Manual re-reeling / SOIC trays for pick&place

[LINACboy]

Hi everyone,

I am about to assemble a prototype series of about a dozen 100x120 mm boards. Unfortunately, the number of ICs was not big enouth to justify purchasing an entire reel and smaller quantities were only available in tubes. However, our in-house pick&place machine does not have tube feeders, only accepts reels or trays.

We are talking about a total of 33 ICs (8 different types, SOIC-8/14/16) per board. I always have the option to manually place them, but I was wondering, if there is something like a manual reeling kit or a company wich sells something like JEDEC matrix trays but for the SOIC form factor. Any hints?

[Scrts]

Calculate your engineering hour costs vs buying those components from Digikey packed in Digi-Reel.

[LINACboy]

Let's assume that I always order re-reeled components for small scale runs, but - thanks to the ingenious ordering system I am forced to use - 9 out of 10 times, items are delivered in the wrong package anyway . Is there some kind of (re-usable) empty reel and tape on the market that allows you to reel looss components by hand? Trays would be an option, too. But I have yet to find a supplier with a version for small ICs like SOIC.