boguing said:

Just sitting down with the parts books to order seemingly countless numbers of nuts, bolts, washers, bushes etc etc. (New chassis, engine and gearboxes rebuild of my Lightweight).

What I want to do is find the part number, type it into some kind of software with an identifying name so that when I'm a) looking for a part in a large box I can find it, b) when I find a part, look it up to find out what on Earth I bought it for (I have a lot of those already), or c) total up the parts I need.

The obvious thing is just to bung it all into Excel, but if I do that I can't see an easy way of saying that I need four 6mm x 15mm screws for this job and seven of them for that one. Yes. I can enter them separately as if they're different screws, but then I can't sum it and say that I need 28 of them for all the parts that use them.

Someone must have done this without a full scale expensive stocktaking etc package?

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Kwakerman said:

If you added a column with bolt diameter then you could use the 'filter' function in Excel and that would pull up all the bolts of that diameter on the spreadsheet, you can use multiple filters so if you had all the lengths in another column then you can filter by diameter and length. Doing that would list all the bolts of that spec along with their location description. Excel is very good as long as you have a think about what you want to do. I work on the premiss that if you want to do something then Excel can do it, you just need to figure out how.

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Kwakerman said:

If you added a column with bolt diameter then you could use the 'filter' function in Excel and that would pull up all the bolts of that diameter on the spreadsheet, you can use multiple filters so if you had all the lengths in another column then you can filter by diameter and length. Doing that would list all the bolts of that spec along with their location description. Excel is very good as long as you have a think about what you want to do. I work on the premiss that if you want to do something then Excel can do it, you just need to figure out how.

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resto_d1 said:

Plus you could hyperlink them. I've done sheet with parts number and description but when I've put them down in a comments box I've got '4 no. Required for bracket x' etc. Most of my hyperlinked ones go to paddocks page or a exploded assembly diagram which shows or states number required anyway

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boguing said:

Yep. I like that lots of description and filters idea.



Like the hyperlink idea too.

My going to sleep project is to try and think of a way to solve the problem of same parts (mainly screws, nuts and washers) being needed in different places, and yet still having a clue as to why I bought them.

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resto_d1 said:

It is tricky. I put them all in a sandwich bag as soon as they arrive. I.e. 'stub axle bolts ns' etc.

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Ratae said:

I do the same. Black spirit marker pen to write on the bag.
Masking tape to label parts taken off & also on wiring so I know later what goes where & which wire connects to which terminal.

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boguing said:

Think I've cracked it in Excel. I have rows with c1 being the part number, c2-5 being descriptions, c6 is the number needed for that task and c7 will be the hyperlink direct to the page of the parts book.

So I sit with the parts book bashing the info in as I do each page of the parts book, then re-sort the columns by C1 alphabetical and now all the WxxxxxxxL entries are grouped together and I go across to the links and check those parts book pages to see what each group is for.

Edit. Forgive the use of non Excel language, I've hardly used it before. By c1 I mean column 1. Obv should mean column A etc.

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boguing said:

Yep, I'm a cad bloke too.

Just discovering that I need to make a server if I want to use 'my own' pdf. I'd hoped that I could link to summink in one of my clouds, but they don't seem to work like that. (I want to use this at one of several pcs, and maybe even a 'phone, and it seems a better idea to use my own pdf than risk someone moving one on the web and so boogering up my system.

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boguing said:

Mine won't have your Column F. I really really don't want to have the possibility of the wife totalling it.

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boguing said:

Impressive! Although amusing to think that we could both knock that up quicker in Acad than finding the Excel button.

Mine won't have your Column F. I really really don't want to have the possibility of accidentally totalling it.

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Beneagles said:

Edited for the wider community

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Bobsticle said:

You could have had it rebuilt by the time you’ve finished dicking about with an idiots lantern.

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