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Woohoo! I finally found the perfect IC storage boxes....
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mikeselectricstuff:
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 ;D


Zad:
Even with antistatic conductive foam I never quite trust plastic boxes. I tend to keep mine in metal tins, not very pro but easy to remember what is where. The down side is that people now buy me tins of biscuits for Christmas so I have more tins than I know what to do with. The up side is lots of biscuits :D

My favourite is the Farrah's Harrogate Toffee tins!

mikeselectricstuff:
A metal tin is probably more likely to kill a chip than plastic. If you have static on your body when you touch a pin to pick it up, there may well be a low impedance path via another pin through the tin to ground
Never forget the D in ESD. It's the instantaneous high current that can cause damage.
TopherTheME:
I just use those plastic suitcase looking containers that you get when you order chips from Farnell/Newark/Element14. The jackasses always pack a single chip per container so I'm starting to build up a collection.
Zad:
The metal forms a Faraday cage, as soon as you pick it up, the entire container is at the same potential.
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