[sdiy] Organizing Components

[Dave Magnuson]

At 11:02 AM 3/2/04 -0800, greg montalbano wrote:
>
>I've been wrestling with this same issue -
>after 25 years of DIY, I've got on hell of a lot of components -- gave up 
>on the plastic drawer thing early on (too many possible categories;  would 
>have needed about 600 drawers to hold it all).
>What I'm currently doing is using the "plastic bag" approach:  a large 
>plastic bag of (for example) electrolytics, filled with small ziplocs of 
>different values.
>Same thing for resistors, CMOS, opamps, specialized ICs, etc.
>It's not elegant;  but it keeps things in their place, more or less;  and 
>whenever I'm in the middle of a project or repair, I only have to look in 
>one place.
>Better suggestions gratefully accepted...
>

I use a similar method for resistors, but combined with drawers and bins
for other parts.  My resitors are bagged in small zip-locks and sorted by
value in a set of drawers.  Other drawers are dedicated to switches, power
and audio jacks, etc.

I have a divided plastic box with all of my electolitic caps in it, others
with ceramics / polystyrene and mylar.  So 4 boxes of caps.  I also have a
divided box for each style of pot (pcb mount, panel mount), a box for logic
ICs, a box for analog ICs, etc.  Finally I have  box with fasteners, etc.

All told my stuff is mostly stored in a dozen drawers and 16 or 18 divided
plastic boxes.  I can find almost any part in a matter of 10 or 15
seconds....  works well for me.

Also:  for adding a TON of storage space, I screwed lids of glass jars (I
used Mason jars) to the ceiling joists above my bench...  I have all sorts
of stuff hanging up there, too.  There's probably 40 jars up there.  (Of
course you couldn't do this if the ceiling was too high/low, or in a
finished part of the house).  I use them for zip ties, screws/nuts/washers,
heat shrink tubing, parts for my solder iron, etc.  

Dave







Resonant Frequency:
resfreq at hoohahrecords.com
http://www.hoohahrecords.com/resfreq/index.html
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