i had mentioned earlier in the thread about finding some old ECG cross references if you had you'd realize that contrary to your dismay of "bad organization" the bin containing the 2N3904 2N3906 and 2N2222A's are all sub's for each other, so the effort of separating them was unnecessary!!
years ago Phillips did a good job of researching transistor substitutions, short of mission critical parts (which nothing in audio circuits is) the number subs for applications is prolific and has been invaluable to me for finding components to accomplish repairs without losing my mind over "exact" part numbers (but try and tell an obsessed audiophile that!)
Whether or not any part could be substituted for one another in a particular application its a matter of finding either one and with the shear number and range of p/n's they needed to be in some sort of locatable order. If I remove a bad 3904, and that's the part that was spec'd from the factory, and I have that p/n in stock, there's no reason to go to a crossover for a substitute. It saves time by simply narrowing down the search to a particular set of drawers vs 15 boxes, 400 bins and 12 cabinets spread all over the place.
The crossover book is more useful to me for finding other brand's that may be the same part in the event that I don't have the very brand that was removed.
I also should have stated that in the same drawer with the 2N2222A's he had TIP130, and TIP32C, and 2N5086, in another cabinet, he had TIP31C's mixed in one big drawer with 2N2222, 2N5087, and 2N3906. Another drawer had more 2N3906's but that one was mixed with some 2N4838 and IRF130, IRL1501 and some odd TO-3 types as well, all jumbled together with some diodes and hardware mixed in too. Then there's the drawers that had sealed bags of completely unrelated parts buried beneath 3" of transistors. He had one drawer marked PNP and another marked NPN but both were a random mix of just about any p/n. I sort of figured that maybe at one time the labels on each drawer were accurate but as time went on it got all jumbled up and he never bothered to fix it. There was probably 30 lbs of misc. parts in the bottom of each cabinet too from where drawers spilled over. Having all the parts in bags prevents spilled items.
Nothing is set in stone either, if over time I see the need to move something, I can do so knowing that what I'm moving is all that there is to move, I won't have to worry about finding more somewhere else.
The crossover book is more useful to me for finding other brand's that may be the same part in the event that I don't have the very brand that was removed.
I also should have stated that in the same drawer with the 2N2222A's he had TIP130, and TIP32C, and 2N5086, in another cabinet, he had TIP31C's mixed in one big drawer with 2N2222, 2N5087, and 2N3906. Another drawer had more 2N3906's but that one was mixed with some 2N4838 and IRF130, IRL1501 and some odd TO-3 types as well, all jumbled together with some diodes and hardware mixed in too. Then there's the drawers that had sealed bags of completely unrelated parts buried beneath 3" of transistors. He had one drawer marked PNP and another marked NPN but both were a random mix of just about any p/n. I sort of figured that maybe at one time the labels on each drawer were accurate but as time went on it got all jumbled up and he never bothered to fix it. There was probably 30 lbs of misc. parts in the bottom of each cabinet too from where drawers spilled over. Having all the parts in bags prevents spilled items.
Nothing is set in stone either, if over time I see the need to move something, I can do so knowing that what I'm moving is all that there is to move, I won't have to worry about finding more somewhere else.
When I was moving recently, I spilled two of those plastic cabinets of SCEWS and NUTS on their sides. They ended up all mixed up, and are still not re-sorted. This might have been why all the transistors are mixed up - that might have not been “intentional”, or even careless. Other than dropping the cabinets of course.
They must have dropped every last one of them then. There wasn't a single drawer or bin that wasn't mixed up to some degree. I think it was more a matter of him either not seeing so well or him knowing it was screwed up and not caring. What was likely tough was needing something any one of the parts in those mixed up bins and having to sort through a thousand of them to find what you need. At least with nuts and bolts the various sizes look different enough to sort out fairly quickly on a few trays, but with the smaller transistors it meant using a comparator scope to quickly view the part numbers. What I was doing was grabbing say 200 at a time, and putting them quickly by hand into a slotted bar and passing them under the viewer, then I'd sort them on the screen in groups it let me do roughly a full bin in about 80 minutes. When different types were mixed up it was easier to separate them but in most cases the parts all looked identical other than the markings on them. Its had to tell a 3904 from 3909 among 10,000 others and five other similar p/n's.
In the way I sorted these out, the transistors and diodes are sorted via the first numeric digit and the number of digits. Regardless of the prefix letters or brand ID. That way regardless of the brand or letters, I know where any part will be simply by the numeric part number. It also best allows for any additions to the drawers down the road. I did separate them by form factor as well, all TO3's are in one set of drawers, all TO220's in another sand so on. It saved space and simplified locating things.
When it came to IC's he had zero organization, it looked like at best he used the first digit to group items together in bins, bags, boxes and jars. They were all over the place, mixed in along side of transistors diodes and resistors. sometimes loose and sometimes in bags that contained maybe one of 10 or 12 part numbers.
What really made a huge difference is the amount of space I saved doing it this way. What was taking up five rooms, my basement, garage and attic now fits in a walk in closet and on five shelves in the spare room with only the bulk barrels being out in the garage yet. I thought about using the area above the garage but that's not heated or air conditioned all the time and the garage apartment isn't built as robust as the house is weight wise. The cabinets of parts are heavy. Besides, if someone needs something and its snowing or pouring rain, I don't need to go out to the garage to find it in a cold or super hot building. All I need to do is walk down the hall into that room to grab what I'm looking for.
In the way I sorted these out, the transistors and diodes are sorted via the first numeric digit and the number of digits. Regardless of the prefix letters or brand ID. That way regardless of the brand or letters, I know where any part will be simply by the numeric part number. It also best allows for any additions to the drawers down the road. I did separate them by form factor as well, all TO3's are in one set of drawers, all TO220's in another sand so on. It saved space and simplified locating things.
When it came to IC's he had zero organization, it looked like at best he used the first digit to group items together in bins, bags, boxes and jars. They were all over the place, mixed in along side of transistors diodes and resistors. sometimes loose and sometimes in bags that contained maybe one of 10 or 12 part numbers.
