13 Dec
2007
13 Dec
'07
6:12 a.m.
Well, I've made lots of progress on the eternal task
of cleaning, sorting and organizing. I can now see my
entire workbench! I found half a dozen #2 Phillips
screwdrivers I hadn't seen in a while, and while
vacuuming, I probably picked up a couple pounds of
screws, wire insulation bits and solder drops.
So, now I think I need to actually, finally organize
my parts. You see, I started to do this a long time
ago, and I have a lot of those little plastic drawers.
I got about as far as the basic parts, and half way
through the electrolytics. Everything else is
semi-sorted into drawers, albiet with rather vauge
categories "Transistors... Diodes..." or completely
unsorted (Salsa jars, butter tubs, shoe boxes, coffee
cans and Altoids tins). So now, I need to sit down,
for a good long day, and sort parts into drawers.
And herein lies my question - how do you manage a
large parts collection? I mean, the phrase "junkbox"
generally referrs to a somewhat organized system of
finding parts, not just a copier paper box full of
parts. Otherwise, you'll spend two hours just trying
to find that 330 ohm current limiting resistor you
need.
So - how do other electronic hobbyists sort parts? How
far do you organize them? A drawer for each value of
resistor? Drawer for a range of values? What works
well, to minimize the time spend searching for
components? Also, another thing I have been wondering
about - how bad is it to store IC's in those clear
plastic parts drawers? Any problem with static? I've
never noticed any, but then again, so far I've only
got a handfull of basic TTL logic sorted out. The rest
are still in tubes and boxes. What about CMOS chips?
So, I'd be interested to hear what other people have
to say on the subject - and Jay, I hope this is
on-topic enough. I mean, these are all parts used for
repairing and maintaining on-topic hardware, so I
think it counts. All of us that fix this stuff need to
keep track of parts. The next time I need a 1488 to
repair a terminal that won't transmit, I don't want to
spend four hours trying to find it.
-Ian
13 Dec
13 Dec
7:23 a.m.
So - how do other electronic hobbyists sort parts?
How far do you
organize them? A drawer for each value of resistor? Drawer for a
range of values? What works well, to minimize the time spend
searching for components?
To minimize time spent searching, of course, you'd want a drawer for
each value. That makes for a lot of drawers, though; myself, I use a
drawer for each third band colour (ie, the exponent in the
floating-point value encoding).
Caps, too, I sot by order-of-magnitude.
ICs I sort by individual part number, but lack of drawers has made me
double up some parts, so that a given sorting bin will contain more
than one number.
Also, another thing I have been wondering about - how
bad is it to
store IC's in those clear plastic parts drawers? Any problem with
static?
I've not seen any such, but I don't use very many static-sensitive
parts, and the ones I do use I usually leave stuck into anti-static
foam when I pop them in the drawers.
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7:40 a.m.
Mr Ian Primus wrote:
So - how do other electronic hobbyists sort parts?
How
far do you organize them? A drawer for each value of
resistor? Drawer for a range of values? What works
well, to minimize the time spend searching for
components? Also, another thing I have been wondering
about - how bad is it to store IC's in those clear
plastic parts drawers? Any problem with static?
Basic TTL might be OK (I confess most of my TTL and LS TTL is rattling
around in the drawers) but it ought to be in foam, and almost every
other IC is in black anti-static foam in the drawers. I definitely
wouldn't put MOS devices unprotected straight into plastic drawers.
My main component storage is a set of interlocking drawers arranged in a
block about 4 feet wide by 3 high. Some drawers are square-fronted
(about 1.5" sq) and some are double-width. The resistors are in
double-width drawers, with two E12 values per drawer. First row is
10/12 ohm, 15/18 ohm, 22/27, 33/39, 47/56, 68/82. Next is 100/120, etc,
then 1k0/1k2, etc, and so on up to 680k/820k, then the last row is
assorted "1M to 8M2", "10M and over", "less than 10R",
"high wattage",
and things like that. For E24 and closer-tolerance values, I just put
them in the drawer that's got the nearest-matching label. Capacitors I
have squeezed into 1 row, one decade to a drawer, and a couple of bigger
drawers for larger electrolytics. The really big ones are in a box
elsewhere.
