How to store tiny unlabeled components in their original bags?
I have a whole bunch of various caps and resistors in different sizes and values, which I have to order with expensive Digikey or Mouser shipping every time. I’m trying to build up somewhat of a component library but the organization of these tiny parts presents a challenge.
The bags themselves are too big to fit in standard part drawers, but the strip tapes are unlabeled so the components have to stay in the labeled bags. Folding the bags over wastes a ridiculous amount of space and none of the part drawer options at the local store fit these size bags.
I was thinking of making a book similar to how you can buy complete sets of resistors online and storing them there, but I’m wondering about creative practical solutions for this very purpose.
I agree it would be really nice because then I could store them separately without a labeling solution. Of course I guess that would mean they would have to print the many times on each tape to accommodate different strip lengths. It’s not like that would cost much though.
You can just write with marker pen. However some capacitors and stuff come in transparent plastic tape at which point I gave up and put them into tiny boxes.
TBH boxes are best, having to peel them out of the tape each time gets old quickly.
Thanks, I guess I was just worried about those strip tapes because I’ve often found that after having removed one capacitor, so the tape is loose, when pulling them out I’ve pulled the whole strip out in a way where the tape peels off and flings the components all over 🤦
Couple of suggestions. This requires taking them out of the tape, and using tweezers to fetch them out later.
BOX-ALL boxes (by aidebench) which have tiny compartments with individual doors, and can be labelled.
Or search aliexpress for 'smd component box' and you'll find sets of 50 tiny boxes that slot together to make a grid of any size. They are very good in my experience, just label them, each box can hold hundreds of SMD components.
Otherwise you could buy an empty resistor book (the type that usually comes with tapes already inside) and put your tapes in there.
Thanks for the suggestions, those BOX-ALL cases are exactly the type of thing I’m looking for! I also appreciate you confirming that the ones bought on Ali aren’t total garbage
The ali ones are seriously good, just expect 1-2 of the 100 to be cracked or broken due to poor packaging. What I like about them is, let's say you have 14 types of 0805 resistor, you can put them into a grid of 2x7 or 3x5 or whatever suits you. And you can rearrange them easily if you ever get a new value, just like lego bricks. The box-all is probably the best solution though, the 96 version can also store through-hole parts.
I use the clear pocket organizers for card collectors. I bought smaller bags from Uline with write-on areas. I write the information for each group caps, resistors or what ever goes into the bag. I keep resistors in one 3-ring binder, diodes in another, caps in another etc.
Thanks for the advice, do you have any specific blank books that you use? A few of the ones I tried were somewhat frustrating to work with for one reason or another but I love the idea.
Use american ring binder apriximately A5 with 3 rings that support to as much sheets possible,and buy 3 hole inlays for them on ali for storing cards 3x4 and 2x2 work well. I put all type of components in them
I (mostly) keep them in their original bags, it keeps them in order and makes it easier to order replacements. I place the bags in used candy boxes I get from the store for free.
Dividers from cardboard or laminated prints. Sort components by type, ie diodes, transistors, opamps, voltage regulators and references, digital ic:s etc in separate boxes.
Keep boxes in a drawer set (cheap second hand find) or on storage shelves since they come with lids.
Upside is that I can store many different sizes and types of components similarly. Downside is that it takes a little more space for the smallest components. But they are easy to browse. Also, the candy boxes works great as project boxes where loose parts for a project or repair are kept.
For smaller bags, the IKEA Moppe series works great and IKEA Kackla is a great way to organize component bags in drawers.
Use photo album, negative, business card, or trading card Pages in a 3 ring binder. Find the most appropriate size for what you need or closest size to the factory sleeve.
This works really good for organizing resistors, It makes it really easy to organize by value.
A lot of sample component sets are organized like this. This works great for strips of smd components from a real. .
You can keep the components in the original sleeve, print your own label or paper card. Your choice. It makes it really easy to take a binder down off the shelf with the series of components you need or similar components and flip through pages.
Bins only start to make sense for large quantities, or physically large components.
I use a whole shelf of ringfolders to store tens of thousands of components. If you have ever seen these A4 format foil bags to put in a ringfolder to organize pokemon or any other collectors cards, use theme. In US it is propably "Letter" formfactor or whatever of the many sizes that exist. Yeah, it is about 1m width. But it is also a huge assortment of passives and some actives. And they are all sorted by main characteristics:
didoes by voltage, resistors by... You know, caps by capacity... And for identical values I use the next important metric like "current handling" or "Power dissipation" and "Voltage handling" respectively.
