Time for a spring clean? How's your workbench looking?

When building a project, I go thru my boxes and drawers to accumulate parts I might need. The leftovers from the project get thrown in a "to put back" box. Tearing a project down, the parts get thrown into the........"to put back" box. 

#1 - sort thru the "to put back" boxes, and put back into the labeled storage.  :-)

#2 - I also have large tupperware containers for project remnants. Once a year or 2, its good to re-inventory whats there, get rid rid of stuff that really is junk and scrap. Often I rediscover parts that I forgot about, do a memory refresh for upcoming projects.

#3 - mass recharge of all batteries. Get rid of batteries that fail to charge and Lipos that are swelled. 

robogary said:

I also have large tupperware containers for project remnants

I sometimes feel like enclosures are effectively engineering tupperware. Feels like a missed marketing opportunity for all of the containers and boxes available.

Workspace organization is a continuing battle for me.  Due to a recent visit (Mother and Sister) I did a recent cleaning, so things are not as bad as normal, but still needing a bit of work.

depending on type of inventory - more suitable for equipment than components -  (self hosted) GLPI copy could be useful (maybe with some plugin for arbitrary types of equipment), but even spares/consumables could be tracked:

forum.glpi-project.org/viewtopic.php

I'm using the PC way, way more than a soldering iron : ( so have decided to re-do the spare room/office, to be as uncluttered as possible, so I can finally have a nice background for zoom meetings.

I know a lot of people have shelving in their background, but it starts feeling claustrophobic in a small space, so I've gone for a plain wall, but going to hang up some photos. Found this cool thing: https://www.hangingsystems.com/products/stas-minirail-installation-kit-1 

JWx I saw that one, it looks totally unadapted for electronics, looks more like a helpdesk and IT assets management thing. Price is also suited for corporate use, not home business.

For long while I've put parts for a new job into a "Job box" which I then keep ( maybe for 10 years or more). I might raid the job boxes for left over parts but it can get very hard to remember where things are, especially when parts get moved to more recent boxes. Eventually I purge very old job boxes.

In parallel I have always kept standard parts in little drawers or boxes.

I'm moving towards a system where all parts go straight into common storage and the job boxes only contain very specific parts like pcbs  -  this is because I waste too much time looking for parts that I know I have somewhere.

I've just added another 256 little drawers to the system (taking the total up to about 1750). The problem is finding wall space to put them. There is certainly no room for pictures in this space !

The latest 256 drawers. The labels were printed on a second hand Zebra TLP2824 printer which I paid about £30 for. Thanks to  shabaz for recommending them !

The previous batch of 128 drawers were a little larger and filled up in about 3 months.

You can see the carousel thing of drawers in the background. Its quite good but about 3-4 x the price per drawer and takes up a lot of floor space - so I won't be getting any more of them.

MK

My workbench is a disaster.  My small soldering station gave up the ghost so now I'm upgrading to a rework station I won on e14.  MP740131.  The old station took up a little more space than the soldering pencil on the right.

I like the idea of having this on a shelf at the back of the workbench - which would require removing the pegboard full of tools - and pulling the bench out further from the wall, which requires moving the shop light.  Of course, that could give me a better space for for the scope and function generator - but then where do I put all the hand tools?  And all the power outlets?

I've also been looking at some woodworking plans that would have bin arrays on vertical draw out shelves.  It's not as conducive for browsing, but like everyone else... there just isn't that much wall space.

Like kmikemoo my workbench is also currently a disaster.  Funny how life can get away from you.  I had carpal tunnel release surgery on both hands that put me out of commission for a while (at least a good excuse ).  I'm currently traveling but I took a pic of the current state of my workbench from the overhead camera in my workroom.  Little grainy because I can't turn on the lights remotely and the capture is low res.  One of my first projects is definitely spring cleaning but it will probably take me all summer...

it can be installed locally and for free, so the only cost would be the computer running