilities
In my experience, my most powerful and capable tool is my mind. It has served me well and was trained to be highly adaptable in specialist in some technical areas. I do not need masses of test equipment to serve that mind and no, it is not included in the sale
Finally .... I made a poor taste joke with my wife about me dropping dead or her getting fed up with me and wanting a divorce...... her response ...... NOT UNTIL YOU CLEAR ALL YOUR GEAR oUT IF THE HOUSE !
She still loves me really
She is right though, If I dropped dead, there would be an awful lot of kit to shift to the local recycling centre !
I attach a photo of me in case people like to see the face of the person they are dealing with. I am friendly, honest, kind and honourable
I have a very strong and active moral compass. I can be very professional, unemotional and ‘hard’ in my professional life. It just went with the territory in my job role. Very much like a Soldier has to be...... just look at the Facebook pictures of soldiers rescuing kittens..... we can be hard as steel one moment and soft as butter the next, as the situation requires. I do not normally bite
Fraser