OK this may not seem a big deal but anyone who has accumulated hundreds of ICs etc. will know the problem...
Most of my work is development, so over the years I've accumulated a huge stock of odd parts bought during prototyping.
Jellybean stuff like SM resistors and caps are generally in long enough tapes that a binder solution works well
Farnell sell
spare binder pages for their resistor kits which are ideal. In the past I've also used film negative and baseball card binders. However these are only good for 8mm wide tape, and only lengths long enough not to get lost down the long cavities.
For through-hole parts with relatively few values, e.g. capacitors, electrolytics, common transistors, trimmers etc., Raaco and similar assorter boxes work well, but compartment boxes don't work well with SMD tapes
That leaves all the ICs and other more random parts which are a collection of SM and DIP, in tapes, tubes, sample boxes, bags and loose, in typical qtys from 1 to 20 per type.
Over the years, I've distilled the storage criteria down as follows :
1) You want to store them by type/function per box (e.g. RS232 drivers, voltage regulators, 74HC CMOS, opamps etc.), not by individual parts numbers as there are too many different types.
2) The container must be reasonably long in at least one dimension to accommodate tapes and cut-down tubes
3) The container must be reasonably shallow so you can stack lots of them in a reasonable space, and can easily see parts at the bottom
4) Need to be able to quickly find parts within a container
5) Need to be able to just chuck parts into the right box when clearing up after a project but be able to find them easily later
6) Cheap - I need at least 40-50 of them to cover the range of parts I want to store.
7) Need to be continuously available, so you can expand as required. or cheap enough to buy plenty of spare.
2 precludes almost every type of cheap very small plastic box - e.g. jewelery display/sample boxes etc.
4 and 5 preclude boxes full of poly bags - too fiddly & just ends up as a mess.
6 Precludes most of the stuff specifically targetted at the electronics industry
So just a basic undivided wide, shallow plastic box with a lid of some sort, into which I can put a sheet of conductive foam to hold DIPs. Once you've lined the bottom with conductive foam, the box itself doesn't need to be anything exotic like antistatic. Clear is nice, but not essential.
Not hard to find you'd think... actually surprisingly so!
I have a few
of these , which are nice and rugged but too expensive.
Many years ago I picked up a load of large ball-hinge clear polystyrene boxes (190x120x30mm) on ebay,
but have been unable to find them available anywhere since at this size, in anything less than pallet quantities. These are pretty good, but the hinges tend to break when they get stuffed too full, and aren't quite long enough to deal with lively SM tapes that want to spring out.
So during my last old-project tidy-up purge, my existing boxes were overflowing to a ridiculous degree so I had another concerted look, and eventually found
these on ebay UK.
The size is pretty much ideal - long to accommodate tapes, but other dimensions good for dense stacking
Just ordered another 50 & I'm happy now
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