WELL! Time has come to organise my components. I have years and years of tat, from an entire shop full of NOS capacitors in various different drawers, to "consumables" like connectors etc. I've also got a lot of more modern components usually in plastic cases in a drawer. Plus all the other stuff that comes along for a ride, including 3D Printing bits, cable clips, and then there's the huge stash of never ending valves!
Im sick and tired of spending what seems like forever trying to find the correct part so i'm wondering how other people organise their stock? Obviously in an ideal world i'd have each and every single capacitor and voltage, diode, transistor etc in their own drawer, but this isn't practical as I currently don't own a 10 acre warehouse! The same with resistors... Currently I have bags of resistor strips, each bag has about 5 strips in a certain range (eg 1k-100k) etc.
Any pointers would be greatly received!
so i'm wondering how other people organise their stock? Obviously in an ideal world i'd have each and every single capacitor and voltage, diode, transistor etc in their own drawer, but this isn't practical as I currently don't own a 10 acre warehouse! The same with resistors... Currently I have bags of resistor strips, each bag has about 5 strips in a certain range (eg 1k-100k) etc.
I don't have a 10-acre warehouse, but do have a 40ft workshop including dedicated stockroom for larger parts, PCB, Chassis', LOPTS, Triplers etc. All my components are stored in drawers. One island behind the main bench, the other a wall in the upper part of the shop. Caps, resistors, diodes, transistors, ICs, thyristors, regulators etc. I pretty much did like you e.g drawers for resistors 47K-56K etc. ICs TDA20-TDA25xx.
Rather than jabbering, hopefully this will give you some ideas.
@jskinner97
Depending on how many resistors you have, you could bag/drawer them in a range of values, say below 100ohm, 100 ohm-1k, 1k-10k etc and mark the bag accordingly. Same for capacitors, I did this in my storage drawers when in the trade, easy to get the parts.
just chose the ranges to best suit yourself.
Most enlightening, thanks. My biggest bug bear is I have many different component drawers, sizes and makes which don't easily stack together! I notice @crustytv most of yours do. So i'll be looking at facebook marketplace and gumtree for some more drawers, and sell on the other strange sized ones.
Also worth keeping an eye on Lidl specials. They sometimes have component storage boxes. I bought some a few years ago but missed the last batch.
Ditto Aldi's specials, ISTR the last set were £9 each for a 33 drawer (32 small, 1 large at the bottom) set, it also comes with 32 slide-in partitions to further sub-divide the small drawers. The frame is plastic, not the sort of thing that would stand up to heavy commercial abuse in the back of a service van or whatever but just fine for static/domestic use with typical-weight electronic components. Pretty good value, really.
I've found a solution... Metal drawers seem to be £20 each plus. I found The Works of all places sell these... Aside from being wood (who cares) they seem much cheaper, and a good size.