Spring cleaning 2024 redux

Yesterday's clean-out of my electronics lab got me so jazzed I kept it up today.

After filling four trash bags with junk yesterday, I kept the momentum with another day of organization and tossing things. Like yesterday, I was reminded of things that I forgot I owned. I also marveled at all the broken electronics I kept, often after doing a tear-down on them for EDN or Electronic Design magazines. Above is the second trash bag I filled today. This was stuff out of a big home-made wooden cabinet I have in the lab. It was good to sort it out.

I can see my broken Ooma VOIP phone box in there. It died after over ten years of use. It looks like the failure mode was the speaker fell out of it's little holder and fell on the circuit board, shorting out the power system.

I hope this cleaning gets even more contagious. It is great going through the room, but I have other rooms with plenty of stuff that needs a hard look. My ascetic friend sent 55 tips from 'Goodbye, things' by Fumio Sasaki.

Today I took on the cabinet in my lab. This was a junk collection spot when I did not have a better place for stuff. s. . This box was a mess, with electronic components, sample boards, and evaluation circuit boards. I kept the small components. .

An Arduino board from Linear Tech, used as a data converter manager, sitting on a cardboard box with and Arduino I got working at Atmel..I tossed them both. I'm an analog guy, after all..

The crappiest lawn sprinkler controller on Earth. I did a video about it at Atmel. Trash.

An LTC2607 demo board. No use for this now that I am not writing magazine articles about the latest and greatest electronic chips.I did look it up, but no, I don't need it.

A big bag of spade terminals that I will never use. If I need some, DigiKey will deliver overnight. .. An old Motorola car radio. People would give me stuff like this to "fix". Almost impossible, so i would take it apart and give it back. That broken Ooma phone base station and a coffee pot that caught fire sitting on my kitchen counter.

The clock in my Frigidaire (aka Electrolux) stove would not set. The home warranty wanted to buy me a cheaper model. I found a used control board on Amazon and fixed it. . The stove control board, some coffee pot parts, and two legs for a TV mounted on the wall. A prototype under-hood lamp that a vendor gave me at Ford Motor in 1980. Time to throw this little memory in the trash..

Part number EOTB-15550-DA, it was revised again before release, but did get used on trucks. . Pretty cool, it had a magnetic strip on the base to hold the light, but was too dim. . So far, so good, I have the first trash bag full. It got pretty heavy, so I hope the trash guys will take it, along with the four from yesterday. I will use the Friday pickup day this week.

Now the cabinet almost looks serviceable. I fit all the electronics in the box on the left, while the broken charger for my lawnmower is on the far right. A Curtis electric car controller will get sold on eBay, and the wooden cribbing might get tossed next round. All the wood got put here until I can get it out to the garage, where it makes more sense..

I still have to go through the lab bench itself. I have a dozen wall warts in there that need to go. All the cardboard boxes are empty now.
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Some test equipment in the closet is going back to California for some friends.
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And now the closet is also serviceable. The test stuff on the shelves will get sold or tossed or given to friends. Rome was not built in a day, and 40 years of junk won't go in a day either. There is a Mackie mixer with a horrible hum that I will probably just junk as well.

Spring cleaning 2024 redux

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