During the past 30 years, I have used like 100 different ways to store parts. From plastic drawers, plastic carrying cases, small bags, ikea boxes, etc. The thing got out of hand as the collection grew. Most of the time the parts remained in their shipping bags, were difficult to find, and more than once I ended up ordering more.
So what works for me after all those years?
The one thing that seemed to work nicely were the small carton boxes that Vishay / Dale use for their resistors.
They are nice, easy to write to, and the size seems perfect from small to moderate quantities. So after all those years, I decided to open up kicad and draw some templates. Here is what I ended up with
The boxes come in 3 sizes: 100x40x40 mm, 100x20x40 mm, 100x10x40 mm
The templates come as pdf that should be printed on some heavier A4 paper at 100%. They follow the traditional paper craft rules. You cut on straight lines, and you lightly score the dotted ones. And you can use some tape or glue to keep them together.
I have already move some of my collection into these, and I have to say they save so much space in comparison to plain plastic bags. They also fit nicely to samla boxes by ikea, making things super easy to keep out of the way, but also to search through.
I hope you will find these useful
So what works for me after all those years?
The one thing that seemed to work nicely were the small carton boxes that Vishay / Dale use for their resistors.
They are nice, easy to write to, and the size seems perfect from small to moderate quantities. So after all those years, I decided to open up kicad and draw some templates. Here is what I ended up with
The boxes come in 3 sizes: 100x40x40 mm, 100x20x40 mm, 100x10x40 mm
The templates come as pdf that should be printed on some heavier A4 paper at 100%. They follow the traditional paper craft rules. You cut on straight lines, and you lightly score the dotted ones. And you can use some tape or glue to keep them together.
I have already move some of my collection into these, and I have to say they save so much space in comparison to plain plastic bags. They also fit nicely to samla boxes by ikea, making things super easy to keep out of the way, but also to search through.
I hope you will find these useful
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Looks like these can be stacked at random between vertical partitions, as only the height differs.
Or placed on horizontal shelves, if turned on their sides.
Or placed on horizontal shelves, if turned on their sides.
If you were really ambitious, you could make pigeonholes for each box, allowing easier replacement of the box back to its particular hole.
When I use the plastic drawers, I end up dividing them in half which allows more values to be placed in the drawer. Works better than I expected all of these years, but I could always use a few more.
When I use the plastic drawers, I end up dividing them in half which allows more values to be placed in the drawer. Works better than I expected all of these years, but I could always use a few more.
Yeah this makes sense, but it's more suitable for a dedicated lab environment. In a home setup you really need to be able to hide everything. These days I am using shallow samla boxes from IKEA. I fit the paper boxes vertically to see the label. And when I don't need them they live in their shelves or below a bed, out of the way.
Yep sharing space definitely makes things easier and saves lots of space. But you don't even need to divide them. My initial instinct was to group similar things together. But after all, it's easier to work with items that look quite different. for example if you put 50pF caps along with 100pF ones, they would probably look very similar, and you would have to measure to be sure. But if you group 50pF caps with 10uF ones, you don't even have to wonder. You just trust the box label and the part's shape.