Organizing Components

Question

Does anyone know of a good way to organize resistors or other components in those bins you hang on the wall?

My system is messy and not very good and I want to improve it so I can quickly find a given resistor value at any time. Any Ideas?

rachaelp · Answer

For standard sizes of SMD resistors and capacitors I buy SMD lab kit books. So I have an 0603 resistor kit, an 0805 resistor kit and a 1206 resistor kit in E24 series values. These kits contain strips of 100 of each value. I have similar kits for various types and sizes of caps, so a book for 0603 C0G/X5R/X7R ceramic caps, a book for the same but 1206, a book for high voltage ceramics, a book for tantalums and low ESR polymer caps etc.... All the values of the common sizes of parts I need are now on hand and can be easily found. When a strip runs low I can just buy another strip of 100 pieces of that component from Digikey to re-stock. Some vendors of other parts do lab kits too. If you look at Wurth electronics they have more types of sample kits than you can shake a stick at, but I don't actually have many of those because I make very good use of their free sample service and get parts shipped directly from them as I need them which saves having lots of stuff hanging around my lab. If you aren't aware of Wurth it's worth (no pun intended) taking a peek at their website ( http://www.we-online.com ) to see what they do. I don't keep a large selection of IC's on hand, I do have some but not a lot. For the ones I have on hand they are in their original anti static packaging, labelled up and filed neatly together in a box. But I tend to order project kits as I need them and then keep the kits together in a project related box otherwise I think I would end up with a vast number of drawers with thousands of pounds worth of IC's sitting in them which seems a bit wasteful when its so quick to get parts delivered these days. Best Regards, Rachael

shabaz · Answer

I don't organize wired resistors at all, I just chuck them all in a large envelope (about 1000 in there on their carrier tapes) and tip it out and manually search when needed. It wastes little time, and saves tons of drawers. The thousand resistors last for ages. You could glue/tape the carrier strip onto card in a book/ring binder as an idea, for a neat solution. I think that would be my preferred approach if I had to do it. For surface mount passives it is a different story. Depending on amount desired to store, there are different options. I use small labelled containers, and then all the containers go in a larger case about the size of a thick paperback book. I do a similar thing for surface mount capacitors. It means I don't need to keep opening drawers, I have all resistors/caps at hand in their container boxes. Another option if you're buying from Farnell in (say) strips of 100 or more, is to keep them in their packaging and place it all in a long plastic container so you can thumb through it (as if their were music records) in order. Note that the printing on the labels can fade, so you may need to re-write it with a pen. For other components I do use component storage bins, but another technique I quite prefer is to just have a large box for discretes, another for ICs, another for opto, etc., and throw them all in there : ) It doesn't take long to retrieve what you want with this method. I also keep a spreadsheet so I roughly know what I have. Otherwise you end up with hundreds of small component trays and the organizing takes forever. This is just a personal approach, others may prefer other methods.

Jan Cumps · Answer

I use a single binder with envelopes. I write component info on the envelopes. Nothing sorted - I spend more time sorting than flipping trough the binder (and you instinctively know where a component sits after a while). Newly ordered project components stay in the cardboard box they arrived in until the project is done. When I still used trough-hole components, I had one little plastic drawer per E-series value. All 22x resistors together. You only have to check one single colour band to find out if it's 2R2, 22R, 220R, 2K2, 22K, etc... and it keeps the number of drawers low.

pettitda · Answer

I suppose it depends on what company you work for. They might not be free for hobbyists. http://www.we-online.de/web/en/electronic_components/produkte_pb/design_kits/form_1001477_laborsortimente_de_en_fr.php Here's a link that implies that they are free for university use: Order Sample Kits | Wurth Electronics Midcom

dougw · Answer

I stock 2 full sets of resistors; 1/4W through-hole and 0805 SMD and buy them 100 at a time to reduce cost. Some values have never been replenished. By a full set I mean 4 decades of the E12 series. Ideally the through hole parts are kept in a 60 drawer parts cabinet (5 columns of 12 drawers). Each column is a decade so the first column is:

10, 12, 15, 18, 22, 27, 33, 39, 47, 56, 68, 82

The second column is ten times higher than the first column.

The third column is ten times the second column etc.

So the first row is 10, 100, 1K, 10K, 100K

The second row is 12, 120, 1.2K, 12K, 120K

etc

This makes it easy to find a value.

For SMD, I buy them on cut tape. I have fabricated a stand from 2 plastic grids mounted a few inches apart.

Each tape value threads through 2 corresponding grid holes and I can slide each in and out easily.

I use the same row-column layout as the through-hole parts.

The grids are re-purposed from chip carrier trays.

For SMD capacitors, I leave them rolled up in the labelled plastic envelope they com in but cut a corner off so the tape can feed out. The envelopes are stored vertically in a plastic box, like a small filing cabinet, roughly in ascending order of value.

When assembling, I can reach any of these components without moving my chair. I kit the rest of the components I need from various parts cabinets into a plastic tray prior to assembly.

Organizing Components

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