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Ask HN: How do you organize your electronic components?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you organize your electronic components?

#21

Post by f1shy »

I started some time ago to do as Matthias Wandel, he just uses Yogurt cups, and other food containers that he uses anyway. Cost is 0, and good for the environment. For very specific things, I buy standard cheap containers. All the expensive things "with system" are just crap.

Used food containers may not be so sexy, but not all has to be a 1Mio. Dollar Youtube boutique.

Re: Ask HN: How do you organize your electronic components?

#23

Post by simne »

simne wrote: post #17

I working in electronics 20 years, and all I see are some sort of cash box for coins. Could be different size, or some non-standard shape, but idea of cash box is in all cases. Very big components packed in transparent plastic bag, each have qr-code and id of component placed in database in some ERP system.

BTW, few things from professional exp:

1. Cheap components (most probably you will use such in 99% cases) are +-5% from claimed parameters (sometimes appear batches with more than +-10% difference). Also, unfortunately, cheap components parameters changed very large with temperature and when high voltage applied (100V is enough). And yes, I all time have ready measurement tool near, and always first check component parameters when something not working.

2. Experienced developers when considering batches, trying to make designs, which tolerate more than 10% difference of parameters, and just buy few reels with near to magnitudes numbers which fit in all circuit. For example, 1KOhm, 5KOhm, 10KOkm, 100KOhm, 500KOhm.

3. Just few times in my whole life, I seen very expensive precision components, like 0.5Ohm 5W for high-end audio. This one resistor costs somewhere about 5$, but it is only one in whole circuit.

Re: Ask HN: How do you organize your electronic components?

#24

Post by jpm_sd »

You don't have to keep everything. Decide which parts are too cheap and easily replaceable to bother with, and throw them out.

Pre made resistor and capacitor kits are a nice way to keep a selection on hand that's pre-organized for you.

Lots of people are suggesting 3D printed bins but I'd recommend something anti-static, for example:

https://www.techni-tool.com/product/429BE9038-554-4ESD?srslt...

Re: Ask HN: How do you organize your electronic components?

#26

Post by readingnews »

I ran a company building electronic devices, so I had a lot of parts (LCR, transformers, chassis, screws, wires, connectors, misc)

    What types of storage do you use?
I used to use those plastic bins that you see a lot of. I sorted by both resistor, and resistance series. So one bin would be bins of metal film, sorted by series with printable cards on the front drawers of each. Another bin would be carbon composition, another wire wound, etc. One bin had kind of misc (diodes, bridges, transistors), another small screws, another large screws, etc.

     Are you subscribed to an organizational philosophy?
The thing that lets me grab the part the fastest. I purchased my bins explicitly so I could get my round nose pliers into them easily and grab a resistor, as I always seemed to have round nose pliers in my right hand, and opened the drawers with my left.

    Do you sort your resistors by resistance?
See above comment. I will note that I had a short list of power resistors, and at first they were just bunched in with the regular resistors, but as they were larger (same with metal film and carbons, they are different sizes) it was slower to have them in one bin.

I will say this, however, after several moves an the economic crashes we went through, it became not my first source of income, and I slowed down a lot, to the point that it is more of a hobby. At this point, I had no room for the bins, and so now I have the following: I purchased a bazillion ziploc bags, perhaps 2"x3" with a white writable area on the outside. I put the resistors in them in the same way as I describe above (e.g. start at 47ohms and move up with metal film, then carbon comp, then power) and I put them standing up in cardboard boxes that allow two of the bags to sit side by side. This has saved a ton of room, although obviously it is slower.

On the "keep finding spare parts between my toes and under pillows", yeah, if you want to get rid of that, you need to have iron-clad will power to find that one you dropped just a moment ago.

Re: Ask HN: How do you organize your electronic components?

#27

Post by buescher »

Pare parts stock down to a minimum. You are going to have to order parts for nontrivial projects anyway. Keep the leftover parts from a project in the labeled Mylar bags they came in, in one of the cardboard shipping boxes. Label the box with the name of the project if you won’t remember what’s in it. Throw them out after a while.

I have a couple of drawer boxes with a resistor assortment and some other parts. I really should consolidate them down to one. Maybe none - I don’t do much (i.e. any) tinkering or through-hole rough prototyping anymore. You need very few actual resistor values in each decade for typical tinkering and straightforward design. I could probably live with 1.0, 1.50, 2.21, 3.31, 4.64, and 6.81; and not even all of those in every decade. Other values, if for example you’re designing a filter or something, order them as needed.

For typical microcontroller and similar digital stuff you will want to have a stock of 10K resistors and 0.1 uF capacitors.

Don’t stock electrolytics if your time has value - they have a shelf life of about ten years Spools of wire I keep in shoebox-sized plastic boxes from Rubbermaid or Sterilite.

Ridiculously cheap Arduino doodads I keep in the compartment boxes they came in.

Harbor freight has a lot of things like plastic drawer boxes and compartment boxes for good prices.

A good label maker is nice to have, or you can print on Avery label sheets.

Re: Ask HN: How do you organize your electronic components?

#30

Post by hagbard_c »

Remember those old-time electronic components shops with a bazillion of small drawers from which they extracted that BC547C you happened to need to repair that garage door opener? I use more or less the same, racks with small drawers where parts of a feather flock together. Some are quite organised - resistors in order of value, one multiplier colour band per drawer - while others are more haphazardly distributed. I have loads of parts which I took from deceased equipment meant to be used to repair other things, some of those parts going back to when I was in high school and scrounged broken television sets from the curb side to repair or raid for parts. I also use a stack of wooden boxes containing tin cans containing larger parts - ESP boards, sensor boards, patch cables etc. All in all this fills a few cubic metres of space, mostly in and around my work area but some of it in the barn. I have a good memory and tend to remember where I put something so I'm not using much of a philosophy when organising things.

I read some reactions in the style of 'toss most of it and buy it when you need it' but those strike me as odd; one of the big advantages of having a comprehensive parts supply is that you can repair most equipment when needed without being dependent on external suppliers. The mere fact that parts are 'cheap' does not make them 'worthless', the cheap transistor in your drawer is worth a lot more than the one in the warehouse when you need it.

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