I the rush to find who took the steppers & electronics off of the PCB Router. We did not notice that the Stereo Microscope is also no longer in the electronics lab. Has anyone see it at the space?
Come on people, this stuff is not yours to just do with as you please. It’s why we can’t have nice things. Do we really need to go to a checkout system for basic stuff like multimeters and tools?
RFID logging on the drawer?
Key-fob access to the room. Cameras all over the damn place, and no tailgating.
That is the #1 most useful piece of equipment in there to me.
+1 to the Key-Fob for room access idea.
How is key fobbing the room going to prevent these thefts?
You have a PM offer to use mine at my shop in Highland Village. Finally got it bolted to the bench tonight… I just need to clean the bench now. 
Key fob entry could at least give you time stamps to look at the cameras.
Once they move the white cabinets to the hallway outside the electronics room, we will be locking up all the tools. You will need to checkout what you want to use. Sad but we cannot afford to let this continue.
Will the tools be locked up invidually, so that a specific user checks out each tool? If not, I do not think this will be any more effective then leaving the tools out (or requiring key fob entry to the room).
The crux of the enforcement issue is that we need to be able to identify the culprit with certainty; however, anything that doesn’t require a check-out of each individual tool by each user leaves out the ability to do that. “No I didn’t touch X, I was using Y and put Y back when I was finished. Never saw X”
Also for something largish like the microscope, having to take the time to check it out, set it up, risk dropping it, etc… greatly reduces its usefulness. I would suggest having it permanently set-up and secured to the desk like you talked about doing with the new test bench from NI.
The white bins are all different sizes and it would be 1 tool per bin. If the user forgets to put it back and it goes missing it’s on them.
Having items stolen makes them hard to use as well as chaining them to the desk. 
I don’t remember if the microscope was DMS’s or not.
It was on loan for a very long time.
I know this is a long shot, but is it possible the owner took the scope because they needed it for something?
I personally believe we are dealing with the pains of bad decisions we have made in the past. Once Electronics is clean and is run under a more watchful eye, I believe these issues will at least lessen in frequency. In cleaning and organizing we are just now noticing issues which may have piled up for months without response. I would suggest that we not lock every tool away, but instead try and be verbal about what is really happening. If we don’t know when something left, was miss placed or in worst case stole then say that, rather than shouting into the void which is our Talk forum that you have been attacked.
Unless you can target the party at fault the aggressive stances of fix your behavior or lose your toys just doesn’t work at the DMS. Targeting the membership as a whole just makes your area less likely to be used by the membership as a whole because it makes all mistakes seem malicious.
Thanks for all your work on the electronics room Ken. I really feel like your recent actions and other were a difficult and much needed step in the right direction for the electronics room.
May I suggest cable locks on all the higher dollar pieces of equipment that are somewhat portable. Luckily the HAAS and the Multicam are less than easily portable.
Although cable locks make the equipment less usable. Tools that someone has walked out the door with are even less useful than that. Checkout is proned to people forgetting to check the tools back in again.
@nick, I’m trying to not take what you said as an insult. Are you offering up to make better decisions? Because I did not decide to chair electronics so I can spend my time trying to weed out shitty people.
Yes we had lots of clutter but the microscope spent most of it’s time in full view of the camera. BTW, here is what it looks like. Too bad the footage does not go back far enough to see the day/time it moved. Did I also mention that the label maker is missing too?! Someone said it went out to the workshop to label tools. If so we would like it back.
Problem is, people move tools around all the time. It drives me nuts but we don’t have funds to outfit every bench the same way. I do not have time to watch the security camera feed all day to see where each item is going and coming back. Also the system is not really effective enough to watch in high speed after the fact. Do we need someone to sit in the corner and be a lab monitor?
What method do I have to communicate except for talk or hangouts. I guess we could post missing tool wanted posters up in the hallway by electronics. Not sure that would be helpful, considering how much we like signs and how ineffective they are. The person who took the tool is not going to feel guilty and bring them back. We need people who use the lab to take care of the lab. Otherwise it will just turn into a bunch of workbenches with no useful tools.
We have a few options: 1) If we catch someone, they need to be escorted out by the police in full view of the membership. 2) We can chain every item to a desk and make everyone look like they are working in a prison kitchen. 3) Or we can lock everything over $75 in an RFID cabinet.
It’s sad that this is an issue we have to deal with.
Hey lamp,
I wasn’t trying to call you decisions into question. I was talking about the decisions of taking in bulk parts and clutter which go all the way back to the old space. You’ve made the decision to break that pattern and I commend you for following through on it. I also don’t want these lost misplaced or stolen tools to have as negative an effect on the space as they seem to have. I believe we are taking the steps currently to correct the issues by cleaning up and getting a second camera to cover blind spots. We just have to get through the back log of issues that were part of all the clutter.
Also, we have a process for distributing the need for you to look over all the camera footage. We open a ticket and ask for access, then you just have to approve the request.
So I’m willing to help on that front now and in the future.
Again, thanks for correcting a large issue in the electronics area and I believe that large step will have lasting effect on the area.
I will be seeking a replacement Stereo Microscope. The scope was pretty useful for many members.
Option 1 ($380): Trinocular Scope with Camera
This most closely resembles the microscope that is missing.
Option 2 ($225): Binocular Scope
Same but without camera.
We could get by with a good USB scope. The price difference would let us get several.
I have the feeling that this was more recent. We got looted dude, straight up.
Maybe somebody decided that since nobody could figure out who took one of the machines apart and walked off with half of it, other stuff was ‘fair game’. Maybe the same butthole helped himself to everything over the course of a few days.
But I don’t get the feeling that things have been walking off like this regularly. We still have those nice oscilloscopes fingers crossed that would be my #1 take if I were a poor scumbag looking for either resale value OR to feed my electronics habit.
I remember the microscope was there in plain sight on bench #3 when we did the parts cleanup. I did not follow up on the label maker since someone mentioned there was one in the machine shop.
[quote=“Lampy, post:17, topic:7833”]
I will be seeking a replacement Stereo Microscope.
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Be sure that whatever you get, it is a floating-head microscope with the longest objective you can find that doesn’t have that big base under it. That’s really important so that you can get soldering iron and hot-air tools under there, and also for adjusting it up higher when the circuit board is attached to something with some height.
