[Hplusroadmap] Equipment acquisition for homebrewers

[Kevin Koym]

when i lived in Palo Alto, there were "swap meets" where some parking lot
(quite seriously, just in the middle of an open parking lot) people would
just bring their junk out... talk about it a little bit, and you could buy
stuff from each other.  it was like a flea market- but only for high end
stuff...  (e.g. an oscilliscope, etc). I have never found this in Austin,
but I think that there is enough hardware around in this town that something
like this could easily happen.  look around to see if someone has started
one- and if not, you might consider organizing one (somewhere north of UT
seems like it would make a lot of sense).

let me know what you find.
Kevin

On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 9:04 AM, Bryan Bishop <kanzure at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey all,
>
> I'm wondering about methodologies for acquiring interesting, unique,
> useful, or 'maybe it will one day be useful' equipment (junk).
> Obviously going through the normal routines of Radio Shack and
> electronic shops isn't really going to get you much these days.
> Digikey, Mouser, etc., can do some electronic componentry, but I'm
> thinking more in terms of shop/lab equipment, and for cheap.
>
> So here's the question. How do you, particularly, go about acquiring
> hardware that you work with ? The materials? The tools? I know that
> many of you have very, very interesting toys that you play with, and my
> collection is iffy at the moment. I've seen various suggestions around
> the web to just keep trolling ebay, craigslist and the newspaper, but
> this results only in so much. There's also been that occasional
> suggestion to go dumpster diving.
>
> I'm interested in constructing a few general programs that facilitate
> the acquisition of this sort of equipment. For instance, I could spend
> my time clicking around on ebay and craigslist waiting for something
> interesting to pop up and catch my attention, or I could even more
> easily write a program that monitors for certain items (even though I
> don't entirely know what I am looking for) and various prices,
> locations, whatever. This would be fine if I knew the locations to
> monitor. I just don't know how people with very massive accumulations
> of 'junk' actually get that way without paying a fortune for each and
> every item. Is there some sort of secret club for cool equipment? I'm
> doubting it -- but there certainly should be, yes.
>
> So the program that I am writing would go search the databases on a
> periodic basis, and then return results that may or may not be
> interesting. The routines for this are pretty simple to construct, but
> I'm not entirely sure of where to start searching. Where could I get a
> full list of shops and suppliers and so on for any city in the world,
> for instance? And what about websites and such listings? Does anybody
> have that sort of information besides a printed (text-only) phone book?
> I'd like to avoid print publications, but if I have to I'll look into
> some.
>
> I'd like to hear any stories that you might have. Electronics,
> metalworking, biotech equipment, anything. It looks like the main issue
> is that you have to actually need a component for some project, and
> this eventually results in finding something locally available, but at
> the same time I'm sure there are other ways to creatively enhance your
> set of tools and stuffs, yes?
>
> I'm sending this off to a handful of different mailing lists, so there's
> a reason why the context may seem a little odd for anybody listening.
>
> - Bryan
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Kevin Koym
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