Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Smart Motors

Jon Anderson wrote:

> Jon Elson wrote:
>
> > Ahh, right near Wierd Stuff Warehouse!
>
> My best memory of Weird Stuff was when they were across the street
> from
> Frys. There were three Russians running around stuffing a shopping
> cart
> full of stuff. In particular, I recall one fellow running up to the
> cart
> with a huge bundle of miniature hall effect sensors with about 12"
> leads. He jabbered excitedly to his buddies while showing his find.
> Dawned on me, that this surplus, being sold for pennies on the dollar,
>
> was a veritable -gold mine- for them, much of this stuff probably
> wasn't
> available to them in Russia at any price.

Just before they moved, they had a deal with Boeing Asset Recovery (or
something like
that) selling off hi-end test gear from a cage in the east half of the
store. There was just
incredible stuff there. I bought a bunch of smaller items, but was
drooling over all the
neat gear.

> Is Weird Stuff still over near the Sunnyvale dump? Do they still carry
>
> any mechanical type stuff? I'm coming down for the machine tool show
> in
> Santa Clara in a couple weeks and they're not far off my route. Wonder
>
> if it's worth the time to detour, or if I should devote my time to the
>
> show.

I was last at Wierd Stuff a couple of years ago. They are in a couple
of storefront/warehouse
units off Matilda, and not real easy to find. I drove from one end of
Matilda to the other
several times before I finally saw their sign. I got several GREAT
deals, including the
monitor I'm watching to type this letter. They have all sorts of junk,
but mostly computer
gear. If you are looking for mechanical, there is Alltronics, on
Zanker. It is a big warehouse
filled with racks of small parts, but they have a lot of motors, fans,
air cylinders, all sorts
of stuff that could be of use to the CNC and/or robotics experimenter.
The super-small
SumTak 1000 cycle-rev encoders I am using on my CNC came from there.
(No, sorry,
I bought all 3 they had!)

> Jon (the other other Jon)<G>

Oh, this IS geting confusing!

I'm in the St. Louis, MO area, so I only get out to the Silicon Valley
area on rare
occasions. Our experimental apparatus was moved to Argonne Labs (near
Chicago)
a few years ago. It is now back at LBL in Berkeley, so I may eventually
get another
trip out west! But, I keep close track of going on at these places, as
they are
gold mines, for sure!

Jon