How many pedals do you usually work on at one time?

[GermanCdn]

Somewhere between six and ten in the winter, 2 to 4 in the summer.  Why the seasonal difference you might ask?  My drill press is in the garage, and it's bloody cold here in the winter, so I do my drilling on warm days, and stockpile builds between then.  Currently have 16 in progress, it's been a cold month.

[culturejam]

Usually one new build, one or two repairs / mods, and 3-5 circuit/design projects.

[bcalla]

Anyone keep an inventory of their components in a software program that allows you to plug in a new BOM to see what you "have" vs what you are "missing"? I keep fantasizing about this. Maybe it's overkill for just a hobby and not mass production but it still sounds like it would be a lot of help.

I often thought this would be a good idea.  I don't think it's overkill.  I've been building pedals and other electronics off & on for 6-7 years, and I've accumulated a pretty substantial inventory.  I reorganized the way I store resistors last weekend, and realized that I have almost 80 values.  Never mind caps, pots, ICs, etc.  I sometimes order things I already have or neglect to order things I need.  I tried tracking in Excel, but that got out of hand pretty quickly.

A couple of years ago I searched the web for free inventory software.  I thought that since there are several free options for board layout, maybe someone had developed an inventory system for hobbyists.  At that time I came up blank.  Everything that seemed to be free was really either a limited time trial or a crippled demo.

What I recently decided to try was to pull all the parts for new boards (minus enclosure & stomp switch) into a 'kit' so that when I go to build something I'm not disappointed to find that I don't have one or more components.  I haven't really done this yet, so I don't know how it will work.  It will take some time and investment, since I have a pretty large backlog of boards.

[peAk]

Anyone keep an inventory of their components in a software program that allows you to plug in a new BOM to see what you "have" vs what you are "missing"? I keep fantasizing about this. Maybe it's overkill for just a hobby and not mass production but it still sounds like it would be a lot of help.

I often thought this would be a good idea.  I don't think it's overkill.  I've been building pedals and other electronics off & on for 6-7 years, and I've accumulated a pretty substantial inventory.  I reorganized the way I store resistors last weekend, and realized that I have almost 80 values.  Never mind caps, pots, ICs, etc.  I sometimes order things I already have or neglect to order things I need.  I tried tracking in Excel, but that got out of hand pretty quickly.

A couple of years ago I searched the web for free inventory software.  I thought that since there are several free options for board layout, maybe someone had developed an inventory system for hobbyists.  At that time I came up blank.  Everything that seemed to be free was really either a limited time trial or a crippled demo.

What I recently decided to try was to pull all the parts for new boards (minus enclosure & stomp switch) into a 'kit' so that when I go to build something I'm not disappointed to find that I don't have one or more components.  I haven't really done this yet, so I don't know how it will work.  It will take some time and investment, since I have a pretty large backlog of boards.

this sums up pretty much how I feel. I find myself ordering stuff I already have (not a big deal) and not ordering stuff I do need (super annoying)

I would like to look and see if I can find some freeware that would do the trick.

Your idea of organizing "kits" before you build is great also. I might start going this route if I can't find any software.

[flanagan0718]

Anyone keep an inventory of their components in a software program that allows you to plug in a new BOM to see what you "have" vs what you are "missing"? I keep fantasizing about this. Maybe it's overkill for just a hobby and not mass production but it still sounds like it would be a lot of help.

I often thought this would be a good idea.  I don't think it's overkill.  I've been building pedals and other electronics off & on for 6-7 years, and I've accumulated a pretty substantial inventory.  I reorganized the way I store resistors last weekend, and realized that I have almost 80 values.  Never mind caps, pots, ICs, etc.  I sometimes order things I already have or neglect to order things I need.  I tried tracking in Excel, but that got out of hand pretty quickly.

A couple of years ago I searched the web for free inventory software.  I thought that since there are several free options for board layout, maybe someone had developed an inventory system for hobbyists.  At that time I came up blank.  Everything that seemed to be free was really either a limited time trial or a crippled demo.

What I recently decided to try was to pull all the parts for new boards (minus enclosure & stomp switch) into a 'kit' so that when I go to build something I'm not disappointed to find that I don't have one or more components.  I haven't really done this yet, so I don't know how it will work.  It will take some time and investment, since I have a pretty large backlog of boards.

I recently started an inventory myself. I am using google docs (for now, until I find something better) that way I can access it on my phone. I have a sheet for resistors, caps, pots, diodes, transistors/ICs, and hardware. It's kind of cumbersome but I think I'll start pulling the parts for boards and throwing them in a "Kit" bag as well. That way I can "take them out of stock" and still have an accurate count.

