Parts Storage

If you're anything like me then you have a junkbox. The junkbox is a source of never ending distraction that can lead you astray from the project at hand. Over the last few years my approach to the junkbox has dramatically changed. To help you avoid some of the time consuming mistakes I made here is how I now do it.

The Now,3,Box,Bin mantra

Sometime in 2016 I realised I was spending too long recovering parts, sorting and finding containers. So I adopted some simple rules, which became the now,3,box,bin mantra, illustrated with the mythical part number abc123:

1. I would only recover abc123 if it was needed now
2. If I had more than one abc123, either on one board or on several boards, then all those abc123's would be recovered only if there was a reasonable chance I would need them in the next 3 months and the remainder put into a container. 
3. Every time I picked up a board I actually identified what I might recover for later use and put this into a spreadsheet. As each box filled up the sheet would be printed off, stuck on the lid and the box put away.
4. If I really had no foreseeable use for any of the parts on the pcb, put the pcb in a bigger box known as the bin. Before going to the verge I would try to give away as much of this as I could. I found that anything I considered rubbish was a view shared by everyone else. But I let each bin box sit there for 6 months before it went to the verge.

 I use this mantra for all parts, leaded or smd. I still do recover parts as needed and the question remains what to do with the other parts which get recovered at the same time.

Leaded parts

I still put leaded parts into containers, but since I don't use that many I only use broad groupings eg all npn transistors into one container. Sometimes, if the board is a real mixture of semiconductors, everything just goes into a semiconductor container. If I ever need to find a diode, transistor or led I know where to look. Clear containers are invaluable for finding things later on. The same though process applies to capacitors and high wattage resistors. IC's tend to be sorted then and there. 74ACxx into one container, 74HC into another, op amps into another.

Once, when leaded parts was all I used I would group these into AF/GP, Switching and RF. Perhaps the reason I sound so dismissive now about the sorting is that I still have too many transistors in those bins to worry about any further leaded parts I might recover.

The only reason I recover a leaded part nowadays is that I must use a leaded part. Otherwise I leave them on the board, catalogue and box.

Surface mount parts

As I moved into surface mount I started sticking recovered smd parts onto old business cards, grouped by value. Then, as my source of containers grew, the recovered and increasingly "new" proportion of parts went into containers.

 One of the great discoveries of 2016 was these containers on eBay:





10 of these are currently selling for around A$4, or US$3. If you look closely there are 12 compartments in each "wheel". And there are 12 values in the E12 series we commonly use for parts values. You can find these with an eBay search string of "10pcs empty round storage", available worldwide option checked. I use the 6cm versions though I sometimes see them in a larger size which might be useful for my miscellaneous board.

I did keep these in a separate container but I now have glued them onto a few boards. So on a piece of board some 25cm x 25cm I have 7 wheels. That allows me to find any smd resistor from 1 ohm to 8.6 mega ohms just by looking at the board.

The board holding my smd resistors.
Get the orientation the same on all wheels, I overlooked this on the first two wheels.

It also tells me what values I don't have. If I am going to accidentally recover several 1206 resistors of a value I don't have then I know where they will go. And if the compartment is well populated then it's into the bin with them.

The same thing works for 1206 capacitors. Where the capacitors are labelled then I know where they will go if the compartment is empty. I don't bother with unlabelled capacitors unless I'm really stuck for a part value and waiting 4-6 weeks is unpalatable.

On my third board I keep a miscellaneous collection of surface mount parts.

Ic's tend to go into empty metal mint containers now that I found a large container that could house the mint containers standing up.

Catalogue

Definitely worth doing. Since the box is in the workshop and I'm often in the house this is a great way of keeping track of the more exotic parts. Think rf capacitors found on transmitters. I know which values I have and which board they are on. So I can design, for example, a transmitting filter or diplexer, knowing what values I have without walking up to the workshop and rummaging around.

I'm wondering if a photo of each board, or section of the board, pasted into the spreadsheet might be useful too.

Summary

I spend more time on building things now that I have reduced the amount of time I touch boards. Hopefully there is something in this that helps you become a more productive home brewer too! Comments on alternative approaches most welcome.

Regards
Richard VK6TT