Hobby inventory

[Alex Eisenhut]

Do you track your home hobby stuff, if so with what? There are a lot of inventory programs out there, I found out.

I have about 20 storage boxes filled with various odds and ends of electronics, electrical stuff like transformers and switches, floppy drives, vintage ICs, scope probes, etc.

I am not at Franlab or CRD levels here, as a matter of fact the whole idea is to eliminate redundant stuff and minimize stuff I rarely use, and be able to retrieve quickly an item I am looking for.

Is a little home-spun spreadsheet good enough for a smaller stash like mine? See attached, I slapped something together.

[nigelwright7557]

As I build up pcb's and get close to running out I put the item on a "to get" list.

[wilfred]

Keep your stuff in boxes/drawers/totes no bigger than is convenient to rummage through in a reasonable time. Number them and write down what is in each one so that a search in your notebook (or spreadsheet or text document on your phone) is also not too time consuming. The key is to strike a balance between the time taken to organise and index your stuff against the time to find what you want or have. If you're not searching often then spending time indexing it is unproductive.

Anyway, that's what I should do.

[Psi]

I just have a spreadsheet for ICs/Transistors.
Those are the only ones i want to be able to quickly check if I have some before ordering more.

[Halcyon]

Box comment = "Stinks" ?

I feel like I need to know more.

[dustooff]

It's never too early to start an inventory system even at hobby level.
If left to "It will get done when there is more stuff" then that time may not be readily apparent, and only when you start finding things you never realised you had, then the task of itemising well be so much more monumental.

I store the usual information and include notes (keywords) about intended project, supplier, manufacturer data link.
Anything I buy on Aliexpress etc,  save a PDF of the product page, these are then searchable.
I've tried various database & frontends over the years, but keep falling back to spreadsheet exported to CSV for backup.
K.I.S.S. unless you're getting paid to manage inventory, and it's not your shirt at stake.

[Alex Eisenhut]

Box comment = "Stinks" ?

I feel like I need to know more.

Eh, some of the plastics used by Tektronix in the '60s disintegrate and emit a pungent chemical smell. You can see brown drops weeping out of some scope probe cables and GR cable boots. I skin 'em and toss out the plastic. Some smell remains, there might be more plastic lurking inside some larger connectors. It's not so bad. It's just so I can open the box and vent it once in a while out until I can figure out the source.

I also wonder if storing different plastics together long term is a bad idea, including the box itself. My vintage computers sometimes have what look like soldering iron burns but it's PVC cables resting on ABS cases that cause it, some sort of long-term unstoppable dissolving. It's amazing these plastics have lasted this long, some cheap Chinese milligram scales I have already have their buttons disintegrating into sticky rubber after only 2-3 years.

By far the worst smell I ever experienced with my junk is stale rubberized horse hair. A packing material used in the '60s by Tektronix. At least it didn't linger.

[lokin4areason]

note pad n a cheque list

[D.Burnette]

I use a google sheet with a few tabs: Permanant tools/sensors, stuff I may sell, wishlist (3458a, etc.), and stuff I need to make a decision about.

I played with the free level of GageList a little, but it was overkill.

[ajb]

Do you track your home hobby stuff

Nope. Tracking inventory is a work thing, and hobbies aren't supposed to feel like work 

[Alex Eisenhut]

Do you track your home hobby stuff

Nope. Tracking inventory is a work thing, and hobbies aren't supposed to feel like work 

Feels like work when I *know* I have a Commodore IEEE cable ... somewhere... but yeah, it's time to simplify and lighten the load.

I played with the free level of GageList a little, but it was overkill.

Well the nice thing about spreadsheets is that I can use them as inputs to a database, eventually. Maybe.