Arghhh, I need to get more organized

MichaelMeissner

Senior Member+
This is just a rant.

I buy things every so often and put them in one of my someday boxes, but when it comes to actually using the feature, the someday box has disappeared. And it doesn't help that I was about 1/2 way (maybe 1/3 way or 1/4 way) done organizing things when I needed to clean up the man cave (err, living room), so I threw everything else into multiple boxes. So I really have to get back to cleaning and organizing things to find what I'm looking for.

In particular, I bought an Adafruit Featherwing INA219 along with a standalone INA219 with the goal of building a volt/amp-meter that can measure peak volts, amps, and watts on powered gear. Well, I want to measure how much power my my micro-4/3rds E-m5 mark III camera uses via a dummy battery doing different operations, and I want to build a setup where I can feed it the 7.4-9v power and have the Teensy tell me what the peak amps/watts were

I have several volt/amp meters that will tell me the instantaneous voltage and amps, but there I have to mentally track what the highest amps are, which can be tricky if I need to operate the camera at the same time.

One of my meters connects to a cell phone via bluetooth and it can graph the results, and even create a table of values, that I can export to my computer. But this meter is limited to 5v/USB input only. I do have a setup where I can boost the 5v/2.1a USB to 9v/1a after running it through the meter, so I can use that if need be. But I would rather use the voltage that the camera sees.

Finally, I have another meter that also connects to my cell phone via bluetooth, and it can handle voltages in the 3.6 - 32v range. This meter is very handy in that you can feed in USB micro-B, USB-C, or 5.5mm x 2.1mm power, and it has similar options for output. But the display software on the cell phone is rather lacking. There is a graph on the cellphone, but I can't seem to zoom in on the range that I want to look at. So, I'm left with trying to guess, was that peak amps 0.3 or 0.4a?

So now I need to find one of the INA219's.
 
I don't understand ;)

Maybe if you keep a neat desktop, like mine ;)
IMG_1226.jpg

And I am not going to show picture of table next to it, nor bookcase or cabinets...

I just don't understand how anyone could misplace something :lol:
 
Check out yard sales and flea markets. Get a bunch of cigar boxes to keep your stuff in. Stack them and put category labels on the box ends.
 
Check out yard sales and flea markets. Get a bunch of cigar boxes to keep your stuff in. Stack them and put category labels on the box ends.

I have lots and lots of boxes, and a label maker. The trick is to put everything in the boxes, and then don't lose the box. And don't put things into one box, with the hope of getting to it 'someday'.
 
I don't understand ;)

Maybe if you keep a neat desktop, like mine ;)
View attachment 21542

And I am not going to show picture of table next to it, nor bookcase or cabinets...

I just don't understand how anyone could misplace something :lol:

WOW! and I though this was bad:

IMG_20200830_182004_6.jpg

I guess you have it all indexed:)
I don't feel so bad now. That is a lot of stuff. Makes me appreciate what you really do:)
 
Well, I'm starting to go through all of the combined boxes, and sort things out. But I guarantee I will find it shortly as I just bought 2 more from fleabay :D

But in terms of boxes, this won't be complete but:
  • One rolling cart with 5 14x11x4" drawers (all drawers are allocated, including one 'other');
  • One rolling cart with 10 14x11x2 drawers (9 drawers are allocated);
  • 4x containers with 16 4x6 photo boxes in each (perhaps 60 out of 64 photo boxes have stuff sorted into it)
  • 2x ArtBin boxes with various sizes of compartments, some are large enough for Teensy 3.6/4.1's (1 filled so far)
  • 2x organizer boxes for screws (5x7 1x2x4" compartments in each), all compartments filled
  • At least 6 other organizer boxes with various sized components (mostly filled)
  • 2 shoeboxes (one with sound, one with neopixel stuff)
  • Several medium sized food plastic containers with specific stuff
  • 2 24x16x14" large containers of unsorted stuff
  • 3 16x14x12 medium containers of unsorted stuff (1 is now empty)
  • Several small/medium plastic containers with unsorted stuff
  • A rolltop desk that I use a soldering station (rolltop to keep cats out) that may have various projects strewn about
  • Computer desk that now that I'm working from home is filled with monitors and computers
  • 2 counter tops of stuff (mostly cleared out, but some still remains unsorted)

My memory is the INA219 were filled with other feather accessories. I have one box that I've seen with the various feather boards, but it doesn't have the INA219 boards in it, so I may be missing another box.

On the rolling cart with 10 drawers, I have one drawer for jumper wires, one drawer for solid wire for soldering, and one drawer for stranded wiring for soldering. My wife came into the living room, and saw the label for stranded wire, and said I should let it out. ;)
 
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WOW! and I though this was bad:

View attachment 21543

I guess you have it all indexed:)
I don't feel so bad now. That is a lot of stuff. Makes me appreciate what you really do:)
Actually it is not always this bad, and it is not as bad as it looks. It just in this last week or two have been jumping back and forth on doing my own stuff, plus trying to help out. So there were 5 breadboards on them with jumpers looking like going everywhere, plus questions on ST77xx displays this week so I think I have something like 7 or 8 on my desk. Some of them go into the breadboards, others into one of the boards I put a connector for Adafruit like displays...