What really made a huge difference is the amount of space I saved doing it this way. What was taking up five rooms, my basement, garage and attic now fits in a walk in closet and on five shelves in the spare room with only the bulk barrels being out in the garage yet. I thought about using the area above the garage but that's not heated or air conditioned all the time and the garage apartment isn't built as robust as the house is weight wise. The cabinets of parts are heavy. Besides, if someone needs something and its snowing or pouring rain, I don't need to go out to the garage to find it in a cold or super hot building. All I need to do is walk down the hall into that room to grab what I'm looking for.
If you have flyback transformers on hand, our shop would gladly buy a few. Message me if you see this!
Wow, quite a saga! Hang in there!
To make a few bucks and benefit our mutual diyAudio interests, you could focus on selling high value parts first, after you set aside your personal supply, of course.
You could get customers for many obsolete semiconductor parts, like Toshiba. Given the many fakes on sale now, builders will appreciate that you seem to have a plausible providence for your parts.
Perhaps you can work with the crew at the diyAudio Store to package and sell a curated list. Real Toshiba video drivers for your power amp, anyone?
Or, you could open a thread requesting that members suggest a curated list for builders.
Just sharing some ideas here. Persevere, and you will make progress...
David
To make a few bucks and benefit our mutual diyAudio interests, you could focus on selling high value parts first, after you set aside your personal supply, of course.
You could get customers for many obsolete semiconductor parts, like Toshiba. Given the many fakes on sale now, builders will appreciate that you seem to have a plausible providence for your parts.
Perhaps you can work with the crew at the diyAudio Store to package and sell a curated list. Real Toshiba video drivers for your power amp, anyone?
Or, you could open a thread requesting that members suggest a curated list for builders.
Just sharing some ideas here. Persevere, and you will make progress...
David
Oooookay....
I thought there were maybe a few thousand parts, not a few million!
For my passive component sorting needs I'm getting a trading card bin.
Stuff the little devils into #1 coin envelopes then place those into the bin, with more dividers as needed to keep the envelopes from falling on their sides. This works fine for 1/4 watt resistors & such, and for bigger parts Akro-Mils cabinets would do the job.
I thought there were maybe a few thousand parts, not a few million!
For my passive component sorting needs I'm getting a trading card bin.
Stuff the little devils into #1 coin envelopes then place those into the bin, with more dividers as needed to keep the envelopes from falling on their sides. This works fine for 1/4 watt resistors & such, and for bigger parts Akro-Mils cabinets would do the job.
I actually went with poly envelopes, but the big issue was many items are too numerous for any envelope. What I did was set up the main cabinets with 500 pcs per p/n in alpha numeric order by component type. Each bin then contains a shelf location of where the bulk box is located. So far it seems to work very well. I used the 60 bin small drawer cabinets to sort out the IC's and opamps. In the end it saved a ton of space, both on the shelf and on the floor. Gone are the huge tubs, bins, and 'MISC' marked drawers and all the parts in the wrong bin or drawer. Now if I'm after a particular part, its where its supposed to be.
I did not put the carbon comp resistors into bins, I just sorted those by value, bagged in larger bags in groups of 10 or so, filed in a cardboard file boxes on the shelf. They're not an item I go to often, if ever these days. There's about 50 lbs or so of carbon comp resistors in 1/8 to 1/2w. (Far less than the massive assortment of carbon film and metal film resistors.
90% of the IC's are likely obscure numbers, many I wasn't even able to find info on. Many though are fairly common an some are quite pricey from places like Mouser.
There's a rather small number of them that I see all the time, so those will stay but many seem to be mostly computer oriented IC's and even some early CMOS and ECU chips. Mostly from Intel. Most seem to be from around 1977.
Then there's the case lots of various variable resistors and adjustable resistors. Some are in military boxes.
I did find a good many aircraft radios too, both from that source and another clean out I did. Many of the older radios are from WWII and just after and as late as around 1970 or so. Mostly smaller units, which were all in one type radios.
Some of the last bins the guys daughter brought to me had a lot of his test equipment, everything from a dozen Fluke meters, to an assortment of some really old analog meters. There's also a pair of tube based capacitor testers that both seem to work.
I'm only just starting to get it all put into the area where its going to all reside. (A huge walk in closet area in my house) Its adjacent to the room I converted into a small work area that began as a place to rebuild speakers without having to carry them up or down stairs first. Its now turned into a fully shelved out room with a bench along one wall, LED lighting and power strips along the whole length and all the parts on one wall in that walk in closet, about 12ft long and 8ft high. and the end wall about 6ft wide with four more cabinets and a wall of shallow shelves on the facing wall for all the small bin cabinets and boxed parts. I put it all there because that closet sits over the main center beam supporting the house. The parts cabinets had gotten fairly heavy when full, which was more weight then I'd want in the middle of a room over time.
I did not put the carbon comp resistors into bins, I just sorted those by value, bagged in larger bags in groups of 10 or so, filed in a cardboard file boxes on the shelf. They're not an item I go to often, if ever these days. There's about 50 lbs or so of carbon comp resistors in 1/8 to 1/2w. (Far less than the massive assortment of carbon film and metal film resistors.
90% of the IC's are likely obscure numbers, many I wasn't even able to find info on. Many though are fairly common an some are quite pricey from places like Mouser.
There's a rather small number of them that I see all the time, so those will stay but many seem to be mostly computer oriented IC's and even some early CMOS and ECU chips. Mostly from Intel. Most seem to be from around 1977.
Then there's the case lots of various variable resistors and adjustable resistors. Some are in military boxes.
I did find a good many aircraft radios too, both from that source and another clean out I did. Many of the older radios are from WWII and just after and as late as around 1970 or so. Mostly smaller units, which were all in one type radios.
Some of the last bins the guys daughter brought to me had a lot of his test equipment, everything from a dozen Fluke meters, to an assortment of some really old analog meters. There's also a pair of tube based capacitor testers that both seem to work.
