Resistor madness

In response to a message about a donation of a large quantity of 16.9K resistors to the 6502 Group, Scot K. Anderson replied with a story of an unusual usage of resistors:

This reminds me of a story, a cautionary tale. When Crump Electronics went out of buisness a buddy called and said “lets go get some resistors”. “I bet we can get 100 of every value, won’t that be cool”. So we went down and looked at what was there and talked with Dabney Crump. He said he wasn’t interested in pulling resistors and that was that or so I thought. My buddy went back and asked if he could pull the resistors himself. The answer was “I will sell you all I got for $400!”. Well some deals are too good to be true and this was one.

Three FULL SIZED PICKUP LOADS of boxes latter, my buddy’s living room was super insulated with TWO layers, floor-to-ceiling stacks of boxes around the entire perimeter. You had to crawl over the back of the couch to watch TV, there was NO room on the side. Each box was filled with 6 to 8 (memory has kindly faded) qty 5000 spools of resistors and there were 100s of boxes, we estimated someting like 2 to 3 MILLION resistors! I felt sorry for the guy, gave him $200 and said I would take 1/2. Oh boy!!!! The peice part price was good – holy crap.

I spent that winter reeling off spools of resistors and loading them into my Camry and hauling them home. At home I made 8 boxes. Five had 3′ off each spool unless they were duplicates – we had LOTS of duplicates (see below). One had 6′ off each spool (my box)and two got the remainder. When done I had two copier paper boxes full of taped resistors, (no spools) for my self, 5 single boxes of resistors to give away or sell and two piles of crap to try to dump. In addition, I heated my house that winter by burning the spools and boxes and resistors that would no longer stay on the tapes and were not worth the plastic bag to put them in.

I sold all five boxes for $35 to friends for a total of $175. I donated one pile of crap to Arapahoe Community College and deducted $0.0025 per resistor neting me ~$25 – $30 back on my income taxes. Its nice when Uncle gives you a break even proposition. I gave the rest away to a ham radio club where there are even bigger pack-rats than myself.

Now for the best part – Rich I include this especially for you. As I mentioned it was winter, I was driving a Camry and I had boxes of resistors packed into every square inch. As it turns out, Crump had garnered a corner on 470K 1/4W resistors. Memory is not so good here, probably blocked by some unconsious agony, but there where atleast 5 boxes of spools of 470Ks (That may have been just my cut after separation and trips to the dumpster). One day with my car full of 470K, honest officer, these are resistors, I was driving home up 285 when a NASTY snow storm blew up. Front wheel drive, I was doing OK until some Yahoo stopped. That was it, I was stuck like a hog-on-ice – not too far from the truth. The guy behind me pulled up real nice and close so I couldn’t back up. I finally got out and told him he hadn’t left me enough room to back up and I couldn’t put my chains on, he would have to push me so I could get to the outer lane, which was not being used so I could get my chains on. He grumbled something, I said I had no place to go, we could wait for spring, and he pushed (revenge is a dish best served cold – and it was COLD with the added indignity of wet).

Just after I pulled over and was trying to figure how I was going to get my chains out, buried under TONS of 470K, the snow plow went by dropping sand. I no longer needed my chains but was still stuck on the ice in the unplowed lane. I could back up so I could get a little angle on the gradient but not enough to get ANY traction – you couldn’t even walk on this S&%T it was so slippery. In blinding inspiration, I laid a track of 470Ks from my front tires to the sandy part of the road, waited for a break in traffic and charged, worked like a charm, I always carry a couple rolls of 470Ks in the back just in case. I imaginethe next snow plow pushed the whole mess into the ditch where that summer some hiker or road paving crew found them muttering “What the F^&K are these and what are they doing here!?!?!”. Well I do live a rich fantasy life, but the story is true as I live and breathe and I bet if you walk up the right hand side of 285 you can still find remnants of my escape.

Scot

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3 Responses to Resistor madness

  1. Les Hildenbrandt says:

    I miss DH Crumps, and Micro World before them. When did they finally go out of bussiness? It was allways a treat to go in that multisided round building with buckets catching the dripping water everywhere. I just looked at http://www.dhcrump.com. I bet its the same guy.

    I left Denver in 84, but made many a trip to there between about 78 when I discovered them and 84.

    I wonder if Gateway is still in bussiness. They used to be at about 44th and Federal, and had in infinite supply of Easter egg dye envelopes to put parts in. Later they moved downtown, and eventualy back to about 20th and Federal. I dropped in at the 20th and Federal location once not to long ago (probably 20 years ago….). Recently I saw a website for a Gateway Electronics. I emailed asking if they had a location in Denver, but never heard back.

    There was another neat store in Aurora called “bits and pieces” which I visited once or twice.

    JB Saunders is still in Boulder, but Boulder is a long way, and to goofy of a city to want to visit anyhow.

    Thanks for the fun trip down memory lane.

    Les

  2. Dabney Crump says:

    Hi Les and Eric,
    Don’t know if you’ll ever see this but yes, that’s my site.
    I’m still pushing electronic crap but no longer through a retail store.
    And I’m still in Denver.

    I don’t recognize either of you from reading the above but I hope
    your experiences with me were mostly good and ALWAYS fair.
    If you’d like to contact me feel free.

  3. Eric says:

    Hi Dabney!

    I didn’t always get the price I wanted, but that’s only because I’m a cheap bastard. I certainly didn’t have any complaints, and I really miss your store.

    Eric

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