How do you search for small SMD parts lost to floor, carpet, or working mess?

[lowimpedance]

then fire-up your ohm meter with the tweezers probe a find one which fit's your needed tolerance it's not uncommon or rare to find a spot-on resistor within a thousand of 1% ones (and you don't even have to find your original 0.01% one).

And yes you can if the temp co and voltage rating is also the same/close enough, (or not critical).

[rob77]

then fire-up your ohm meter with the tweezers probe a find one which fit's your needed tolerance it's not uncommon or rare to find a spot-on resistor within a thousand of 1% ones (and you don't even have to find your original 0.01% one).

And yes you can if the temp co and voltage rating is also the same/close enough, (or not critical).

at hobbyist level it's never critical
if it's not at hobbyist level then the scenario of dropping 0.01% SMD resistor to a BOX of 1000 other SMD resistors is just a fiction who the hell would remove 1000 parts from a reel and store them in a box ? (ok. i'm doing it - removing 10s or 100 of parts and store them in boxes, but i'm a hobbyist )

[lowimpedance]

He did say EE torture not hobbyist torture.
 Also don't tell the guys over at the LTZ1000 thread its not critical !!, of course they would never drop a 0.01% resistor 'period'.
 And true if you had such a resistor YOU would be more careful.

[Phaedrus]

Well, let's make a more unambiguous one. You have a device using 0201 passives and lots of BGAs, all RoHS, and you have to repair it by hand or wait a month for a replacement!

And the schematic was made in Eagle and is notated in Chinese moon runes. 

[rob77]

Well, let's make a more unambiguous one. You have a device using 0201 passives and lots of BGAs, all RoHS, and you have to repair it by hand or wait a month for a replacement!

And the schematic was made in Eagle and is notated in Chinese moon runes. 

relax... take it easy... wait the 1 month for replacement in the meantime practice bga re-balling on the board - probably you'll fix it by re-balling

[VK3DRB]

A good trick is to put your head down at carpet level and scan horizontally. 0201 resistors are very hard to find, especially in 1970's shag pile carpet. Best to work on a smooth floor for electronics.

Usually they bounce to the most unreachable place 80% of the time and will land camouflage side up so you cannot see it 80% of the time. Murphy happens.

An ex-colleague lost two fingers with a drop saw accident at home a few years ago. He could not find one anywhere and was rushed to hospital anyway. The missing finger was never found - the conclusion was the dog had eaten it.

[Rerouter]

i have always wondered in the situation of multiple fingers being cut off, and one goes missing, do you get to pick what order they get reattached,