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I Bought A Radio Shack!


MikeRivers

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Well, not really, but I made you look.

 

Yesterday I was browsing the remains of my local radio shack on the last day of their going out of business sale. I picked through the parts cabinet and got a handful of capacitors and fuses. All the audio conenctors, pots, switches, and semiconductors were gone. I was looking over the one pegboard wall that still had some things hanging on it and picked out the remaing 3 or 4 1/4" to RCA cables and a couple of audio plug adapters when the manager came over and said: "I'll give you everything on the wall and all the remaining parts in the cabinet for $10."

 

So now I have a grocery bag full of the world's most useless button cells (they must be useless if even Radio Shack couldn't sell them), a bag full of 9v and 1 6v wall wart power supplies with the interchangeable tips and a a pile of tips, a big box of BNC and F connectors, and some other miscellaneousl stuff. The Firewire cables would be worth the $10 if I needed any more, though there was a Firewire 800 cable and I don't have one of those, but then I don't have anything with that connector anyway.

 

Fun facts:

1. Most of the power adapter tips had been opened and returned (packages taped or stapled shut), suggesting that people thought they bought the right size, but didn't.

 

2. They had to scan every item (inventory control, I guess). I went out and had lunch, went home and got my car - I had walked over there on my morning walk - and an hour later with two guys working, they were still scanning. Then they had to ring it up, and the printer started printing the receipt. There were probably 400 items on there. We joked about it, and I left before the printer ran out of paper.

 

3. I got $1.40 change from my $10. I left them a 10 dollar bill before I went to lunch to assure them that I wasn't walking away from the deal. The manager realized that there would be tax, and he had put another $2 along with my $10 to cover it, then he left to help close out another local store. They had the total, then scanned the 90% off bar code (the total was a bit over $300 with the closeout discount, then made the price adjustment to $10, and with tax, it was $10.60. They had $12 (my $10 plus the manager's $2) and didn't expect to see that manager again. The guy at the register said he couldn't keep the change since he was an employee, so he handed me back $1.40.

 

Now, what the heck am I going to do with all of those batteries and power supply adapter tips? I don't have anything that needs any of the batteries. I put them up on the local Freecycle board. I wonder if a school could use them. There are three different types of hearing aid batteries - maybe a senior center can find matches for them. Some day I'll sort through all the RF connectors.

 

So, what, if anything, did YOU get at your local Radio Shack closeout sale?

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I know how you feel I probably have a good 500lbs or electronic parts from offices I've worked at and closed down. I even have the parts cabs that held the parts. The one set are solid oak made in the 1930's and worth more then all the parts inside.

 

Radio Shack wall warts are the pits. Don't bother trying to use them on audio stuff or they will be humming badly with AC ripple. The adaptors may come in handy, if you buy used gear and have to get something oddball to work but otherwise?? I don't know anyone who uses BNC connectors in networking any more. All that coaxial stuff for networking is obsolete today. I have a box full of that junk myself I'll never use.

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I'll be they insisted on getting your name and address on the receipt even though it was cash even though they're going out of business...

 

I guess you haven't bought anything at Radio Shack in a long time. They quit that several years ago, since they stopped printing catalogs, I guess.

 

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I know how you feel I probably have a good 500lbs or electronic parts from offices I've worked at and closed down. I even have the parts cabs that held the parts.

 

I was tempted to make them an offer on the parts cabinets, but I only have a regular car and don't have anyone around to help me move them. I'd probably have to store the cabinets in the garage until I got around to figuring out how to use them, and I can't get to the garage until the snow melts, maybe in May, ;)

 

Radio Shack wall warts are the pits. Don't bother trying to use them on audio stuff or they will be humming badly with AC ripple.

 

Oh, these are good ones. They have a high frequency switching power supply and they're really clean and stable, and draw practically no current when they aren't powering anything. Trouble is that there's one 6v supply and four 9v supplies. Phone chargers are usually 3 or 5 volts, and I have some stuff that takes 12 volts. I popped one open this morning to see if maybe there's a resistor or zener diode that sets the output voltage, and that I could change to get different voltages, but they don't work that way. I looked up the switching chip, and it puts out 6 volts as long as the input is within its operating range. The transformers are different for the different output voltages, so they can't be easily modified.

 

I don't know anyone who uses BNC connectors in networking any more. All that coaxial stuff for networking is obsolete today. I have a box full of that junk myself I'll never use.

 

Aha! But I do some RF and video work. Lots of BNCs used there, at least with the stuff I have. I used to work with an engineer who swapped out all the RCA jacks and cables in his home stereo system with BNCs. They make a more solid connection and you can plug them in with the equipment live without getting a blast of hum because the shield makes contact before the signal conductor does.

 

And then there's word clock. Most word clock I/O is on BNC connectors.

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I'm looking in the Greater Detroit area trying to figure out which Radio Shack stores to get the deals at. It seems that there are many that ARE ONLY OPEN ON FRIDAYS ??

 

How odd. The store that I bought the last of (today I'll sort the last of the fuses, and that's it!) had a 20% off sign in the window about 6 weeks before they closed. At the time I asked if that was an indication that they would be closing and the clerks there said that they hadn't yet been told that the store would close. They finally got the word when the discouunt got to 50%, and they held out about 3 weeks after that. But they were open every day during the closeout period.

 

In the first week or two after they admitted that they were closing that store, a lot of the hardware (receivers, DVD players, and such, and probalby all the phones) got shipped to other stores so they never got discounted more than 50%.

 

 

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Yep I found one. I bought a few PC perfboards, 8 knobs, and a XTC-280 sport camera...all for 40% off. I was told that all other stores in the Detroit area were either closed, or not participating in the liquidation.

 

They also had all kinds of display stands for sale...in the $100 range.....a little too rich for my taste.

 

Dan

 

 

 

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They also had all kinds of display stands for sale...in the $100 range.....a little too rich for my taste.

 

Good show! My gut feeling is that they probably would have let me take the parts cabinets. They're pretty nice cabinets and I could replace my cabinet full of cigar boxes of parts with them. Problem is that I was by myself and probalby couldn't carry one, I have an ordinary car, and with all the ice we've had, I couldn't easily get the cabinets to even a temporary place until I decided what to do with them. It would be a major move of a whole lot of small things.

 

Oh, well. I had to stop by the cigar store Saturday and pick up a few more cigar boxes because there were so many RCA plugs and jacks that they overflowed my old box of "Not XLR or 1/4" Audio Connectors."

 

 

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