suggestions for storing tubes of TO-220 parts

[Simon]

I have a small conundrum, having a few thousand TO-220 parts in tubes of 50 I could do with a storage system that allows me to keep the parts separate. They stack pretty good but need side support. I was thinking a piece of wood for a base and vertical dividers so that can be stacked and keep parts seperate but I'd loose a lost of space in 15-20mm wide dividers if i used wood, I suppose i could use ply wood but sill need a way of attaching them to the base and a top (and back to give rigidity).

I could use metal brackets but if I bolt them through the base that will not make a good base for staking the tubes on. Any ideas for a simple system ? or should i just shove em in boxes rather than keep them in the tubes ?

[SeanB]

Use thin Masonite board and you only lose 2-3mm per slot. Just make it 50mm wide ( deep) and one front and back along with a full sheet for each side and you are done. Use a saw to make a kerf in the base and top to hold the sheets and glue them in.

[G7PSK]

Terry clips.

[Simon]

terry clips ?

[SeanB]

Hang them from the clips and attach the clips to a convenient wall space.

[IanB]

How long are the tubes, and how many tubes are there?

I'm thinking you could make a wall mounted rack system. Start with a back board of plywood and using a jig, drill holes in it at a slight upward angle. Glue dowels into the holes to make a rack on which the tubes can sit. The dowels can probably go in rows of three with enough vertical space between each rack to allow easy access to the tubes. Something like this:

[Psi]

Are they all similar components?

I have my IC tubes sorted into 10 or so categories and put them each in a cardboard box.
That way i only have to look through a few tubes to find what i need.

If i had too many ICs for that i'd probably just tip them out of the tubes and push them into antistatic foam so they could be stored in regular size parts bins.

[Simon]

I'm looking at TO-220 part tubes only at the moment, I only have a few now but they will increase. Currently 500 parts per two types but I want to make a rack system for many more. Eventually I'd have a few thousand parts per part.

[ptricks]

Get some thick copper wire just small enough to fit through the hole in the parts.
Bend one end of the wire into a loop at 90 degrees and put a screw through it to a wall, then just slide the to-220 parts onto the wire using the hole in the parts. Depending on the type of wire you can get lots on one wire and they are easy to remove.

If you are concerned about ESD, ground the copper wire, since most parts have metal tabs, ESD will be nil.

for dip chips I use large pieces of antistatic foam, I remove the parts from the tubes and place like chips on each sheet of foam.

[Simon]

that won't be very compact

[lewis]

Shelf

[Simon]

well this thing this thing will sit on a shelf but tubes of TO-220 parts don't all stay stacked in 20 high piles all by themselves.

[M. András]

ducktape? get a few mm wide plexi sheet or wood cut slots in them with the size of the tubes and just put them in

[Simon]

yes that is a good idea, a front and back and hold them together with a base and top.

I had also come up with some plywood with a thin piece of wood screwed along the top and bottom, the thin piece of wood is the same width as the tubes, now I can just make these up as required and screw them onto a bottom and top, so that each piece of play and this piece of wood make another slot.

[IanB]

well this thing this thing will sit on a shelf but tubes of TO-220 parts don't all stay stacked in 20 high piles all by themselves.

How long are these tubes? I have never seen any, so I don't know if they are 2 ft long, 4 ft, 6 ft? Surely it's trivial to make a few supports out of cut up cardboard boxes to stop them rolling around or collapsing?

[Simon]

They are 55cm long, the thing is that thousands of TO-220 parts makes up quite a bit of weight, I also want an accessible system that can sit on a shelf. Also consider the weight, one tube of 540 weighs 140g, so 1000 parts is 2.8Kg and I'd possibly have a number of different part numbers in 1000 quantities.

[IanB]

I guess if you want to store them end on that is quite a deep shelf, but should be doable if you have space. Are they labelled on the end caps so you can pull a tube out and put it back again?

It seems to me you could still stack them in a pyramid or in vertical slots and you only need side support to stop them rolling sideways off the shelf. For vertical slots the dividers can be very thin, made of wire even--there will be almost no sideways force to restrain, all the weight will be downwards.

[Simon]

yes I will stack them with side supports

[peter.mitchell]

At my old work we just had a massive wall of pigeon holes on one side of the workshop, maybe 10cm x 10cm x 50cm each hole, some had trays with dividers, some were just for tubes and stuff that was big, maybe 300 slots in total, all at waist to just above eye level, about 300~ holes, below and above we had 30 x 30 x 50 slots for equipment.

something like this, but not all the way down to the floor.and much longer, very very useful.

[Simon]

looks good and probably a larger more solid version of what I'm trying to do.

[ciccio]

I've used the cardboard tubes designed for posting drawings.
They are available in round, square and triangular cross section.
This is an example http://www.rajapack.co.uk/envelopes-mailing-bags/postal-tubes.html
Those with square and triangular shape can be stored easily over a shelving, and the arrangement is stable.
It can be made even more stable by glueing the tubes together.

One of my supplier prefers plastic tubes (the  ones used for gutters and downspouts in buildings).

Best regards

[Simon]

hm, an array of square gutter tube pieces might work nicely, will just have to check to see f the width is a fairly close multiple of the tubes width