Plus working on some USB BT support off and on. like there is a version of USB Host shield code that works on XBox One controllers, so I have an Arduino Uno setup with one now. So I have a PS3, PS4, 2 XBox ones and a switch controller on desk. Plus stuff for Lynxmotion Robot, like an XBee adapter and servo ...

Well, I'm starting to go through all of the combined boxes, and sort things out. But I guarantee I will find it shortly as I just bought 2 more from fleabay :D

Yes - Always the case. When you order a new one, you for sure will find the ones you were missing :D
 
I don't understand ;)

Maybe if you keep a neat desktop, like mine ;)
View attachment 21542

And I am not going to show picture of table next to it, nor bookcase or cabinets...

I just don't understand how anyone could misplace something :lol:

I love this thread.

I know not of this " organization " of which you speak...

Something something cluttered desk cluttered mind empty desk empty mind...

I'll be honest here...

9AA3BA99-B0F7-4B81-8F6B-9041647D6CCE.jpeg
Desk

AC06CF52-D316-4D53-AFA1-0620A1955544.jpeg
Work table ( relatively clear ahem... )

F6D50E3D-F0B7-4FDB-9ABE-0FAE63C8EC68.jpeg
Work in progress nook 1

20843D61-2581-41BB-BFD7-EE9A4C26FA86.jpeg
Work in progress nook 2 ( aka "limbo" )

And... the cliffs of insanity:
3404E057-23F5-4EF1-AC76-4279DA9338C2.jpeg
E8B8B622-93EB-48F3-9A93-654BDC742246.jpeg
E6AF5BE7-C4D3-4447-8599-D90EA464EEEE.jpeg
6A1CDA65-3832-466B-AEFA-E9BFA1BCC5E2.jpeg

I get boxes, I get those plastic drawer-thingies, they get *filled*.
It could be worse, it could be fan memorabilia. Or beanie babies.
 
Well yes, there is the other stuff as well. I have one dresser with 7 drawers (all filled) and one large space that some of the boxes go in:
  • 2 drawers to hold my current cameras, lenses, etc. I'm going to have to move the chargers out to another box shortly;
  • 2 drawers for all of my USB, HDMI, DVI, audio cables (plus one of the large boxes mentioned earlier for just computer stuff and power strips);
  • 1 drawer for crafting materials;
  • 1 drawer for dodadds to make into steampunk props; and
  • 1 drawer for eyeglasses/sunglasses, including several older glasses whose prescription is old enough that I need to recycle.

And two tables (one rolling, one folding) that mostly have stuff on them.
 
I was lucky enough to start accumulating these interlocking drawers many decades ago. (I was also lucky enough to add a whole bunch more when my father downsized his workshop.) I'd love to get even more, but you know you're getting old when you sigh and say "but they just don't make them anymore".

drawers.jpg

They are an immense help to keeping my bench clean. Though in a building session, I'll usually have several out of them out and scattered around the table. The trick is to put them back at the end, and yeah, I have to re-learn that lesson periodically.

bench.jpg

And even so, I still manage to lose things (mostly by not filing them right away). And every so often I'll come across things that I'd stashed away and forgotten about.
 
I've completely forgotten when I started telling myself "No, it isn't memory loss, just that the mind is so full of good ideas that there is simply no room to remember where important stuff is".
 
I can relate to this! I keep things in boxes. But I spread the boxes out between my office, the garage, the shop, etc. And then there are the things that were in boxes that I take out and never put back. And the things that I discover when looking for other things I know I have somewhere. And all the unopened things from Adafruit and SparkFun that were bought with the best of intentions. And the broken things that probably should be thrown away. The list goes on ... :D
 
As expected, after buying a pair of the sensors from ebay, I did find one of the INA219 chips I had bought previously last night. I found the stand-alone version. I haven't found the featherwing version.

The replacement ones I bought from ebay are expected next Tuesday according to the post office (and still Saturday according to the ebay page).
 
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As a minor follow-up, I still could not find the featherwing version of the INA219, but my local MicroCenter had one, and I picked it up, along with a replacement mark II 128x32 OLED screen (the mark I required an explicit reset pin on the Teensy, and the mark II fixed this). I now have it wired up, and I'm starting to write the monitoring program.

I noticed Adafruit now has come out with a 128x64 OLED featherwing, so I bought it. I hadn't bought anything recently from Adafruit directly, and I was surprised that the UPS ground charges had gone up. In the past the ground charges were on the order of $8, but now it was $15-16. For a $24 order that is rather a lot.

So I went with the USPS option for $5. However, I don't see that the USPS has picked up the item yet, though Adafruit claims to have shipped it. I've seen this before where the USPS just seems to lose the tracking, but it does deliver it.
 
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