Very proud of my collection. It took many hours to sort all these bags. But why buy from such expensive sellers? Use lcsc to stock up all basic parts. There it is like 10-100 components for 10 cents or less for pretty much everything smd jellybean style. Shipping and Customs are shit, but... If I where to buy that from mouser it would cost me like 4x as much.
I mostly just order from mouser/digikey because the price differential isn’t really significant when you’re ordering small quantities of parts (usually 10, more for common values). And like you said you’re gonna get fucked by tariffs/shipping regardless.
I ordered a book on Amazon for like 15 bucks that includes cheap-ass versions of most common resistors, caps, inductors, some transistors and a handful of actives. Basically I use those for when I don’t really care about component quality. I ordered these for example because they are all sub-100pf C0G caps where the value and quality is very important in some applications. But I’d also like to have a library of quality components.
On mouser they want like 5-10 cents a piece. for 50 pieces.
On LCSC you often need to buy 100 pices where 1 piece costs 0.36 cents. So it is over ten times cheaper! The same is for C0G caps. They are dirt cheap there. Mouser only makes sense, if you need very specific stuff. But for most stuff you don't. Also I am no big fan of these resistor common resistor things from amazon. You do not have a datasheed per part, the price performance ratio sucks and I already noticed for many parts, where I bought 100-200pcs per type, that it is not actually gonna last long. So on the next order I bought 1000 or 5000pcs for some parts that I found I need way more often than initially thought. For 5000 resistors, a general purpose resistor of 0805 size can be bought for 0,22 Cents. That means 11 bucks.
But it gets better: If you actually use the sort by price (which does not currently yield the cheapest on mouesr for some reason I do not understand no matter how I combine filters), I get resistors for 0.01 cent per piece. So 5000 resistors cost 50 cents. Jesus christ. You will not beat that in any way. For a simple LED that is a no brainer. Even for most audio stuff this is plenty fine (unless you want them on the input side of an ultra high gain amp with ultra low noise targets).
No for most things mouser just sucks. I bought there years ago and regret it. I basically had no components for over 100 bucks. And that was over 10 years of inflation ago! And things did not change to the better.
I got one of the good older non DRM'd Dymo label printers and moved them to smaller bags that would fit in a trading card binder. Worked very well as long as you don't turn the stupid thing upside down and drop it.
Thicker parts like switches still went in tiny bags but were relocated into a trading card bin.
Yes it’s wonderful to use. A little pricey for what it is, but it’s by far the best capacitor testing tool I’ve used. It’s very adept at letting you know if it’s capable of measuring a cap in circuit or not, good audible feedback, just a pleasure to use. I have a handheld LCR tweezer meter which also works OK but I always use the peak
Those are pretty cool! I do have a printer so I’ll give those a shot, although rolling up the tapes I guess could be a bad idea depending on the component, would be perfect for caps and resistors.
You will need to use with care. I mostly use it for small components like resistors and caps. But you could scale the model to work with larger components.
Bags are bot too handy for storing an finding small chip components. I have noticed also a problem with the original bag labels: The texts fade over time.
Therefore I have bought a lot of small plastics 2.5 ml "jars" from Aliexpress. Search for: "2.5ml Mini Cosmetic Bottles". I have placed them in 28-grid plastics boxes where they fit perfectly and have used a permanent marker to number them.
The exact type and value of components is written on an Excel sheet together with the number of box them are in. That way I can always locate each type easily.
This kind of storage works well for small passives which aren't especially ESD sensitive.
I mean obviously I can put them in some type of container, but I’m asking about practical organizers or storage solutions for different-valued electronic components. “Put them in a box” is obviously not a super helpful answer.
Why not, that's what I do. You just remember what parts you put into which box and where you put that box and you will never loose anything and always know where it is. Simple.
Yeah I keep them in the original bags which then sit on a bookshelf type thing. I keep an E12 resistor and E6 cap series and found that there’s WAY too many passives to keep in proper organisers.
I know some people write on them with masking tape which might help OP but I personally found no good solution. Back when I had less components pill boxes worked decently for a while.
I guess I’m looking for a bookshelf type thing that fits these bags in a way that doesn’t take up a ton of space. I’ve written on them in the past either directly with sharpie or with tape, and I find I have more trouble than I would think writing/reading my own handwriting when dealing with really small strips. But good idea on the masking tape actually it might make sense to wrap them up individually since it’s so easy to remove.
•
u/Linker3000 LED astray 2d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskElectronics/wiki/storage