I'm only just starting to get it all put into the area where its going to all reside. (A huge walk in closet area in my house) Its adjacent to the room I converted into a small work area that began as a place to rebuild speakers without having to carry them up or down stairs first. Its now turned into a fully shelved out room with a bench along one wall, LED lighting and power strips along the whole length and all the parts on one wall in that walk in closet, about 12ft long and 8ft high. and the end wall about 6ft wide with four more cabinets and a wall of shallow shelves on the facing wall for all the small bin cabinets and boxed parts. I put it all there because that closet sits over the main center beam supporting the house. The parts cabinets had gotten fairly heavy when full, which was more weight then I'd want in the middle of a room over time.
I figured I'd come back to this post as sort of an update After about 6 months of digging, sorting, and labeling I'm probably as organized as its going to get, but even so five times since my last post more has been added to the first lot.
I ended up completely removing all IC's from the larger cabinets, leaving the rolling stacks of Akron boxes for only resistors, capacitors, transistors and diodes.
All IC's are in the clear 60 drawer cabinets on top. I got lucky and found 40 more of those for cheap on CL, (gave $40 for 51 of them, out of 51 I ended up with 40 more perfect cabinets and enough spare drawers to fix a few other small boxes that had broken and taped up drawers.
My last big surprise was 16 tubs of misc. variable resistors and toggle switches which his daughter found in another storage facility he was renting, and 12 more of the larger Akron cabinets as well but with the clear drawers. Then there's another 11 Rubbermaid tubs full of salvaged used variable resistors, three way toggle switches, some early aircraft radios and parts, and two full tubs of soldered together rows of large gold power resistors in parallel chains of 18 each bolted to an aluminum heat sink about 24" long. I rough counted 112 strips of them. They look new and were likely built for something but never used. Each has a positive and negative 10 gauge lead attached. Each resistor is marked 22 ohm.
I had found several boxes of the same resistors in the first lot too that were still sealed.
I also found about 20 boxes of small 2.2 bayonet mount mini bulbs as well, plus huge box of the red indicator bulbs that I've not figured out how to make them light. They don't appear to have a filament, just two round bumps inside the 1/4" round square topped red glass bulb. Both leads are heat resistant 10 ga wire.
There are no numbers on them other than being marked Boeing 'Indicator, Panel, Red, 2-1965'.
All I can think is that they're some sort of neon or florescent type bulb that needs high frequency or high voltage to light.
There's a few small motors with 24 pin round plugs marked "Dynamotor" with a mil spec tag dated 1942, plus a few similar aged aircraft radios.
There are two cardboard 55 gallon barrels filled to the top with cup finger type TO-3 transistor heat sinks, they're aluminum and sort of diamond shaped and meant to house a single transistor inside. Each barrel is marked "Quantity: 14,400" The barrels are branded White Industries, with a Philadelphia, address.
Being aluminum, they are likely worth more in scrap than as heat sinks as there's about 330lbs of weight in each or so. (About 3 of then equal 1 oz).
There are also a few smaller boxes of the same ones as well.
I ended up completely removing all IC's from the larger cabinets, leaving the rolling stacks of Akron boxes for only resistors, capacitors, transistors and diodes.
All IC's are in the clear 60 drawer cabinets on top. I got lucky and found 40 more of those for cheap on CL, (gave $40 for 51 of them, out of 51 I ended up with 40 more perfect cabinets and enough spare drawers to fix a few other small boxes that had broken and taped up drawers.
My last big surprise was 16 tubs of misc. variable resistors and toggle switches which his daughter found in another storage facility he was renting, and 12 more of the larger Akron cabinets as well but with the clear drawers. Then there's another 11 Rubbermaid tubs full of salvaged used variable resistors, three way toggle switches, some early aircraft radios and parts, and two full tubs of soldered together rows of large gold power resistors in parallel chains of 18 each bolted to an aluminum heat sink about 24" long. I rough counted 112 strips of them. They look new and were likely built for something but never used. Each has a positive and negative 10 gauge lead attached. Each resistor is marked 22 ohm.
I had found several boxes of the same resistors in the first lot too that were still sealed.
I also found about 20 boxes of small 2.2 bayonet mount mini bulbs as well, plus huge box of the red indicator bulbs that I've not figured out how to make them light. They don't appear to have a filament, just two round bumps inside the 1/4" round square topped red glass bulb. Both leads are heat resistant 10 ga wire.
There are no numbers on them other than being marked Boeing 'Indicator, Panel, Red, 2-1965'.
All I can think is that they're some sort of neon or florescent type bulb that needs high frequency or high voltage to light.
There's a few small motors with 24 pin round plugs marked "Dynamotor" with a mil spec tag dated 1942, plus a few similar aged aircraft radios.
There are two cardboard 55 gallon barrels filled to the top with cup finger type TO-3 transistor heat sinks, they're aluminum and sort of diamond shaped and meant to house a single transistor inside. Each barrel is marked "Quantity: 14,400" The barrels are branded White Industries, with a Philadelphia, address.
Being aluminum, they are likely worth more in scrap than as heat sinks as there's about 330lbs of weight in each or so. (About 3 of then equal 1 oz).
There are also a few smaller boxes of the same ones as well.
As someone mentioned, drawers take up a lot of space, but you can access them very quickly. I have my most used components like capacitors etc in drawers. Other less used components are in, large, sorting cases. Type by type, for example: audio connectors, HF connectors, etc.
Major stock is in closed boxes with a lid so dust can’t get in.
Major stock is in closed boxes with a lid so dust can’t get in.
Basically that's what I had before, the problem with having some items in the drawers and others in boxes I found myself searching two and three locations sometimes looking for something that i may or may not have had.
With the wall of Akron cabinets, I know that if I have it, its in there. If its not there, I don't have it and it needs to be ordered.
I was buying things I had, I had things I didn't realize I had, and was finding things I had ordered after I was done with the repair two months later. Nothing was in numerical order, or by value, it was totally random, as system that sort of fell into place because that's how a few of the shops I had bought out or cleaned out had it all organized.
The last place looked like the guy had set it up twice, each time the same way but as if the first batch of parts didn't exist. I was finding complete duplicate cabinets with the same assortments. He either quit and went back to it, or had two locations ad it all ended up in one spot and he never truly combined the inventory, or kept track of it.
