Eurparts database. (Eurpart6) (see Europa FTP for downloading).
Having raised the subject of a parts database I felt duty bound to make
some small contribution, to see if such a thing has any use, and maybe to
provoke others into producing more grandiose schemes (a full index ?).
Eurpart6 uses data from the Europa parts manuals in my possession, which
are hopefully the same as those in the hands of other builders.
It has five fields covering part number, chapter and page number,
assembly and description.
It was constructed by typing in the part numbers with their page numbers,
then filling in the assembly field by association with the text, and
massaging the whole thing with a program which attached the descriptions.
The version uploaded has been sorted into part number order, which seems
to be the most useful, but it can of course be sorted other ways and
searched with suitable software.
The description field was generated from the rules tables at the front of
the Tail and Wing kit manuals. (These are not actually complete so the
A&S catalogue was used to complete it as far as possible).
The frequent use of nuts (like MS21042-3) and washers (like AN970-3)
made it rather pointless to enter all their instances, and they are not
complete.
It is unfortunate that Europa have not put fig. numbers on all the A3
sheets and where they have, they are frequently duplicated. So a zero in
the chapter and page number columns is to be interpreted as one of the A3
drawing sheets. Which one, can usually be divined from the assembly
column.
Nor is it possible from the manuals to calculate how many of a particular
part are used. This would need someone to accumulate information from the
individual delivery lists, most of mine having been long since discarded.
Although built originally in dbase format, it has been posted as an Excel
3.0 file (.xls) file, this having superior screen display capabilities.
To avoid having your laptop or computer in the workshop and thence
becoming covered in epoxy (like the telephone ?) it is probably best just
to print out your chosen sort(s), as each only occupies five pages. A
text version (Eurpart6.txt) has therefore been posted for those not
having suitable software. It seems that it is rather easy to lose the
columm alignment from the text version with some software. The shareware
LIST program can be recommended to avoid this and is has powerful search
facilities.
Best use seems to be for identifying parts which are lying about
separated from their identification (if they ever had any !). A useful
accessory is to make up a scale, associating all those n/32 lengths with
the appropriate AN suffix.
Graham Clarke No.83 G-EMIN.
with acknowledgement to Ted Gladstone No.15 (who came to the support of
the activity when I began to flag).
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