On 26/02/11 21:40, Nathan House wrote:
> How do you all store your SMT components?
* Small stuff:
In zip-seal bags (sized to suit the component), which are then
labelled with a permanent marker (Staedtler Lumocolor black) and
stored in various types of storage box. Mainly Maplin SF05 boxes,
Raaco A32 Assorters and Raaco A45 and A46 Moveable Divider boxes.
* Fairly large stuff and ICs:
Clear plastic tray-style boxes lined with antistatic foam
* Really big stuff
Poundstretcher 40-litre "under-bed" storage boxes.
I've got a few Dealextreme SMT boxes (actually I think they were sold for storing beads...) but found them a bit troublesome to use... It's easier to get single parts out of tape-and-reel tapes IME. When I used the DX boxes, I usually ended up with several parts stuck to the tweezers (or the part *ping*-ed off into the dark recesses of Das Lab).
On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 4:40 PM, Nathan House <.....nathanpiclistKILLspam@spam@gmail.com> wrote:
> How do you all store your SMT components?
>
> Has anyone used something like this?:
> cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290506600286
>
15 years ago I tried something similar to that. Until I dropped a bunch of 10 ohm 0603 resistors that went into several of the open compartments. Do you feel like throwing the dice? Where will those 10 ohm parts end up? What board will seem to work and then fail or simply give you a hour of troubleshooting trying to guess why it doesn't work.
Now, I either keep passives on tape/reel or on cut tape in marked plastic bags. Works fine
Ah, yes, haven't done that but for sure wouldn't risk it. What I envision as the ideal SMT storage is a way to hold either strips of cut tape flat (say 8" strips) or small coils of tape. A colleague uses a binder (originally for floppy disks) that has 4? 6? plastic compartments per "page", this works but seems a little too easy for strips to fall out, but I think it works for him.
For now, I have cut tape strips marked with the value on the back in long skinny ziploc like bags, and the bags labeled with the values in it, i.e. 15 resistor values, or whatever. So finding a 1300 ohm resistor means finding the ziploc with that value written on it, then digging thru the strips to find that value. Goes pretty fast, but there is always room for improvement.
Also need to find a storage solution for my growing collection of 7" reels of resistors and caps.
> On 2/26/2011 1:40 PM, Nathan House wrote:
>> How do you all store your SMT components?
>>
>> Has anyone used something like this?:
>> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290506600286
>
>
> 15 years ago I tried something similar to that. Until I dropped a bunch
> of 10 ohm 0603 resistors that went into several of the open
> compartments. Do you feel like throwing the dice? Where will those 10
> ohm parts end up? What board will seem to work and then fail or simply
> give you a hour of troubleshooting trying to guess why it doesn't work.
>
> Now, I either keep passives on tape/reel or on cut tape in marked
It looks like the storage box in the eBay listing does not hold the parts
on tape, but after they've been removed from tape. I'd like to remove them
at the last possible moment. It's too easy to lose them otherwise.
I have my "secret stash" of prototype parts in one of my desk drawers. It
has a section that I believe is designed for some sort of file cards. I
put parts (typically short pieces of tape) in envelopes and put the
envelopes in this file area where the envelopes sit vertically. I put them
in alphanumeric order and can thumb through them pretty easily. The
envelopes are the ones my pay stub is delivered in, so there's a slow
steady supply.
One clever idea that I haven't tried is to use 3 ring binder inserts that
are designed to hold strips of 35mm film.
>It looks like the storage box in the eBay listing does not hold the parts
>on tape, but after they've been removed from tape. I'd like to remove them
>at the last possible moment. It's too easy to lose them otherwise.
>
>One clever idea that I haven't tried is to use 3 ring binder inserts that
>are designed to hold strips of 35mm film.
These are OK, but there aren't many slots per sheet, and the width means tapes can be pretty loose
and fall out easily. Baseball card binder sheets are also a possibility.
However Farnell sell the binder sheets used for SMD kits : uk.farnell.com/multicomp/mcinsert-chipkit/file-insert-component-storage-pk5/dp/5412067?Ntt=5412067
These are ideal for reasonable lengths of tape.
I spent a long time looking for the ideal storage solution for SMD parts and TH ICs. 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 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 recently found these, which are very close to perfecty filling the above criteria -
cgi.ebay.co.uk/25-x-PEEL-OFF-BOXES-STORAGE-STICKERS-CRAFT-CONTAINERS-/190502918204?pt=UK_Crafts_StickersScraps_Decoupage_SM&hash=item2c5adbd83c
Jesse Lackey wrote:
> What I envision as the ideal SMT storage is a way to hold
> either strips of cut tape flat (say 8" strips) or small
> coils of tape.