He also likely bought on impulse, some of the quantities were insane. I'm not dealing with hundreds or thousands of items, i'm dealing with it case quantities and barrel quantities.
From past experience, i knew factories often shipped bulk items in cardboard barrels but never realized they did it with small components.
What I have to deal with next is the hardware, I've been stacking up all the boxes of screws, nuts and bolts in one area, so far I've managed to bury my table saw, workbench, and a 14x6 table that used to be a train layout in flip top box kits of hardware, mostly stainless. but with a good amount of brass too. The largest is likely #12 or 5mm, the smallest is #00, and .2mm Then there's bucket quantities of certain sizes. Due to weight the majority of the hardware will stay in the basement. I picked up two lateral filing cabinets which will become the hardware storage boxes, and I'll set up two of the small drawer boxes for the room upstairs.
The next ordeal will be dealing with the variable resistors and toggle switches, plus fourteen cases of what is basically Radio Shack inventory, consisting of mostly switches, plugs, sockets, wire ends, and bulbs in blister packs. Its not all Radio Shack, some of it is branded Cole Hersee, Laraco, Semens, Filco, GE, RCA, Emerson, Dorman, Johnson, and Gardener-Bender. Plus a few I'm sure I missed.
Plus a few tubs or military packaged switches and parts. There's four tubs of aircraft gauges, most dated or stamped in the 1940's to mid 50's.
The shear massiveness of this guys hoard is insane, not only did he have his house, garage, and sheds packed, he apparently had multiple places rented around town filled up as well, plus items stored at the homes of other family members, much of which is turning up now. He lived right around the corner, maybe 1/2 mile away tops, and I never knew he had this much stuff. I didn't hang out there but had gone there a few times looking for something obscure and he always had it, even if it took him four hours to find it.
Now I know why. The house never looked like a hoarder situation, he just had lots of stuff in his 'shop area. I never saw the basement, back rooms, garage, or the attic though. The kitchen, living room, and the visible parts of the house looked fairly normal. If I were to say anything I'd have said he had too much furniture because there was no open wall space, every inch of wall space had a chair, shelf, cabinet, couch, TV, or stereo rack and he had many book shelves too.
The books are another issue, with there being a ton of books. I did manage to sell a good many of the older books, mostly 50's and 60's course type books but the engineering and design books are mostly still here, as are all the cross reference books and some other misc college books he had. I hate to throw them away but its looking like that's where they'll end up. I started out with about a 12x12 room full of them, I got it down to about 1/3 or so, keeping only a few that I thought would come in handy but in reality, I rarely go to books these days, the computer is faster.
Many of the books from his bench area were marked up, lots of notes and writing all over them. Plus many are filled with sheets of paper with notes, schematics, and other things he was working on, (or maybe from whom ever he may have gotten them all from, as I can't say that wasn't the case).
I'm overall pretty happy with the way I laid out the cabinets so far, its made looking for parts a lot faster and it freed up a ton of shelf space and about 120 of those small cabinets. The only small cabinets I didn't mess with are the few that were brand specific. (A few were Pioneer branded for particular models so they got left as they were. The same with some of the vintage radio parts).
The goal was two fold, to organize and figure out what all I had, and to free up some space, so far I did both, although more stuff has come in since, and likely will continue to show up for a while, I know pretty much where its going and have left room for any surprises.
The big question will be what to do with the buckets and boxes of used, odd components. A good example is a box of used, (marked removed from new inventory), long shaft variable resistors, the shaft is 1/4" D shaped and about 5" long, 1-10 ohm and 12-33 ohm. Then there's some in 4" long, and some in 8" long. They can certainly be cut down but I also have boxes of every other length as well. They're old inventory, 1960's at the latest. The used or 'removed from new' are in barrels and buckets as if someone sat and gutted a truck load of what ever they were installed in.
From an audio/radio standpoint, a good bit of this stuff is useless, other than the resistors and transistors and some opamps, most if it is not really audio related, at least not for home equipment. Something that really makes me wonder what he was thinking when he acquired it, or what all he was working on. I get the feeling he bought anything that was cheap just to know he had it.
I also realize that if I hadn't taken it, it likely would have gone out for the trash a little at a time or in a pile for some scrap guy to shovel up and haul to the junkyard.
It pains me to know that much of it will still end up there because there will never be any takers for the bulk of it.
I even contacted a few museums figuring they would want or need some of the aircraft parts but they were not interested telling me that all aviation parts must maintain a full valid history or record if they are to be used. I sort of agree with that but in the case of some of this stuff it may well be all that's left. I don't suppose there's too many WW2 Corsairs, B17, or C123's left around for parts?
There's about a dozen radios, dated from 1940 to 1971. The dash gauges area ll pre 1954 or for prop planes. I grew up around aircraft so I'm pretty familiar as to what most of the items came from or are for. So far the only items that I was able to sell were the 9" landing light bulbs and a few 6" flood light bulbs in 28v. (Some guy who runs swamp tours down in FL bought them to use on some project).
There were 19 cases of each size. I was glad to see them go as they took up a ton of space. I did power up one of the 9" landing lights using only two car batteries, at only 24v it would burn a piece of paper 6" in front of the bulb and kill both batteries in about 10 minutes, the bulb filaments looked like 14ga wire or pencil lead).
With the wall of Akron cabinets, I know that if I have it, its in there. If its not there, I don't have it and it needs to be ordered.
I was buying things I had, I had things I didn't realize I had, and was finding things I had ordered after I was done with the repair two months later. Nothing was in numerical order, or by value, it was totally random, as system that sort of fell into place because that's how a few of the shops I had bought out or cleaned out had it all organized.
The last place looked like the guy had set it up twice, each time the same way but as if the first batch of parts didn't exist. I was finding complete duplicate cabinets with the same assortments. He either quit and went back to it, or had two locations ad it all ended up in one spot and he never truly combined the inventory, or kept track of it.
