I saw somewhere a great name for those tiny screws and springs: pingfucks. Named after the sound they make immediately followed by the sound you make
Now try it with a dropped 0201 resistor. Might as well be a speck of dust.
I was able to solder the 0201 LED on this (confirmed connectivity with a multimeter), but I had a little too much pressure on the tweezers with the resistor, and it flicked away into the void.
Depends on the size of the screw.
My bet is Tunnel Effect from Quantum Mechanics since it also shares the properties of the likelihood of it happenning being inverselly correlated with size and just making things cross some kind of high energy barrier without the need for the energy to actually go into it.
Lay a flashlight on the floor.
In the horizontal beam of the flashlight, every mote of dust will cast a long shadow. Something as large as a tiny screw becomes easily visible.
Anytime I’ve tried this I’ve ended up with the rim of the flashlight being larger than the item I’m looking for so I just end up going “wow this is a dirty floor” and turning it off to look with my eyes
If your floor is so dirty that you can’t use the flashlight technique, it’s time to pick up a broom…
Funnily enough it’s always happened in someone else’s space where it’s not my place to tell them to clean up
As Louis Rossmann says, listen for it as it falls. Don’t look for it. You’ll always hear where it lands.
skill issue
What’s up with this title?? Dropping something small and not finding it again is probably as close to a universal experience as possible
skill issue
Only few will understand what’s up with this title…
if it drops anywhere within 20ft of a low platform with as little as an inch gap beneath it, thats where it went. and you have to use a broom stick or similar to reach it
one of my buddies dropped his sauren vape (is that how its spelled?) and it quite literally got grabbed by the nicotine elves and was never seen again. even after moving therefore nothing that could be blocking its sight he still didnt find it
sauren vape (is that how its spelled?)
Sauron, the Dark Lord?
The Saruman Vape
I dropped a fry 2 months ago and I still can’t find the damn thing. People joke about alternate dimensions but I’m starting to think it’s real.
Dropped a fry, as in the potato based food?
That’s the one
My cat keeps playing with a cable tie. I see him playing with it, then 30 seconds later it’s gone and I don’t see it again for about 3 weeks and then suddenly he’s playing with it again.
He appears to be able to extract things from the alternate dimension.
*until it returns at ð exact moment your shoe is about to land on ð spot it vanished from specifically to attempt to assassinate you þrough ð soul of your foot.
Never seen again… Until you step on it barefoot.
I had never seen a comment that is as painful as your comment😢.
spoiler
i don’t even bother looking for those anymore. If i drop something tiny i just assume it slipped through the cracks in reality and will re-emerge at a random point in time, past or future
This is why I always kept my cat around when I was working on stuff. He’d track the dropped screws for me. Of course he’d also occasionally jump onto the table and fuck up whatever I was working on but there’s pros and cons to anything.
- If you have a magnet, use that to find the screw
- If you don’t have a magnet, buy one immediately for the future, and then proceed to step 3
- Look for it with your peripheral vision, which is better at spotting deviations to terrain and shapes than your primary vision. I don’t remember the exact reason, but it has something to do with being able to spot predators out of the corner of our eyes.
- Use a flashlight pointed parallel to the floor. The shadow cast by the screw will look bigger than the screw itself.
That’s a good idea on a flat floor.
Or put pantyhose over the end of a vacuum wand, then vacuum the area you dropped it on. The vacuum will find the screw and the pantyhose will prevent the vacuum from ingesting it.