That, plus the inevitable individual parts, plus other small parts that
don't come on tape. I like small parts cabinets for this, like Akro Mils
10164. Small strips of tape fit flat. Larger strips can be coiled. The
same storage system works for parts of reasonable size and bulk, like
connectors.
Mike Harrison wrote:
> 2) The container must be reasonably long in at
> least one dimension to accommodate tapes and cut-down tubes
Long strips of tape can be easily coiled or cut into multiple smaller
strips. If you have whole reels, then store those separately in "backup"
storage and cut off a strip or two to put in your quick access storage.
> 6) Cheap - I need at least 40-50 of them to cover the range of parts
> I want to store.
LOL, all this fuss over only 40-50 parts!? I had more than that in high
school. In that case one 64-drawer small parts cabinet for something like
$30 is all you need.
>Mike Harrison wrote:
>> 2) The container must be reasonably long in at
>> least one dimension to accommodate tapes and cut-down tubes
>
>Long strips of tape can be easily coiled or cut into multiple smaller
>strips. If you have whole reels, then store those separately in "backup"
>storage and cut off a strip or two to put in your quick access storage.
I'm talking primarily development quantites, not production, so anything between single to low
hundreds, in a random assortment of tape, bag and tube, and way too many to dedicate a single
drawer/box to each.
Lengths of tape in the 50-100 parts sort of range, as typical for development quantites don't coil
well, especially paper ones, and need something to keep it coiled to avoid the jack-in-a-box effect
when the container is opened. You don't want to cut tapes unnecessarily as it means you end up with
more bits to search through, and you have to label them all. You might also want to use a strip in a
passive or short-tape feeder for pick & place - even manually placing moderate quantites is
significantly quicker from a single strip & vacuum pen.
>> 6) Cheap - I need at least 40-50 of them to cover the range of parts
>> I want to store.
>
>LOL, all this fuss over only 40-50 parts!? I had more than that in high
>school. In that case one 64-drawer small parts cabinet for something like
>$30 is all you need.
No - 40-50 categories of parts -
electricstuff.co.uk/forumfiles/P1030143.jpg
Could easily be many hundreds of parts in each box and dozens of different types. The point is the box is big but shallow so you can easily find what you're looking for amongst a
fair number of parts in random quantites and packaging.
The first happens to be the generic 100 Ohm resistor drawer. If I end up
with substantial quantities of a particular package then I'll give it its
own drawer. The second is one particular model of chip inductor that we
must have bought a few 100 of once. In cases like that I try to keep
information on the exact part model to make re-ordering easy. You can see a
small piece of the Mouser label in the bottom of the drawer for that reason..
The front of the drawer has a label on it that you can't see in that
picture, but it says:
950nH, bead, 0805
200mA 600mOhm
although the "Ohm" is replaced with the omega symbol, which is not so easy
to to in this email message.
I'm still trying to think of a decent part numbering scheme... I've written off the idea of using supplier part numbers (too many conflicts), and the prevailing plan for V2 is some bastardised variant of Dewey-Decimal. That is to say, a 6- or 7-digit code, where the first digit indicates the main category, then each successive digit refines the selection until you get to something like:
6120040-472
I looked around for a convenient storage, but most obvious means didn't
result very practical.
In my wife's pharmacy I detected some small plastic 'bottles' (about 8
mm wide, 25 mm high). They're very cheap, so I ordered a load of them,
and made a plywood box with scraps from another project.
As I do mostly prototype quantity work, this system results quite
useful:
I have and use the earlier version of that box: the bottom portion contains the compartments (128, I think) and the lid contains foam to ensure that the compartment lids remain closed. I'm pretty sure that they came from the same company (or one of the other eBay user-names that they run).
They work well. Even having 100 pcs of 0805 or 0603 components in one compartment looks as if the compartment is mostly empty.
My containers have undergone the usual mishaps - dropped onto the floor - and all compartment lids remained closed.
The first such containers that I purchased contain 1% resistors in 0805 and 0603 to the closest E24 value. I subsequently ordered another 4 empty containers for my own collections.
On 2/27/2011 10:42 AM, Olin Lathrop wrote:
> <snip>
> No, you only search thru and label the drawers.