He also likely bought on impulse, some of the quantities were insane. I'm not dealing with hundreds or thousands of items, i'm dealing with it case quantities and barrel quantities.
From past experience, i knew factories often shipped bulk items in cardboard barrels but never realized they did it with small components.
What I have to deal with next is the hardware, I've been stacking up all the boxes of screws, nuts and bolts in one area, so far I've managed to bury my table saw, workbench, and a 14x6 table that used to be a train layout in flip top box kits of hardware, mostly stainless. but with a good amount of brass too. The largest is likely #12 or 5mm, the smallest is #00, and .2mm Then there's bucket quantities of certain sizes. Due to weight the majority of the hardware will stay in the basement. I picked up two lateral filing cabinets which will become the hardware storage boxes, and I'll set up two of the small drawer boxes for the room upstairs.
The next ordeal will be dealing with the variable resistors and toggle switches, plus fourteen cases of what is basically Radio Shack inventory, consisting of mostly switches, plugs, sockets, wire ends, and bulbs in blister packs. Its not all Radio Shack, some of it is branded Cole Hersee, Laraco, Semens, Filco, GE, RCA, Emerson, Dorman, Johnson, and Gardener-Bender. Plus a few I'm sure I missed.
Plus a few tubs or military packaged switches and parts. There's four tubs of aircraft gauges, most dated or stamped in the 1940's to mid 50's.
The shear massiveness of this guys hoard is insane, not only did he have his house, garage, and sheds packed, he apparently had multiple places rented around town filled up as well, plus items stored at the homes of other family members, much of which is turning up now. He lived right around the corner, maybe 1/2 mile away tops, and I never knew he had this much stuff. I didn't hang out there but had gone there a few times looking for something obscure and he always had it, even if it took him four hours to find it.
Now I know why. The house never looked like a hoarder situation, he just had lots of stuff in his 'shop area. I never saw the basement, back rooms, garage, or the attic though. The kitchen, living room, and the visible parts of the house looked fairly normal. If I were to say anything I'd have said he had too much furniture because there was no open wall space, every inch of wall space had a chair, shelf, cabinet, couch, TV, or stereo rack and he had many book shelves too.
The books are another issue, with there being a ton of books. I did manage to sell a good many of the older books, mostly 50's and 60's course type books but the engineering and design books are mostly still here, as are all the cross reference books and some other misc college books he had. I hate to throw them away but its looking like that's where they'll end up. I started out with about a 12x12 room full of them, I got it down to about 1/3 or so, keeping only a few that I thought would come in handy but in reality, I rarely go to books these days, the computer is faster.
Many of the books from his bench area were marked up, lots of notes and writing all over them. Plus many are filled with sheets of paper with notes, schematics, and other things he was working on, (or maybe from whom ever he may have gotten them all from, as I can't say that wasn't the case).
I'm overall pretty happy with the way I laid out the cabinets so far, its made looking for parts a lot faster and it freed up a ton of shelf space and about 120 of those small cabinets. The only small cabinets I didn't mess with are the few that were brand specific. (A few were Pioneer branded for particular models so they got left as they were. The same with some of the vintage radio parts).
The goal was two fold, to organize and figure out what all I had, and to free up some space, so far I did both, although more stuff has come in since, and likely will continue to show up for a while, I know pretty much where its going and have left room for any surprises.
The big question will be what to do with the buckets and boxes of used, odd components. A good example is a box of used, (marked removed from new inventory), long shaft variable resistors, the shaft is 1/4" D shaped and about 5" long, 1-10 ohm and 12-33 ohm. Then there's some in 4" long, and some in 8" long. They can certainly be cut down but I also have boxes of every other length as well. They're old inventory, 1960's at the latest. The used or 'removed from new' are in barrels and buckets as if someone sat and gutted a truck load of what ever they were installed in.
From an audio/radio standpoint, a good bit of this stuff is useless, other than the resistors and transistors and some opamps, most if it is not really audio related, at least not for home equipment. Something that really makes me wonder what he was thinking when he acquired it, or what all he was working on. I get the feeling he bought anything that was cheap just to know he had it.
I also realize that if I hadn't taken it, it likely would have gone out for the trash a little at a time or in a pile for some scrap guy to shovel up and haul to the junkyard.
It pains me to know that much of it will still end up there because there will never be any takers for the bulk of it.
I even contacted a few museums figuring they would want or need some of the aircraft parts but they were not interested telling me that all aviation parts must maintain a full valid history or record if they are to be used. I sort of agree with that but in the case of some of this stuff it may well be all that's left. I don't suppose there's too many WW2 Corsairs, B17, or C123's left around for parts?
There's about a dozen radios, dated from 1940 to 1971. The dash gauges area ll pre 1954 or for prop planes. I grew up around aircraft so I'm pretty familiar as to what most of the items came from or are for. So far the only items that I was able to sell were the 9" landing light bulbs and a few 6" flood light bulbs in 28v. (Some guy who runs swamp tours down in FL bought them to use on some project).
There were 19 cases of each size. I was glad to see them go as they took up a ton of space. I did power up one of the 9" landing lights using only two car batteries, at only 24v it would burn a piece of paper 6" in front of the bulb and kill both batteries in about 10 minutes, the bulb filaments looked like 14ga wire or pencil lead).
For books, if you can type each title into the site below, it will tell you the prices of copies for sale at just about every bookselling site online, thus giving you an idea of what it could sell for. The vast majority will surely be cheap, $1 to $5, but there's no telling what some older tech books might be selling for - I've seen some surprisingly high prices on a few. This takes time, so you'll have go through some, maybe 100 to 200, decide on the minimum selling price it's worth for you to list a book online and ship (maybe $10 or $20), and see how many of the sample of 100-200 you think you can profitably sell. If you decide it's not worth going through the books like this, call some local used bookstores and see if someone will come out, look them over, and make an offer for them all or at least a significant fraction.
http://bookfinder.com
http://bookfinder.com
Good link but a good many of these books don't show there. Some maybe too old or too obscure?
I did have a guy who taught some sort of basic electronics class from somewhere in Indiana drive here and buy a good many of them. Most of what he was after were circuit design books, 3" thick books that show a variety of basic circuits and chapter on how they work.
