OK so I emptied the big box that contained most of the salvaged stuff I had in stock. Now let's sort it all out where needed, and try to fit it into the drawers I just bought this evening... not enough drawers I thing, but at least that's a beginning. All the screws and misc H/W will need further tedious sorting later, into a bunch of small bin.. need to buy that as well.
Gotta start somewhere ! For now the aim is to get rid of that bib container and shove all the stuff into those plastic drawers so that at the very least... it's now easier to get to ! Then later I can further re-organize all that better...creating order is an iterative process here...
I think I have waaaay too many small DC motors ! Need to throw 75% of them away but... what criteria to sue to decide which ones to keep or trash ? It's gonna be a bit arbitrary I fear... they are all so similar... since they all had similar duties in consumer gear.
Motors are best treated as a "long-term storage" thing. I keep my rando motors (as in, the ones that aren't hi-po brushless for my whirry little flying things) in a plastic shoebox. These are the containers seen above at the bottom of the shelving unit next to my old Radio-Shack-hacked-into-T12-OLED soldering station. They cost a buck or two apiece depending on how many you buy, and will stack up to 4 or so high before you have to worry about them toppling or caving under the weight.
I recommend keeping them all. You really don't have that many, and they are a great source of small bits of spring brass good for fixing switches and relays, as well as varnished wire/magnet wire that can be used for bodges or for making custom inductors. Also, the bushings make good spacers for small screws when you're feeling "maker-ily".
A good assortment of "expendable" motors also means a good assortment of wire diameters and colors close at hand.
mnem
And don't forget to keep a gutted one handy for magnetizing screwdrivers.
You are not helping me much here !
I was assuming and secretly hoping you would tell me to trash all that junk !
I don't have anywhere near as much storage space as you do in your big house and Dwagon cave, so I am trying more and more to be reasonable as to how much of every thing I keep around.
.... I sorted them by size and shape/looks.... how scientific.... I think I am developing a kind of OCD, I need things to be sorted and organized, I can't stand random messes...
So looks like I have 61 motors then... Pfff... OK will keep them for now. As you said it's not taking too much space for now, so no urgent need to dispose of them... unlike my XXXX power cords.
I can always get rid of some of them later if space becomes really an issue... but for now they can stay. How nice I am...
As for magnetizing... I have much better than shitty DC motors. Old man used to train white goods service/repair technicians. Used to have tons of spare parts at home... then he retired and throw all of it out the window. He gave me a powerful toroïdal magnet from a magnetron... and a box with half a dozen complete magnetrons to keep my 30 year old Philips microwave oven running for the next 200 years.
As for salvaging enameled wire.. I just take apart some common mode choke or small power supply transformer