Background

The storage area for the materials used at the laser is a disaster. With little organization we end up with an ever increasing amount of material that is being stored on-site. It's HeatSync Labs, not HeatSync storage. This proposal is to build a series of storage shelves with a system to allow for on-going organization and maintenance.

Overview

The storage is divided up into three spaces. The idea is that these spaces act together to maintain storage and organization over the long term by creating a system where materials are automatically cycled through.

This is sized to fit into the current space for the storage and "Bike Repair Station". The station is a single horizontal cabinet with some tools in one drawer. It receives no use but the tools would be stored elsewhere (upstairs?).

Estimated materials

14 sheets of 1/2" plywood
3 sheets of 1/4" plywood
Misc screws/nails/glue
Paint (green, yellow, orange, red)

Estimated cost

Covid has really wreaked havoc on lumber prices. Roughly speaking costs for materials are:

4x8 sheet of 1/2 plywood: ~$50
4x8 sheet of 1/3 plywood: ~$30

This puts us at $800 just in basic materials.

Space 1: Scrap & Equipment

Note: Ok, I did put the colors in the render, but not the back wall, but would be painted.

This section has 5 bays. 1 of the bays is reserved for equipment (primarily the honeycomb screens and cleaning materials). The other 4 bays are for scrap. The bays will be painted with the following color coding:

Green: Newest scrap
Yellow: Scrap 1 cycle old
Orange: Scrap that is 2 cycles old
Red: Scrap that will be trash on the next cycle.

Space 2: Limited member storage

This section has (planned) 8 bays that can be rented by members to hold their materials. The idea is that this is not a profit center, but requires a certain amount of commitment to maintain. Suggestion is that this is a random draw if demand exceeds number of bays, with a monthly cost of $1/month for using the bay. Draw could happen quarterly or bi-annually at a convenient HYH. Failing to pay the dues would put the material in that user bay into the green bay of storage.

Space 3: General storage

This is a four bay system setup identical to space 1, but without the equipment space. The four bays are:

Green: Most recent storage
Yellow: Storage that has been there one cycle
Orange: Storage that has been there two cycles
Red: Storage that has been there three cycles. The next destination for this bay is the Green bay of scrap.

Process

On a periodic basis (not more frequent than weekly) all materials will be cycled through the bays in the following manner:

Anything in the red bay of scrap will be thrown out
All bays (except red of storage) will be moved up one bay
Red of storage gets cycled to green of scrap

Discussion

This system allows for members to store material on-site in designated bays for up to a month (1 week x 4) if they don't have a member storage bin. From there, it has an additional month of life as scrap available for general use before it would be thrown out.

Design

This is a preliminary design for the storage.

Considerations

The bottom section should be at least 155cm tall to allow for the common sheets to be stacked without requiring that they be angled, to allow for maximum storage
The overall height should fit within the space currently between the floor and the top overhang (roughly 192 cm)
- The above two constrain the maximum size of the top smaller section
Depth should be enough to allow for materials to not fall out. This specific depth was chosen to allow for two side panels out of a single 4x8 sheet of plywood
Maximum width of all 3 bays must be less than 3m to fit into existing space. These designs currently total up to 2.85m

Material

Current thought is 1/2" plywood for the entire portion, except for the back panel which can be 1/4" since it is not structural, but necessary for square

Semi-random Decisions

These are design decisions that seemed reasonable but I don't have strong constraints on except for overall width available in the space. Putting them here for transparency.

Community bins are 20 cm wide
Individual bins are 10 cm wide
There are 8 individual bins

Laser storage proposal

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