>
> For example, take a look at
>
> http://www.embedinc.com/temp/a3.jpg
> http://www.embedinc.com/temp/b3.jpg
>
> <snip>
> ********************************************************************
> Embed Inc, Littleton Massachusetts, http://www.embedinc.com/products
> (978) 742-9014. Gold level PIC consultants since 2000.
>
What's your setup for taking pictures?
Nice white background and fairly even illumination.
I typically only de-reel smt components when I'm about to build
several prototypes. Once I do, I usually use cheap bead containers
for the non static sensitive stuff:
The stackable screw-on containers aren't really suitable for the 0402
parts I'm storing in them. If turned upside down or shaken, there's
room between the lid and container for the parts to slip into. Great
for quick builds with only a handful of different parts though.
Through hole components can go into cheap adjustable divider cases,
which allows a lot more storage room per sqft of wall/shelf space than
the typical cabinet of tiny drawers:
Small coils of SMT components on tape fit in the same containers.
Large reels are stored as reels in boxes elsewhere.
These boxes appear to be available for $1-$2 in big box (lowes, home
depot, etc) hardware stores. Left in tape there's no particular need
to worry about static protection, just make sure you don't open the
tape until you've got it completely out of the box and on a static
protective work surface. Still, I wouldn't let parts stored this way
go into production units.
-Adam
On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 4:40 PM, Nathan House <nathanpiclistspam_OUTgmail.com> wrote:
> How do you all store your SMT components?
>
> Has anyone used something like this?:
> cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290506600286
>
I haven't seen this particular method mentioned- I've been storing my SMT
components in Flexatop FT-4 containers. You used to be able to buy them
at the container store- I now have to buy them in bulk, normally from US
Plastics <http://www.usplastics.com/> I'll make a label with one of those
portable label makers, put that on the top. Since I typically buy from
Digi-key, I'll trim their sticker and put it on the side so I know the
original part numbers.
US Plastics also has some ESD safe plastic containers, but they are in a
different form factor.
The FT-4 containers are small enough that I can get a bunch into a hobby
storage case. Since I'm handling these parts with tweezers anyway, I can
reach in and grab them- if the container tips on my bench (as long as it
doesn't turn completely over) the parts don't scatter, even when you have
a couple hundred 0603 components in there.
I typically use a funnel to de-reel the (non ESD sensitive) components
directly into the container.
Matt Bennett
Just outside of Austin, TX
30.510843,-97.919286
The views I express are my own, not that of my employer, a large
multinational corporation that you are familiar with
At 08:37 AM 3/1/2011, M. Adam Davis wrote:
>I typically only de-reel smt components when I'm about to build
>several prototypes. Once I do, I usually use cheap bead containers
>for the non static sensitive stuff:
>
>http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/ll164/stienman/44265861.jpg
The boxes of 20- 33mm work well (item "B" in the picture). I use label tape to mark both the clear glass lid as well as the inside of the aluminum container with the part value.
But they serve a different purpose from the storage container that the OP first talked about. The storage containers with the individual lids work well for holding a unified assortment of components, whether they be resistors or capacitors. I'm typically pulling only one or two components out of that assortment at any given time. In other words, they are for prototyping or repair.
The little aluminum containers are for small assembly runs. I de-reel somewhat more components that I actually need and put all those parts into the little aluminum containers. The aluminum case that holds the individual containers serves to keep them together and less susceptible to tipping or spilling.
FWIW - I bake all of the larger-value ceramic capacitors (larger than 1n0) while sitting in those containers so that the capacitors don't get killed from soldering. It takes far less baking time when the capacitors aren't sealed inside the tape on the reel. I bake at 80C for an hour or so. Obviously, the glass lid is removed while baking.
Dwayne,
Why do you bake the ceramic caps? And after baking, what's the max time you
let them sit unused before you feel the need to bake them again?
Thanks,
Carey Fisher
>
>
> FWIW - I bake all of the larger-value ceramic capacitors (larger than
> 1n0) while sitting in those containers so that the capacitors don't
> get killed from soldering. It takes far less baking time when the
> capacitors aren't sealed inside the tape on the reel. I bake at 80C
> for an hour or so. Obviously, the glass lid is removed while baking.
>
> dwayne
>
> --
> Dwayne Reid <RemoveMEdwaynerTakeThisOuTplanet.eon.net>
> Trinity Electronics Systems Ltd Edmonton, AB, CANADA
> (780) 489-3199 voice (780) 487-6397 fax
> http://www.trinity-electronics.com
> Custom Electronics Design and Manufacturing
>
philpem.me.uk
