how do you organize your parts?

Not sure where to post this thread........so I am putting it in the place I most frequent.

How do you all organize your parts, like resistors and leds etc.

I posted some pictures of how I organize my meager supply of parts for my electronic circuits...

Resistors

LEDs
and a shot of one of my other electronic parts bins....

I have a lot more parts than that:



I find wall-mounted cabinets with drawers to be the best way to organize parts. That picture is from a few years ago. I've since relabeled and reorganized all those drawers. Putting all those cabinets up was a royal pain as the walls are poured concrete.

I love that Dr Who Tardis USB ports....

jtr1962 said:

I find wall-mounted cabinets with drawers to be the best way to organize parts. That picture is from a few years ago. I've since relabeled and reorganized all those drawers. Putting all those cabinets up was a royal pain as the walls are poured concrete.

Click to expand...

I wish I had room for that... the walls in my shop are already taken up with cabinets and shelves I put up to store all my other crap! LOL

Just a thought but how come you didn't just bolt a sheet or two of 3/4 inch plywood to the concrete wall then hang those cabinets to the plywood?

wikes82 said:

I love that Dr Who Tardis USB ports....

Click to expand...

LOL thanks I like it, it lights up and plays the Tardis noise every you plug something into it.

jason 77 said:

Just a thought but how come you didn't just bolt a sheet or two of 3/4 inch plywood to the concrete wall then hang those cabinets to the plywood?

Click to expand...

Prior to when I ( hopefully ) repaired it, there used to be cracks where water came in. Also, given that the meters and pipes were there I probably would have had to mount several sheets of plywood. And the sheets would have needed much larger anchors to deal with the weight of several cabinets. In the end it probably would have been just as much work. I remember the cabinets were added piecemeal, as I got more parts, so it wasn't like I did all the drilling in one shot. Some of the cabinets are not anchored, just stacked on top of ones that are, so it wasn't as much drilling as it seems. It's just that drilling in poured concrete is a royal pain.

I can actually use one or two more cabinets at this point, but I'm out of wall space!

jtr1962 inspired me to ditch most of my little parts bins and go with more wall mounted ones. I had to wait about a month for harbor frieght to restock their
hanging wall bins, but it was worth it in the end.... \

My stuff is organized by project, which is a nice way of saying my shop looks like a bomb went off.

I think people use storage techniques that are handy and appropriate for their situations.

For a lot of small stuff, I'll use small manila envelopes (about 1.5" x 3"). For my collection of 0805 resistors, I have one small envelope for each value. The group of small envelopes goes into a larger envelope labeled "0805 resistors". Same for the 1206 resistors, my SMD caps, etc.

For semiconductors, especially smaller SMD ones, I keep them in the ESD bag that they come in, and attach that to the cover page of the datasheet. Then I keep these in 3-ring binders organized by type of semiconductor (i.e. diode, zener, TVS, npn BJT, pnp BJT, N mosfet, P mosfet, op-amps, comparators, voltage regulators, etc.).

Big, bulky items end up in an old tackle box or other container. These aren't as well organized. :-(

If I've got parts kitted up for a project, these will end up in a zip-loc bag or storage tub of some kind, along with calculations, notes, datasheets, circuit boards, etc.

The important thing is to have a system that avoids blowing parts all over the lab when you sneeze.

Steve K.

I use a bunch of $10 tackle boxes I bought from Amazon (http://amzn.to/Sg8XP4). Then I label each box with a Letter, and each row/column with a Letter/number pair. I then feed this info into an app....

I used to use an excel sheet to keep track of all my parts and their location. I recently switched over to an iPad app called Chip Tracker (link to app store). Its really nice... even keeps copies of all your parts' data sheets along with location, quantity, and other stuff.

Plano boxes and ziplocks.

I have a set of "fishing" boxes from Walmart. Then I use 2 straps to keep them together as one large container. I separate most of the stuff by the flashlight brand it goes into. Simple, cheap, portable.