There's a row for TTL, LS TTL, and ALS/F TTL; one for CMOS; one for
various types of linear ICs; one for diodes, rectifiers, zeners, LEDS,
PNP trannies, NPN, FETs, power trannies, etc; one row for micros and
their support chips; one for EPROMs and RAMs; and lots of drawers for
other ICs and various types of connectors, switches, crystals, etc. To
give an example of how the ICs are stored, there's a drawer for "LS00 -
LS80" or thereabouts, with the lower end of that range stored in the
front and the upper half in the rear section of the drawer. So there
are 4 or 5 drawers for each logic family. Two places I used to work had
one drawer per type but that's overkill for my collection. Besides,
apart from not having that much space, I couldn't afford the drawers :-)
Bigger stuff like PCBs, potentiometers, large connectors, coils, etc are
in open-top boxes in what used to be a card-index cabinet that has eight
drawers about 8" wide x 8" high and 16" deep.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
11:45 a.m.
On Thursday 13 December 2007 10:40, Pete Turnbull wrote:
Two places I used to work had one drawer per type but
that's overkill for my
collection. Besides, apart from not having that much space, I couldn't
afford the drawers :-)
Yeah, that's the issue one needs to be careful about -- spending more on the
facilities for storing this stuff than the parts actually cost! Easy enough
to do these days...
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
8:16 a.m.
When I was in school, I had to carry all my components around, and being
a good geek, I made sure I had every value of resister, etc "just in
case" The school recommended a tackle box, but I found that to be
unnecessary and rather odd. I just got a plain plastic medium sized
toolbox and a couple craft segmented containers, small plastic storage
containers, and some little baggies. I still keep most of the small
components this way.
I found sorting things like resisters by value into little baggies
works, but instead of every single value, I put them in basic "first two
band" groups. So for example the 1.0, 10, 100, 1000, 10k, 100k etc were
in one bag, and 1.1, 11, 110, 1100, 11k, etc were in another bag etc.
Other misc small misc parts, switches, etc I kept in the craft storage
boxes. For ICs I used anti-static foam and stuck them in order on there
and put those into the tool box as well.
I have little drawer storage as well, but for things like keycaps, RJ
connectors, coax etc.
Mr Ian Primus wrote:
Well, I've made lots of progress on the eternal
task
of cleaning, sorting and organizing. I can now see my
entire workbench! I found half a dozen #2 Phillips
screwdrivers I hadn't seen in a while, and while
vacuuming, I probably picked up a couple pounds of
screws, wire insulation bits and solder drops.
So, now I think I need to actually, finally organize
my parts. You see, I started to do this a long time
ago, and I have a lot of those little plastic drawers.
I got about as far as the basic parts, and half way
through the electrolytics. Everything else is
semi-sorted into drawers, albiet with rather vauge
categories "Transistors... Diodes..." or completely
unsorted (Salsa jars, butter tubs, shoe boxes, coffee
cans and Altoids tins). So now, I need to sit down,
for a good long day, and sort parts into drawers.
And herein lies my question - how do you manage a
large parts collection? I mean, the phrase "junkbox"
generally referrs to a somewhat organized system of
finding parts, not just a copier paper box full of
parts. Otherwise, you'll spend two hours just trying
to find that 330 ohm current limiting resistor you
need.
So - how do other electronic hobbyists sort parts? How
far do you organize them? A drawer for each value of
resistor? Drawer for a range of values? What works
well, to minimize the time spend searching for
components? Also, another thing I have been wondering
about - how bad is it to store IC's in those clear
plastic parts drawers? Any problem with static? I've
never noticed any, but then again, so far I've only
got a handfull of basic TTL logic sorted out. The rest
are still in tubes and boxes. What about CMOS chips?
So, I'd be interested to hear what other people have
to say on the subject - and Jay, I hope this is
on-topic enough. I mean, these are all parts used for
repairing and maintaining on-topic hardware, so I
think it counts. All of us that fix this stuff need to
keep track of parts. The next time I need a 1488 to
repair a terminal that won't transmit, I don't want to
spend four hours trying to find it.
-Ian
10:33 a.m.
On Thu, 13 Dec 2007 06:12:19 -0800 (PST), Mr Ian Primus wrote:
Well, I've made lots of progress on the eternal
task
of cleaning, sorting and organizing. I can now see my
I picked up a bunch of very small ziplock parts bags at hamvention, I expect you can find
them elsewhere. A sharpie note on the bag
saves me the time of looking for my glasses or a reading glass to locate things in a bin.