[culturejam]

The inventory software thing is a good idea in theory, but I find it to be cumbersome to implement with any degree of accuracy. I'd be spending a big chunk of time adjusting the inventory counts. I guess it can work for some people who enjoy that level of control, but I'm way too laid back for that. I've got maybe a couple hundred part types/values. That's a lot of admin work for a lazy sod like me. 

What I do is a periodic "threshold" inventory check. If I have less than 20 of a resistor value, for example, I mark it down for my next order.

As for a program that matches what you have on hand with circuits you could build, Rob Nagoda and I hashed out some ideas a few years ago. The programming part of it was easy. The data entry part was very tedious, so we just scrapped the idea. *Somebody* would have to manually key in to a database the BOMs for each circuit that the software would use to compare your parts with. This would be several hundred to start with. You would also have to keep an accurate database of your current inventory. And then there's the issue of adding new circuits to the master DB: do you have it online and let anyone add to it (which would turn into a mess in a hurry)? Do you push updates with new circuits? Do you ship the software "empty" and let people enter all of the data themselves?

It ended up being a total mess. So we dropped the idea.

[pickdropper]

I think the inventory thing works better if you are building the same things over and over.  Then it becomes worth the time setting up a BOM and having an inventory system that subtracts the parts for each work order.

For DIY, often each build is unique, so an inventory system involves a ton of manual processing.  It might work for some folks, but when I've tried it , I found it to take more time than I felt was worth it.

[GermanCdn]

I tried to be organized with a personal inventory spreadsheet, but wayyyyy too much work to maintain.  I've got a pretty good idea at which point I need to order stuff, so I keep the order notebook close at hand when I build, and if I notice I'm running below where I should be, I add it to the list and place an order when the list is long enough.  If I run into a jam, I'll order individual things off of ebay with free shipping.  That being said, I always run short on 1 uF box caps no matter how many I order.

[peAk]

I do think the software thing could work and be useful although it would be a pain in the butt to type in a BOM everytime you started a new build to check it out of stock.

On the other hand, it's just super irritating to have to stop three or four builds because you are missing something when you just received or placed an order a day ago.

Seems just as tedious to go through a complete BOM making sure you have every capacitor, resistor, etc. before you build a kit. Nobody wants to place an order for three or four things to Smallbear, Mouser, etc.

So I guess it boils down to what's more tedious or annoying to you. Not having stuff onhand and stopping/starting builds or entering in BOMS and shipment invoices into a software before a build.

[jkokura]

I'd rather have an iPhone or iPad app personally... But I'd also like to be able to create BOMs for projects and have it compare itself to my inventory and tell me what I need.

But that said - setting it up would be cumbersome and time consuming. Only useful for a small number of people...

Jacob

[bcalla]

I was thinking of an inventory system like the one I used when I owned a small business.  Yes, it would be a PITA to enter balances to get started.  I typically don't build multiples of the same pedal, so I didn't think of creating BOMs.  But any inventory system would allow you to create a pick list - or even a sales order - to reduce inventory balances as you used components.  And POs to track part orders and to replenish inventory.  Then you could see the actual balance of any item at any time.  Once we had it set up at my business, I didn't find it difficult to keep current.

When I originally searched, I tried a demo of a product called inflow.  That would definitely do the trick, but it wasn't free...

[selfdestroyer]

I have been looking at a inventory system off and on for the past year and I keep going back to ecDB http://www.ecdb.net/about.php I like the way you can enter in "projects" and it will take the parts out of your inventory. You can also enter in manufacture part numbers so essentially you can import a project and get a CSV bom that you can use Mousers tools to import in the BOM to order parts. I have installed ecDB a few times and played around with it but it seems like it needs a bit more work. Its open source  but has not seen much activity as of yet https://github.com/ElectricMan/ecDB . Maybe we can pick around with it and turn it into something we all can use. I can toss it up on my Bluehost account to play with if you guys want to.

This is how I see it work:
Enter all inventory into ecDB.
Enter in projects (maybe a standard in build docs will help with this in the future)
start a project and see if any parts are missing
use Mouser tools to import missing parts for order

Cody

[jkokura]

If a program/app existed, I would, as a PCB supplier, be willing to create BOM files that could be uploaded/downloaded into the app to compare against existing inventories. If there were a way to create these BOM files for the various project providers, that could be something. It would have to be some sort of universally available and open program/app I think.

Jacob

[selfdestroyer]

If a program/app existed, I would, as a PCB supplier, be willing to create BOM files that could be uploaded/downloaded into the app to compare against existing inventories. If there were a way to create these BOM files for the various project providers, that could be something. It would have to be some sort of universally available and open program/app I think.

Jacob

That would be awesome. I have tried to use Adobe Acrobat Pro to use OCR to pull out BOMs but its a but spotty since there is no real "standard" for part names like:

100K
100 K
A100K
100KA

ect...

I would not mind doing it by hand if they were to be used.

Cody