There were 200 of them, he paid me $5 a book and took them all. I was glad to regain that space. The only problem is that he came before they were all back here or all sorted out. I've found another thousand or so books.
I did sort through all of them as I went through them and I pulled out anything I thought may be useful to me, but having 9 years of editions of the same book made no sense to me and seeing many of the same books listed on eBay for $10 and free or almost free shipping told me they don't have any serious value. I for one can usually find better information online than in most of those sort of books but for a kid just learning in a vocational school or something, I suppose its a useful item to have.
The last pile I've sorted through are mostly all component spec and interchange books from various manufacturers. Most are from 1970 to 1985 or so. There's probably enough of them to fill a couple of large tubs or the trunk of a big car.
There's also some catalogs which include circuit design guides and such from various manufacturers like NEC, On, and Motorola.
There's maybe 40 of those, plus about 100 or so old books, going back to the 1940's, one off the top of my head goes into power supply design using selenium rectifiers and 'solid state' components, its copy righted 1946 and has a stamp saying its property of the US Navy, and a release for sale date of 1980.
There's also a box of engineering books for road and bridge building, also gov. issue books dated from the early 1920's. Not sure how they got into this lot but they're here.
A friend of mine who sells that sort of thing on eBay ran a few but got no interest all year, she gave me them back a few weeks ago.
They got dropped off at a local charity, if they don't want them, they have a dumpster there.
One box I dug through the other day had a good many vintage white ceramic and bakelite variable resistors, in the 1-10 ohm range.
They look like they were meant to be in a high temp situation but they have a short, D shaped shaft and are only rated for 10a.
They look like something I'd expect to find in vintage counter top hot plate or something. They're in GE and Ohmite boxes that look like 1940's or 50's era.
There's some smaller ceramic variable resistors as well, and some tiny switches, about 40lbs or so of tiny toggle switches. Some are new, but there's a full tub of them that have solder on the terminals and are marked 'removed new' Those are in wooden cigar boxes, stacked to fill a larger metal foot locker or travel trunk. I'd guess them to be 1970's era or so but appear very high quality but are too small to be panel switches for daily use, the toggle levers are only thin, 1/16" stems about 1/2" long and each switch is thread mounted with either two or four terminals. I could see a switch like that being used internally in a piece off test equipment more so than as a power switch.
I'll post more on them after I find them all and get them all sorted out.
Items like that are what takes up the most space now, and seem to be the bulk of the last few loads she brought me.
I've not opened a box and found transistors or resistors for a while now and I think I've likely got all the Akron cabinets that he had, but I also thought that before and she ended up finding another storage building he had that had 19 more cabinets, all full.
I did have a guy who taught some sort of basic electronics class from somewhere in Indiana drive here and buy a good many of them. Most of what he was after were circuit design books, 3" thick books that show a variety of basic circuits and chapter on how they work.
There were 200 of them, he paid me $5 a book and took them all. I was glad to regain that space. The only problem is that he came before they were all back here or all sorted out. I've found another thousand or so books.
I did sort through all of them as I went through them and I pulled out anything I thought may be useful to me, but having 9 years of editions of the same book made no sense to me and seeing many of the same books listed on eBay for $10 and free or almost free shipping told me they don't have any serious value. I for one can usually find better information online than in most of those sort of books but for a kid just learning in a vocational school or something, I suppose its a useful item to have.
The last pile I've sorted through are mostly all component spec and interchange books from various manufacturers. Most are from 1970 to 1985 or so. There's probably enough of them to fill a couple of large tubs or the trunk of a big car.
There's also some catalogs which include circuit design guides and such from various manufacturers like NEC, On, and Motorola.
There's maybe 40 of those, plus about 100 or so old books, going back to the 1940's, one off the top of my head goes into power supply design using selenium rectifiers and 'solid state' components, its copy righted 1946 and has a stamp saying its property of the US Navy, and a release for sale date of 1980.
There's also a box of engineering books for road and bridge building, also gov. issue books dated from the early 1920's. Not sure how they got into this lot but they're here.
A friend of mine who sells that sort of thing on eBay ran a few but got no interest all year, she gave me them back a few weeks ago.
They got dropped off at a local charity, if they don't want them, they have a dumpster there.
One box I dug through the other day had a good many vintage white ceramic and bakelite variable resistors, in the 1-10 ohm range.
They look like they were meant to be in a high temp situation but they have a short, D shaped shaft and are only rated for 10a.
They look like something I'd expect to find in vintage counter top hot plate or something. They're in GE and Ohmite boxes that look like 1940's or 50's era.
There's some smaller ceramic variable resistors as well, and some tiny switches, about 40lbs or so of tiny toggle switches. Some are new, but there's a full tub of them that have solder on the terminals and are marked 'removed new' Those are in wooden cigar boxes, stacked to fill a larger metal foot locker or travel trunk. I'd guess them to be 1970's era or so but appear very high quality but are too small to be panel switches for daily use, the toggle levers are only thin, 1/16" stems about 1/2" long and each switch is thread mounted with either two or four terminals. I could see a switch like that being used internally in a piece off test equipment more so than as a power switch.
I'll post more on them after I find them all and get them all sorted out.
Items like that are what takes up the most space now, and seem to be the bulk of the last few loads she brought me.
I've not opened a box and found transistors or resistors for a while now and I think I've likely got all the Akron cabinets that he had, but I also thought that before and she ended up finding another storage building he had that had 19 more cabinets, all full.
Too old wouldn't stop them from being listed, but too obscure could be, as from a small print run and none are currently in the hands of any booksellers. I understand that historical sales data is available from Amazon and ebay to see if they've EVER listed an item and how much it sold for, but only for those who sign up as "professional sellers" at something like $100. This may have changed greatly, I read about this 20+ years ago when I was selling books online part-time, but I never signed up to be able to use such a database.