Resistors are lumped together by third band and wattage and caps are stored by value range
and sizes.
A bit larger bag is a good way to keep a postit or a reduced data sheet with unusual
items.
Again a sharpie note easily read without reading glasses, even if not needed now, will be
appreciated in the distant future.
If static is a concern then use static bags or anti-static foam.
If you label well, it does not mater if you use parts bins or shoe boxes as long as there
is an overall logic to the storage.
Some questions and related thoughts you need to conceder:
Are you sorting your collection for the future as a hobby ?
Parts or collectables, Once sorted how often do you expect to access them?
Parts or collectables, Collectables are displayed, parts are stored, most collectors have
both.
Are you sorting your parts to improve productivity of your current activities ?
In fact, I tend to use a binary search pile method with ageing piles getting moved to
boxes to be sorted someday as access to a given
pile drops from day to day, to just occasional, or more like never. These boxes are
identified by the topic of the origional pile or simply
by the chronologic age of the pile when it was moved to the box or bin. A move every few
years helps promote this process.
Do as I say and not as I do :-)
The other Bob
11:41 a.m.
On Thursday 13 December 2007 09:12, Mr Ian Primus wrote:
Well, I've made lots of progress on the eternal
task of cleaning, sorting
and organizing. I can now see my entire workbench! I found half a dozen #2
Phillips screwdrivers I hadn't seen in a while, and while vacuuming, I
probably picked up a couple pounds of screws, wire insulation bits and
solder drops.
I use that #2 Philips too much to let it get lost. :-)
So, now I think I need to actually, finally organize
my parts. You see, I
started to do this a long time ago, and I have a lot of those little plastic
drawers.
I have some of those that I was given a while back too, and tend not to
use 'em all that much. The biggest problem with those is inserting stuff
into the middle, if you add parts later on...
I got about as far as the basic parts, and half way
through the
electrolytics.
Electrolytics can cover an awfully large range of sizes, some of what I have
being so small I can barely handle them and others are the size of soup cans.
I don't tend to try and store them all in the same context.
Everything else is semi-sorted into drawers, albiet
with rather vauge
categories "Transistors... Diodes..." or completely unsorted (Salsa jars,
butter tubs, shoe boxes, coffee cans and Altoids tins). So now, I need to
sit down, for a good long day, and sort parts into drawers.
And herein lies my question - how do you manage a large parts collection? I
mean, the phrase "junkbox" generally referrs to a somewhat organized system
of finding parts, not just a copier paper box full of parts. Otherwise,
you'll spend two hours just trying to find that 330 ohm current limiting
resistor you need.
Way back when, in my case, it surely did refer to a large unorganized
container such as you refer to here. And yes, I did spend way too much time
looking for stuff sometimes.
So - how do other electronic hobbyists sort parts? How
far do you organize
them? A drawer for each value of resistor? Drawer for a range of values?
What works well, to minimize the time spend searching for components?
I've used drawers at one point, and still have some hardware in some of them.
I also went for a while with various small boxes. One place sold "white
boxes" that were the size you'd need for vacuum tubes, and buying 1000 of
those at a time came in handy, though finding appropriate ways to store
those was a little difficult. Right now I have a whole bunch of those in a
couple of punch card cabinets. I'm probably going to phase those out,
though.
What I'm doing now is putting parts in small zip lock bags. I got a hold of a
box of 1000 of these 3x5 bags that also had a punched hole in the top of
them, making it convenient to bunch them on large rings (or a bit of wire or
whatever), so quarter watt resistors on one, transistors on another, etc.
I give a part its own bag when I have enough of them. The problem now is
that I need to find a source for some more of those as I don't know where
these came from.
Also, another thing I have been wondering about - how
bad is it to store
IC's in those clear plastic parts drawers? Any problem with static? I've
never noticed any, but then again, so far I've only got a handfull of basic
TTL logic sorted out. The rest are still in tubes and boxes. What about CMOS
chips?
Chips that I have a lot of stay in the tubes I got 'em in, mostly. Some
salvaged CMOS parts live in a can. I have a lot of cans here but they're not
terribly space-efficient.
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
6000
days inactive
6000
days old
6 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
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caveguy＠sbcglobal.net -
ian_primus＠yahoo.com -
mikelee＠tdh.com -
mouse＠Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA -
pete＠dunnington.plus.com -
rtellason＠verizon.net