Storage Hierarchy

The Hackspace has a store for various kinds of components and materials for hacking with. There is not yet a storage scheme for everything - but there is a hierarchy of different kinds of storage: a small quantity of something goes in a small drawer and as we acquire more of it it migrates to ever larger storage containers.

Not entirely useful, but we will make improvements as we go on.

There are the following storage containers in frequent use at the Hackspace. By restricting the number of different containers we should be able to create an ordered system in time.

Small Items

For example, electronic components of various kinds. These are stored in grey metal-framed racks containing 40 small clear styrene drawers, sometimes divide fore-and-aft to make multiple smaller units.

Example:

We have just acquired a large quantity of these racks, and the example shown will be the location for hardware items such as screws, nuts and bolts. The existing pair of racks over the electronics bench will be supplemented by 4 or 5 more, so that the entire small electronic component stock is contained within them (the other storage, LinBins, etc. will in time be migrated to other areas).

Bigger items

We have some double-width drawers for the grey racks, and these will be used in the Electronics area for larger items. None will be used for workshop hardware as it would be too easy to overload them (excess larger hardware, e.g. woodscrews, can be kept in the suppliers' card boxes until space becomes available)

Larger Quantities of Items

The next level of storage is SMA tins. These are easy to manage as a sub-divider for Anchor Trays as shown:

[[File::Anchor tray with SMA tins.jpg|300px]]

SMA tins (and Green Tops) if not better organised are kept in one oversize shelf of the metal racking:

Anchor Trays can also contain moderate stocks of an item, especially where larger quantities would become too heavy to handle - for example power packs, or kettle leads. They can also contain multiple, random, collections of items in GreenTops. There is a bay of the metal racking behind the electronics area set aside for Anchor Trays with the shelves at the optimum spacing.

The Biggest Stores

These are 24litre capacity PolyTubs and are kept in the wooden racking in the workshop. The racking is only part-full, and as more storage is required we can buy more of the tubs to fill it.

Miscellaneous Storage.

There is a large number of IKEA green-topped plastic containers. As these are sold as a package of varying sizes, they create something of a difficulty when planning ordered storage, so they are generally no longer recommended. The existing GreenTops will be found performing various functions around the 'space, but not generally as part of the Storage Hierarchy.