Databooks, catalogs and app notes/circuit design stuff from manufacturers seems interesting, but much/most of that has been scanned and put online for free (as on archive.org). Manufacturers who published these technically have copyright on it, but don't seem to mind that that documentation for obsolete parts is available. They originally gave away databooks anyway. I'd sort of want to see what's not online, but it doesn't seem worth it to search for everything online to see what's not there.
I was pretty much thinking the same thing.
The OEM spec books are annual editions and for the most part, every year it a copy of the last other than any new additions added each year. The layout is by category and they give anywhere from a half page to three pages of specs on any given part number. The problem is that they were most likely intended as a sales tool or engineering guide. They explain the parameters of a component in detail. but since all of these parts are obsolete today, in most cases I'd be looking for information on parts I can't identify and not looking up known parts for their tech data. They don't give cross reference information, they give engineering specs of known components. For instance, if I have a drawer full of unknown parts from an unknown manufacturer, those books are of no use, and they would likely only be valuable to an engineer designing a new circuit who is selecting components and trying to determine which IC or which p/n transistor fits their design. They give no way to search backwards though, all listings are by part number not parameter so they won't work as a substitution guide unless you have to competing components in hand and both companies spec books to look each part up in to see if one or the other was a better fit for your project.
I sort of feel that when it comes to audio, a bad component is just generally replaced by part number, any substitution is done simply by what is available and those specs are listed online with any available components. It far easier to just search for a part number to see what its parameters are then to go paging through a dozen books trying to figure out which book it was in 50 years ago.
Comparison wise, the chances of such books being very useful is unlikely mainly because you would have to know the year of production and the very brand who made it to make that comparison.
All of this pretty much makes me thing most of these guides are worth more as kindling or headed for the recycle bin.
When it comes to the other books the range is pretty wide,
A few I did look up found me listings like these: https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Technology-semiconductor-Devices
or
https://www.biblio.com/book/field-effect-transistors
A price on Amazon also does not tell me if anyone actual ever paid that much. I do know there's a few used book stores around that have hoards of similar books for cheap, there's a few 'book exchange' stores around that sell used books for a $1 a piece. I think they began as a place to sell and find school books. There's a few in the area and I called asking if they wanted any of these books and they where not interested. My impression of those placed these days is a huge used book store full of books no one wants. Anything of value is likely put online and what is on the shelf is covered in an inch of dust. I believe the one place used to be a former record shop that closed down in the 80's.
There's a small truck load of similar books, the guys work area walls were lined with book shelves, roughly a 12x16 room with books floor to ceiling. Plus tubs of the spec guides.
The books that already sold were more or less all the circuit design books, all 12x10" 3" thick hard cover books in various editions. Most of those that I looked up were in the $10 range on eBay with very few showing any recent sales.
Some were from this and a few other prior cleanouts of similar places that happened all around the same time. This one though has drawn out for over two years total as the guys daughter has kept bringing me tubs of things she has found. Unfortunately in many cases the tubs are likely worth more than the contents it seems.
Many of the books are heavily notated and marked up, most are full of various equations on many pages, including huge markings on the ends of the books with either his name or what I guess was a room number drawn on the edges in thick red marker. The name on most books is not the name of the guy who had them, chances are he got them second or third hand over the years, although age wise he was more than old enough to have had these when they were current. As I understand, the guy who's house this all came from was an instructor, teacher, or professor of some sort back in the day, but I don't know where or in what field. I seem to remember being told he retired in the early 80's but went back and retired again sometime in the 90's from a different school, the impression I got was that he worked at a college for most of his career and then at a tech school later on.
I'm not sure how much all the markings on the books will hurt any value, but some I've looked up don't look much better sans the big red names or room numbers on the ends. None are marked on the jackets or binding, all are marked on the edges of the pages and within the text itself. Including bookmarks and sheets of paper, many on blank receipts from way back when with all sorts of notes and drawings on them. I don't think I found a single book so far that didn't have some sort of notations scrawled on the page borders all over and every single book has some sort of edge marking in big bold red marker. Not a single book is clean of marking.
Other than notations, none of which are over any text, the binding condition and such is good on all of the books, none are torn up or damaged physically other than the writing on the pages or normal book shelf wear, yellowing from age, or dust.
The books that I pulled out to keep fill two rolling rack cabinets that I have, each one is about 6ft tall and made of hardwood, they made better book shelves than rack cabinets due to their size and industrial grade wheels underneath.
The weight alone of things like books concerns me, having a room full of that many books is a huge weight load in a house and storing them outdoors would no doubt ruin them with humidity.
Having all of these books here has pretty much done me no good for the most part.
The most common need for any tech book for me would be to ID an unknown component or it values, but these do none of that.
I basically deal with repairing old amps and receivers as a hobby, not design or engineering of new components, which is likely the main purpose of most of these books. That and likely as tech training for students. Some of which I do find interesting and thus the two racks of books I set aside.
The OEM spec books are annual editions and for the most part, every year it a copy of the last other than any new additions added each year. The layout is by category and they give anywhere from a half page to three pages of specs on any given part number. The problem is that they were most likely intended as a sales tool or engineering guide. They explain the parameters of a component in detail. but since all of these parts are obsolete today, in most cases I'd be looking for information on parts I can't identify and not looking up known parts for their tech data. They don't give cross reference information, they give engineering specs of known components. For instance, if I have a drawer full of unknown parts from an unknown manufacturer, those books are of no use, and they would likely only be valuable to an engineer designing a new circuit who is selecting components and trying to determine which IC or which p/n transistor fits their design. They give no way to search backwards though, all listings are by part number not parameter so they won't work as a substitution guide unless you have to competing components in hand and both companies spec books to look each part up in to see if one or the other was a better fit for your project.
I sort of feel that when it comes to audio, a bad component is just generally replaced by part number, any substitution is done simply by what is available and those specs are listed online with any available components. It far easier to just search for a part number to see what its parameters are then to go paging through a dozen books trying to figure out which book it was in 50 years ago.
Comparison wise, the chances of such books being very useful is unlikely mainly because you would have to know the year of production and the very brand who made it to make that comparison.
All of this pretty much makes me thing most of these guides are worth more as kindling or headed for the recycle bin.
When it comes to the other books the range is pretty wide,
A few I did look up found me listings like these: https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Technology-semiconductor-Devices
or
https://www.biblio.com/book/field-effect-transistors
A price on Amazon also does not tell me if anyone actual ever paid that much. I do know there's a few used book stores around that have hoards of similar books for cheap, there's a few 'book exchange' stores around that sell used books for a $1 a piece. I think they began as a place to sell and find school books. There's a few in the area and I called asking if they wanted any of these books and they where not interested. My impression of those placed these days is a huge used book store full of books no one wants. Anything of value is likely put online and what is on the shelf is covered in an inch of dust. I believe the one place used to be a former record shop that closed down in the 80's.
There's a small truck load of similar books, the guys work area walls were lined with book shelves, roughly a 12x16 room with books floor to ceiling. Plus tubs of the spec guides.
The books that already sold were more or less all the circuit design books, all 12x10" 3" thick hard cover books in various editions. Most of those that I looked up were in the $10 range on eBay with very few showing any recent sales.
Some were from this and a few other prior cleanouts of similar places that happened all around the same time. This one though has drawn out for over two years total as the guys daughter has kept bringing me tubs of things she has found. Unfortunately in many cases the tubs are likely worth more than the contents it seems.
Many of the books are heavily notated and marked up, most are full of various equations on many pages, including huge markings on the ends of the books with either his name or what I guess was a room number drawn on the edges in thick red marker. The name on most books is not the name of the guy who had them, chances are he got them second or third hand over the years, although age wise he was more than old enough to have had these when they were current. As I understand, the guy who's house this all came from was an instructor, teacher, or professor of some sort back in the day, but I don't know where or in what field. I seem to remember being told he retired in the early 80's but went back and retired again sometime in the 90's from a different school, the impression I got was that he worked at a college for most of his career and then at a tech school later on.
I'm not sure how much all the markings on the books will hurt any value, but some I've looked up don't look much better sans the big red names or room numbers on the ends. None are marked on the jackets or binding, all are marked on the edges of the pages and within the text itself. Including bookmarks and sheets of paper, many on blank receipts from way back when with all sorts of notes and drawings on them. I don't think I found a single book so far that didn't have some sort of notations scrawled on the page borders all over and every single book has some sort of edge marking in big bold red marker. Not a single book is clean of marking.
Other than notations, none of which are over any text, the binding condition and such is good on all of the books, none are torn up or damaged physically other than the writing on the pages or normal book shelf wear, yellowing from age, or dust.
The books that I pulled out to keep fill two rolling rack cabinets that I have, each one is about 6ft tall and made of hardwood, they made better book shelves than rack cabinets due to their size and industrial grade wheels underneath.
The weight alone of things like books concerns me, having a room full of that many books is a huge weight load in a house and storing them outdoors would no doubt ruin them with humidity.
Having all of these books here has pretty much done me no good for the most part.
The most common need for any tech book for me would be to ID an unknown component or it values, but these do none of that.
I basically deal with repairing old amps and receivers as a hobby, not design or engineering of new components, which is likely the main purpose of most of these books. That and likely as tech training for students. Some of which I do find interesting and thus the two racks of books I set aside.
That's quite the price, and indeed it's by Andrew Grove, cofounder of Intel. A quick search shows "bargain" pricing of more than a dozen copies under $20:
https://www.bookfinder.com/search/?...+of+semiconductor+Devices&lang=en&st=xl&ac=qr (click "view all matches combined")
Now that cover is hilarious. For those who won't click, it shows the title "FIELD EFFECT TRANSISTORS" on top of the symbol for a PNP bipolar junction transistor. Kudos for whoever was responsible for the cover (clearly not a TI engineer) to know what a "transistor" symbol looks like. It's almost worth keeping just for the cover. But I've got some 60s/early 70s hardcover TI books I may sell someday, they often go for decent prices.
There are several other TI books for various components that are likely part of a series or set. Not all the same year or size but all TI and all on various components.
Those types of books are small and take up little room, but the tubs full of spec books take up floor and shelf space.
The whole lot of smaller hardback books like the one above would maybe fill two 30" book shelves or so, right now I've got them all stacked into two heavy duty rack cabinets on wheels in a back room for safe keeping until I find a place to put them all.
Some of the older books are pretty cool just to look at, including some of the really early books. Including one that shows a guy using an oscilloscope that appears to be the size of a large microwave oven, but with about a 2" round picture tube.
I got another tub today, after digging through it I found a bunch of these racks of resistors, about 60 of these sets.
Any clue what he may have been doing with them?
A few are mounted on 10x16" 1/4" thick aluminum sheets with angle brackets on all four corners and four racks of these mounted with heat sink compound to each sheet.
There were more of this type of resistor in the bigger cabinets and in box lots as well, in various values.
The same tubs each had a full box of 6 nearly coffee can sized capacitors, each marked 55,000 uF / 500v.
No clue though how old they may be. From the looks of most of this stuff its been sitting for over 30 years.
The big caps though say Made in USA.
Those types of books are small and take up little room, but the tubs full of spec books take up floor and shelf space.
The whole lot of smaller hardback books like the one above would maybe fill two 30" book shelves or so, right now I've got them all stacked into two heavy duty rack cabinets on wheels in a back room for safe keeping until I find a place to put them all.
Some of the older books are pretty cool just to look at, including some of the really early books. Including one that shows a guy using an oscilloscope that appears to be the size of a large microwave oven, but with about a 2" round picture tube.
I got another tub today, after digging through it I found a bunch of these racks of resistors, about 60 of these sets.
Any clue what he may have been doing with them?
A few are mounted on 10x16" 1/4" thick aluminum sheets with angle brackets on all four corners and four racks of these mounted with heat sink compound to each sheet.
There were more of this type of resistor in the bigger cabinets and in box lots as well, in various values.
The same tubs each had a full box of 6 nearly coffee can sized capacitors, each marked 55,000 uF / 500v.
No clue though how old they may be. From the looks of most of this stuff its been sitting for over 30 years.
The big caps though say Made in USA.